Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #himalayanhistories

Most recents (3)

🧵Four by @ChawlaSwati

1/ 🚨🚨Who is a #Tibetan?🚨🚨

Relatedly,
❓Where is #Tibet?
❓Are all Tibetans #Buddhist?
❓Do all of them revere @DalaiLama?
❓Are there Tibetans (other than #exiled pop"n) outside Tibet?
❓Do all #Tibetans identify as... erm ..Tibetan?

#TweetHistorians
2/ The 11th Zurmang Trungpa (1939-87) said #Tibetan 'insiders' (ནང་པ་) share these common features:

☑️speaking some variant of Tibetan lang
☑️following #Buddhist faith
☑️eating tsampa (roasted barley flour)

Who was he?
treasuryoflives.org/biographies/vi…

A handy definition, but...

~SC
3/ Let's tackle the big one first: #Tibet has long been identified as a pristine Buddhist #Shangrila.
But,

❌Not Tibetans are Buddhist.

❌Not all Tibetan Buddhists revere the @DalaiLama in the same way.

See #himalayanhistories 🧵on #Shangrila:

~SC
Read 14 tweets
🧵Three by @ChawlaSwati

1/ On Tibetan Buddhist Nuns in Exile:

#OnThisDay @DalaiLama was awarded #NobelPeacePrize, the only #Buddhist religious leader thus honored (#MLK nominated @thichnhathanh in '67).

Many associate #Tibet w/ him+ other monks in red robes--

What about nuns? Celebrations at Majnu Ka Ti...
2/ "Some feminists from the West cud accuse me by saying, ‘The #DalaiLama is the authority but he doesn’t help the nuns.’"

Yes, @DalaiLama has often faced the accusation that the #TibetanBuddhist tradition doesn't give nuns the same rights as monks.

info-buddhism.com/Interview_Dala…

~SC
3/ 🚨🚨🚨 Of the 8 reps of #TibetanBuddhism in the current Parliament in Exile– two each from Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyigma sects– **all** are monks; so are the two members from pre-Buddhist Bon religion.

(Though ~1/3 of MPs from provinces U-Tsang, Dhotoe+ Dhomey are women.)

~SC Image
Read 19 tweets
🧵One by @ChawlaSwati

On the @DalaiLama & India:
1/ Many of us know that the 14th @DalaiLama has been living in #exile in #Himalayan town of #Dharamsala in northern India since 31 Mar 1959.

Why India?
Was he blazing a trail w/ his escape?

#TweetHistorians
Map from @TIME (1959)
2/ Second question first: No, he wasn't.

In coming to India, the @DalaiLama trod the path of many #Tibetans before him-- traders+ aristocrats, monastics+ laity, and his predecessor, the 13th #DalaiLama, Thupten Gyatso, who had lived in exile in British India from 1910-12.

--SC
3/ Aristocratic families in #Tibet were closely tied in networks of monastic patronage, intermarriage +trade w/ eastern #Himalayan kingdoms of #Bhutan+ #Sikkim. The British Political Officer in Sikkim kept close watch on these alliances. Here he is w/ the 13th #DalaiLama👇.

--SC
Read 12 tweets

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