Bowing with Words: Paper, Ink, and Bodies in Tibetan Buddhist Epistles

This article analyzes the ritual dimensions of Tibetan epistolary style. By examining the material aspects of handwritten Tibetan epistles-paper size and shape, script size and style, text spacing and margins-along with the formal instructions found in Tibetan epistolary manuals, I show how an epist...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kilby, Christina (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2019]
In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2019, Volume: 87, Issue: 1, Pages: 260-281
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Lamaism / Religious literature / Literalness / Handwriting / Scribe
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BL Buddhism
KBM Asia
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Description
Summary:This article analyzes the ritual dimensions of Tibetan epistolary style. By examining the material aspects of handwritten Tibetan epistles-paper size and shape, script size and style, text spacing and margins-along with the formal instructions found in Tibetan epistolary manuals, I show how an epistle's physical constitution renders two bodies performing a symbolic display of hierarchy on the page. This display of hierarchy is most dramatic in the genre of the epistle offered to a superior, in which the body of the writer bows in homage before the body of the recipient. I use this study to contribute to a Tibetan hermeneutic that reads texts as devotional subjects with ritual agency. More broadly, I also argue that bibliographical analysis (focused on a text's physical production and material features) can radically shift an understanding of the genre in which that text participates.
ISSN:1477-4585
Contains:Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfy036