Echoes of Enlightenment

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-022527-8
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 308 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 628 g

Echoes of Enlightenment: The Life and Legacy of Sönam Peldren explores the issues of gender and sainthood raised by the discovery of a previously unpublished "liberation story" of the fourteenth-century Tibetan female Buddhist practitioner Sönam Peldren.

Born in 1328, Peldren spent most of her adult life living and traveling as a nomad in eastern Tibet until her death in 1372. Existing scholarship suggests that she was illiterate, lacking religious education, and unconnected to established religious institutions. That, and the fact that as a woman her claims of religious authority would have been constantly questioned, makes Sönam Peldren's overall success in legitimizing her claims of divine identity all the more remarkable. Today the site of her death is recognized as sacred by local residents.

In this study, Suzanne Bessenger draws on the newly discovered biography of the saint, approaching it through several different lenses. Bessenger seeks to understand how the written record of the saint's life is shaped both by the specific hagiographical agendas of its multiple authors and by the dictates of the genres of Tibetan religious literature, including biography and poetry. She considers Peldren's enduring historical legacy as a fascinating piece of Tibetan history that reveals much about the social and textual machinations of saint production. Finally, she identifies Peldren as one of the earliest recorded instances of a historical Tibetan woman successfully using the uniquely Tibetan hermeneutic of deity emanation to achieve religious authority.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bessenger

Bessenger, Suzanne M.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Buddhismus Tibetischer Buddhismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Acknowledgments

- Introduction

- Chapter One: The Life of Sönam Peldren

- Chapter Two: Composing the Life of Sönam Peldren

- Chapter Three: The Religion of Sönam Peldren

- Chapter Four: "Low Birth but High Thought": Depictions of Gender and Female Bodies in the Life of Sönam Peldren

- Chapter Five: The Posthumous Careers of Sönam Peldren

- Conclusion

- Appendix A: Outlines of Two Manuscripts of the Life of Sönam Peldren

- Appendix B: Life Prayer of the Wisdom Dakini Sönam Peldren

- Appendix C: Ya Nga Jamda Ganden Khachö Ling Nunnery and Its Surroundings

- Appendix D: Mapping the Life and Death of Sönam Peldren

- Bibliography

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Suzanne M. Bessenger is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Randolph College. She received her PhD in History of Religions from the University of Virginia, and has lived and traveled extensively in China, India, and Nepal. Her research explores Tibetan Buddhist biographies, cults of saints, and conceptions of gender. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her family.