Grains of Gold : Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler / Gendun Chopel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dge-ʼdun-chos-ʼphel, A-mdo, 1903-1951, Author.

Contributor:

Thupten Jinpa.

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., 1952-

Series:

Buddhism and Modernity

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buddhism--China--Tibet Autonomous Region--History.

Buddhism.

Tibet Autonomous Region (China)--History.

Tibet Autonomous Region (China).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (480 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1941, philosopher and poet Gendun Chopel (1903-51) sent a large manuscript by ship, train, and yak across mountains and deserts to his homeland in the northeastern corner of Tibet. He would follow it five years later, returning to his native land after twelve years in India and Sri Lanka. But he did not receive the welcome he imagined: he was arrested by the government of the regent of the young Dalai Lama on trumped-up charges of treason. He emerged from prison three years later a broken man and died soon after. Gendun Chopel was a prolific writer during his short life. Yet he considered that manuscript, which he titled Grains of Gold, to be his life's work, one to delight his compatriots with tales of an ancient Indian and Tibetan past, while alerting them to the wonders and dangers of the strikingly modern land abutting Tibet's southern border, the British colony of India. Now available for the first time in English, Grains of Gold is a unique compendium of South Asian and Tibetan culture that combines travelogue, drawings, history, and ethnography. Gendun Chopel describes the world he discovered in South Asia, from the ruins of the sacred sites of Buddhism to the Sanskrit classics he learned to read in the original. He is also sharply, often humorously critical of the Tibetan love of the fantastic, bursting one myth after another and finding fault with the accounts of earlier Tibetan pilgrims. Exploring a wide range of cultures and religions central to the history of the region, Gendun Chopel is eager to describe all the new knowledge he gathered in his travels to his Buddhist audience in Tibet. At once the account of the experiences of a tragic figure in Tibetan history and the work of an extraordinary scholar, Grains of Gold is an accessible, compelling work animated by a sense of discovery of both a distant past and a strange present.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. First, How I Set Out from Lhasa

2. General Formation of the Land of India and How It Acquired Its Name

3. How the Lands Were Given Th eir Names

4. The Snow Mountains of the North and Analysis of Related Issues

5. What the Famous Places of the Past Are Like

6. On Men, Women, Food, Drink, and Various Apparel

7. Identification of Various Species of Flowers and Trees and How to Recognize Th em

8. Writing Systems of Various Lands of Past and Present

9. On the Linguistic Rules of the Tibetan Language

10. The Inscriptions of the Dharma King Aśoka Carved on the Rock Face of Mount Girnar

11. The Gupta Dynasty

12. The Pāla Dynasty

13. From 1,600 Years aft er the Passing of the Buddha to the Present

14. On the History of Siṅghala

15. On the Conditions and the Customs of the Tibetan People in Ancient Times

16. The Religion of the Tīrthikas

17. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Appendix A: Tibetan Transliteration

Appendix B: Glossary of Terms

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

0-226-09202-X

OCLC:

867928854