Forging the Golden Urn : The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet / Max Oidtmann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oidtmann, Max, author.

Series:

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rites and ceremonies--China.

Rites and ceremonies.

Buddhism.

China--Law and legislation.

China.

China--History--Qing dynasty, 1644-1912.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 pages).

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In 1995, the People's Republic of China resurrected a Qing-era law mandating that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn. The Chinese Communist Party hoped to limit the ability of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile to independently identify reincarnations. In so doing, they elevated a long-forgotten ceremony into a controversial symbol of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet.In Forging the Golden Urn, Max Oidtmann ventures into the polyglot world of the Qing empire in search of the origins of the golden urn tradition. He seeks to understand the relationship between the Qing state and its most powerful partner in Inner Asia-the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. Why did the Qianlong emperor invent the golden urn lottery in 1792? What ability did the Qing state have to alter Tibetan religious and political traditions? What did this law mean to Qing rulers, their advisors, and Tibetan Buddhists? Working with both the Manchu-language archives of the empire's colonial bureaucracy and the chronicles of Tibetan elites, Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology-a lottery for assigning administrative posts-was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing empire and transformed into a ritual for identifying and authenticating reincarnations. Forging the Golden Urn sheds new light on how the empire's frontier officers grappled with matters of sovereignty, faith, and law and reveals the role that Tibetan elites played in the production of new religious traditions in the context of Qing rule.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Act I. The Royal Regulations

Act II. Shamanic Colonialism

Act III. Amdowas Speaking in Code

Conclusion: Paradoxes of the Urn and the Limits of Empire

Chronology of Key Events

List of Usages of the Golden Urn Ritual

Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents

Translation of the Qianlong Emperor's Discourse on Lamas

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Sep 2018)

ISBN:

9780231545303

0231545304

OCLC:

1054871588