Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World

Katia Buffetrille, Ph.D. (1996), Nanterre University, is fellow researcher at the École pratique des Hautes Études. She has published and edited several books and written many articles on Tibet including (with A.M. Blondeau) Authenticating Tibet. Answers to 100 China questions (University of California Press, 2008).

"The whole volume is a cornucopia of careful and original research. These results are highly topical and timely. The difficulty of research on the topics presented in the book is marked by the fact that most of the papers touch upon an unfolding process. (...) The reviewed book thus must be taken as a pioneering event. I am convinced that it will become an essential reference work for future, similarly-oriented studies. In my opinion, the inclusion of the articles dealing with Newar Buddhists in Nepal and with the contemporary state of Buddhism in Mongolia is a valuable enrichment of the book. These studies will inspire discussion within a broader perspective, very relevant for Tibetologists." - Daniel Berounský, in: Mongolo-Tibetica Pragensia ’12: Linguistics, Ethnolinguistics, Religion and Culture, 5/2 (2012)"In summary, this book offers the reader a wealth of new information by scholars who are at the forefront of their respective fields. It is well produced, on good quality paper, is solidly bound, and sits well with the other volumes in this series. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library has firmly established itself as a pacesetter in the field and this volume enhances that status even further." - David Templeman, Monash University, Australia, in: Himalaya, XXXII (2012)"...each of its ten essays serves as an informed call for future research and offers an enriched vocabulary with which to proceed.(...) This volume will prove a valuable ethnographic resource for scholars of anthropology, religion, and modern political and social history in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Mongolia, and China.(...) One of this book's major insights is that while the modern period has been marked by particularly abrupt sociopolitical shifts,the same factors of technological innovation, resource access, political change, and human migration have influenced the life of religious traditions in all eras of history. By illuminating modern moments of ritual change, or perceived ritual change, these scholars offer us a vocabulary with which to discern transformations in ritual structure or function in other eras and contexts. Thus, scholars researching the distant past as well as those who focus on the modern period will benefit from the methodological contributions this volume makes and the questions for future inquiry toward which it beckons." - Christina Kilby, University of Virginia, in: Asian Highlands Perspectives