Travels in the Netherworld PDF
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Travels in the Netherworld This page intentionally left blank Travels in the Netherworld Buddhist Popular Narratives of Death and the Afterlife in Tibet bryan j. cuevas 1 2008 3 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright#2008by OxfordUniversity Press,Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Cuevas,BryanJ.,1967– Travelsinthenetherworld:Buddhistpopularnarrativesofdeath andtheafterlifeinTibet/BryanJ.Cuevas. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-19-534116-4 1. Death—Religiousaspects—Buddhism. 2. Buddhism—China—Tibet—Customs andpractices. 3. Near–deathexperiences—China—Tibet. I. Title. BQ4487.C84 2008 294.3'423—dc22 2007034720 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper For my parents This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Thisbookhasbeenlonginthemaking.Myfirststepsinthedirection of research and writing began whenI was a postdoctoral fellow at PrincetonUniversity’sCenterfortheStudyofReligion.Iwouldliketo thankthedirector,RobertWuthnow,andtheotherstaffandfellowsof the center, fortheircordiality and generoussupport. In particular, I wish to thankJacqueline Stone and Stephen‘‘Buzzy’’ Teiser for helping tomakethat year at Princeton so glorious and memorable, and fortheirenduring friendship. TheCollege ofArtsandSciences at Florida State University andmy former chairman,John Kelsay, intheDepartmentofReligion,wereverykindtoallowmeayear(and then some)of research leave thatfreed me from teaching and other administrative dutiesso that I could set thegroundwork forthis project. I hope theyagree thatthe time was well spent; Iappreciate their continued support. Along the way, Amanda Morgan and Trent Pomplun read and rereadsuccessive drafts of themanuscript, andprovided countless suggestions forimprovement and clarification; their keeneyes,pa- tient aid, andfriendshiphave beeninvaluable throughtheyears.I wish to thankMatthew Kapstein, Franc¸oise Pommaret,and two anonymous reviewersofan earlierdraft,whose criticism and in- sightful comments substantially improved thequality ofthe book. I am also grateful tothemany colleagueswho readand criticized sec- tionsofthemanuscriptatvariousstages,whocommentedonportions of thework Ipresented at conferences andlectures, who sharedin viii acknowledgments conversationorovere-mailtheirthoughtsandinsightsonthesubject,orwho providedalltypesofinformationandreferencematerials.Amongthem,Iwant especiallytothankRaoulBirnbaum,BenjaminBogin,Jose´Cabezo´n,Yangdon Dhondup, Lawrence Epstein, Phyllis Granoff, Jampel Gyatso (Jiangbian Jia- cuo), Lauran Hartley, Matthew Kapstein, Martin Kavka, Derek Maher, Dan Martin,ReikoOhnuma,Franc¸oisePommaret,AlysonPrude,KurtisSchaeffer, Gregory Schopen, Koichi Shinohara, E. Gene Smith, Jacqueline Stone, Ste- phen Teiser, Tashi Tsering, Leonard van der Kuijp, andMichael Walter. Several students in my advanced Tibetan language courses contributed insights from their own reading and interpretations of the Tibetan texts— Chris Bell, Michelle Bryan, Lindsay McCune, Arnoud Sekre`ve, and Christina Stoltz at Florida State University; and Nancy Lin and Dan Stuart at the Uni- versityofCalifornia, Berkeley. It has been a great joy to learn from them. I am greatly indebted to Cynthia Read, executive editor at Oxford Uni- versity Press, for her continued support of my work. I also extend my appre- ciation to Krishna Mukerji and the staff of Oxford University Press; to Kelly Martin, my copyeditor; and to Mary Mortensen, who prepared the index. For permissiontoincorporateportionsofpreviouslypublishedworkintochapters 1,2,and4,IamgratefultotheKurodaInstituteandtheUniversityofHawai’i Press. With warmest thoughts, I dedicate this book to my parents, Janice and John,forguidingmealongthispathweallmusttravel.Ihavebeenblessedby their wisdom, love, and understanding.
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