This dissertation examines literary debates initiated by Tibetan writers and critics in the 1980s and 1990s within the context of a rapidly modernizing society. My broader project is to illustrate how intellectuals position themselves in the field of literary production regarding questions of innovation, the function of literature, periodization, linguistic idiom, and the relevance of Indic kāvya theory, which dominated Tibetan belles-lettres for nearly seven hundred years. What discursive strategies do critics use to stake their literary claims? From what conceptual structures do they draw? How do they effect or resist, and ultimately shape literary change? This dissertation presents a cultural history centered on the concept of discursive formations, while also drawing on theoretical insights in sociology and literary criticism. After demonstrating how translation, publishing and educational activities of monastically trained scholars since the 1940s lay groundwork for the advent of a "New Tibetan Literature," I examine the subsequent development of modem Tibetan literary criticism, focusing on topics of sustained debate. While the bulk of my findings are based on a broad survey of Tibetan-medium literary criticism in the PRC, my selection of significant texts for close reading was informed by seventeen months of fieldwork in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces, and the Tibet Autonomous Region. My research illustrates how Tibetan literary and other journals provide a proxy public forum for intellectuals to negotiate Tibetan literature and culture. Key debates in the 1980s, during which kāvya principles continued to prevail, regarded the criteria for defining Tibetan literature, periodization and the emergence of free verse. By the mid- 1990s, however, free verse was commonplace and western literary theory more available A growing number of critics altogether rejected the kāvya model, suggesting instead that Tibet's literary roots lay in pre-Buddhist writings. An alternate response lay in the nascent formation of a modernist literary movement.

Bien que j’envisage de couvrir une variété de pratiques divinatoires, je me concentre surtout dans ma thèse sur un type particulier de divination par les pierres pratiquée par les Bonpos tibétains. Cette forme de divination, parfois traduite par « Manifestation de Connaissance » (lde’u ’phrul), possède une tradition textuelle presque vierge qui, d’après les histoires Bon, remonte au 11ème siècle. En plus de terrains effectués en divers lieux de l’Himachal Pradesh et de l’Uttaranchal Pradesh, ma présentation du lde’u ’phrul est enrichie de la traduction de plusieurs manuscrits sur la lithomancie encore jamais étudiés. Je me concentre notamment sur le sMra seng rdel mo gsal ba’i me long, composé par Kun grol grags pa, un œcuméniste et historien du 18ème siècle. Certains points de ce texte sont comparés à deux commentaires plus tardifs traitant de la lithomancie : (1) le Ma sangs ’phrul gyi rdel mo mngon shes rno gsal gyi sgron me, écrit par Slob dpon mKhas grub Lung rtogs rgya mtsho, premier précepteur du monastère de Yung drung gLing au Tibet Central ; et le (2) sMra seng ’phrul gyi rdel mo mngon shes gsal ba’i sgron po, version datant du 19ème siècle d’un gter ma censé avoir été découvert au 11ème siècle par le « découvreur de trésors » (gter ston) Khro tshang ’brug lha. Lors de l’utilisation de ces matériaux, j’adopte une approche herméneutique large, qui ne restreint pas la critique au manuscrit étudié mais cherche à incorporer les performances contemporaines de lde’u ’phrul, et en particulier la perspective unique du devin sur sa performance. / Though I intend to survey a variety of divination practices, my thesis focuses upon a particular type of pebble divination performed by Tibetan Bonpos. This form of divination, which is known as "Manifestation of Knowledge" (lde'u 'phrul), possesses a nearly unstudied textual tradition that, according to Bon histories, originates in the eleventh century. In addition to fieldwork conducted in various locations in Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal Pradesh, my discussion of lde' u 'phrul is supplemented by the translation of a number of previously unstudied lithomantic manuscripts. Chiefly, I focus upon the sMra seng rdel mo gsal ba'i me long, written by the 18th century ecumenicist and historian Kun grol grags pa. Certain aspects of this work will also be read against two later commentaries on the subject of lithomancy: (1) the Ma sangs 'phrul gyi rdel mo mngon shes rno gsal gyi sgron me, written by Slob dpon mKhas grub Lung rtogs rgya mtsho, the first preceptor of Yung drung gLing Monastery in Central Tibet; and (2) the sMra seng 'phrul gyi rdel mo mngon shes gsal ba'i sgron po, a 19th century witness of an alleged 11th century gter ma discovery attributed to the Bon "treasure revealer" (gter ston) Khro tshang 'brug lha. In using these materials, I adopt a broad view of hermeneutics, which does not restrict criticism to the manuscripts that I study, but also seeks to incorporate the contemporary performance of lDe'u 'phrul and, in particular, the diviner's unique perspective on the performance of divination into my textual critique.

In response to Tibetan social pressures in the 11th century, Atisa initiated a renewal of Buddhist monasticism that resulted in all Buddhist praxis outside of meditation being strictly framed by attitudes and behaviors informed by love and compassion. Atisa's teachings are exemplified in pithy sayings that point to the heart of bodhisattva practice, and this mind training practice developed into a tradition in the period immediately following his passing. The success of the method, and of the emulation of Atisa as exemplar of a perfect bodhisattva, led to the adoption of mind training throughout Tibetan Buddhism. "Tibetan Mind Training: Tradition and Genre" explains the relation between a native Tibetan literary genre and monastic Buddhist practice found in the 14th century compilation Mind Training: The Great Collection (theg pa chen po blo sbyong rgya tsa). The introduction provides context and presents methodology. Chapter one argues that 'blo sbyong' should be translated as 'mind training.' Chapter two has two broad arguments: a rebuttal of a conception of mind training as an essentially psychological preparation for other practices; and an explanation of its praxis as the interaction of mind and real objects. Chapter three explains the relation of mind training praxis and tradition, with reference to Atisa's reforms. Chapter four explains some characteristics of the literary genre of mind training.

This is a two-pronged study of how the Chinese and Tibetan literary traditions have become intertwined in the modern era. Setting out from the contention that the study of minority literatures in China must be fundamentally multilingual in its approach, this dissertation investigates how Tibetans were written into Chinese literature, and how Tibetans themselves adopted and adapted Chinese literary discourses to their own ends. It begins with Lu Xun and the formative literary conceptions of nation in the late Qing and Republican periods – a time when the Tibetan subject was fundamentally absent from modern Chinese literature – and then moves to the 1980s, when Tibet and Tibetans belatedly, and contentiously, became valid subject matter for Han Chinese writers. The second aspect of the project situates modern Tibetan-language literature, which arose from the 1980s onwards, within the literary and intellectual context of modern China. I read Döndrup Gyel, modern Tibetan literature’s “father figure,” as working within unmistakably Lu Xun-ian paradigms, I consider the contradictions that arose when Tsering Döndrup’s short story “Ralo” was interpreted as a Tibetan equivalent of “The True Story of Ah Q,” and I analyze the rise of a “Tibetan May Fourth Movement” in the 2000s, which I argue presented a selective reading of modern China’s intellectual history. Throughout, I focus on the intersections and divergences at play and examine the ways in which these texts navigate complex and conflicting discourses of nationalism, statism, and colonialism. The conclusions of this research point us toward significant theoretical reconceptualizations of literary practices in the People’s Republic of China, which now include not only a vast body of Chinese-language writing on minority peoples, but also numerous minority-language literatures and distinct “national” literary traditions.

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Existing scholarship on modern Tibetan writing takes the 1980s as its point of “birth” and presents this period as marking a “rupture” with traditional forms of literature. This study seeks to go beyond such an interpretation by foregrounding the persistence of Tibet’s artistic past and oral traditions in the literary creativity of the present. An appreciation of genres, styles, concepts and techniques derived from Tibet’s rich and diverse oral art forms and textual traditions exposes the inadequacy of a simple “rupture” perspective. Whilst acknowledging the novel features of modern Tibetan literary creations this work draws attention to hitherto neglected aspects of continuities within the new. It reveals the innovative presence of Tibetan kāvya poetics, the mgur genre, biography, the Gesar epic and other types of oral compositions within modern Tibetan poetry and fiction. It also brings to prominence the complex and fertile interplay between orality and the Tibetan literary text. All these aspects are demonstrated by bringing the reader closer to Tibetan literature through the provision of original English translations of various textual and oral sources. Like any other national literature modern Tibetan literary production is also informed by socio-political and historical forces. An examination of unexplored topics ranging from popular music, Tibet’s critical tradition and cultural trauma to radical and erotic poetries shows a variety of issues that fire the imagination of the modern Tibetan writer. Of all these concerns the most overriding is the Tibetan nation, which pervades both fictional and poetic writing. In its investigation into modern Tibetan literature this thesis finds that Tibet as a nation - constituted of history, culture, language, religion, territory, shared myths and rituals, collective memories and a common sense of belonging to an occupied land - is inescapable. Embracing a multidisciplinary approach drawing on theoretical insights in literary theory and criticism, political studies, sociology and anthropology, this research demonstrates that, alongside past literary and oral traditions, the Tibetan nation proves to be an inevitable attribute of modern Tibetan literature.

The first half of the 18th century saw the advent of Qing imperial authority over Central Tibet and much of Inner Asia. Histories of this formative period have often reiterated narratives of empire building that emanate from the imperial center in Beijing. The few treatments of Qing empire building that engage Tibetan language sources have typically centered around the ties of patronage between the Qing court and Gelukpa monastic hierarchs such as the Dalai Lama and their associated monastic institutions. This dissertation traces elite responses to the political transformations that swept across Central Tibet during the 18th century by examining the literary narratives of the Qing encounter and Tibetan lay rule produced by Tibetan laymen that clustered around the lodestar of the court of the king Polhané Sonam Topgye (r. 1728–1747). How did these courtly elites negotiate the violent and transformative history of state and empire building in 18th century Tibet and Inner Asia? What imaginaries did they draw upon to understand the formation of new political affiliations and communities against the backdrop of Qing imperial expansion? And what was the legacy of the Polha kingdom as lay rule ended in 1750? This dissertation recovers an early modern reading of this lay literary tradition as a distinct form of elite self-fashioning and historiographical practice that emanated from poet-statesmen at the Polha court during the formative decades of Qing rule in Lhasa. In doing so, I foreground the role of a network Tibetan lay elites in the early Central Tibetan encounter with Qing imperial power, and the potency of the Tibetan literary tradition to capture the major political, social, and cultural shifts that Qing imperial rule brought about. Attending to these Tibetan noblemen as both key political actors in and poet-historians of this imperial encounter, I demonstrate how their poetic literary productions sought to reconcile notions of kingship, ethical governance and the history of imperial rule in Tibet and Inner Asia by drawing on an entangled Buddhist political and literary imagination. At its core, this study contributes to the understanding of indirect rule in a multi-ethnic imperium, how Buddhist knowledge making practices responded to imperial conditions, and the connected histories of political formations in early modern Asia. Delinking from the colonial episteme - with its inherent conceptions of the historical and the literature as separate domains, this study reads 18th elite Tibetan sources for both their historical and literary value in tow with Tibetan, Qing, and European archival sources of the period, to offer a window into how Tibetan courtly elites were influenced by, responded to, and imagined the formative encounter between the 18th century Central Tibet and the Qing empire. To this end, this dissertation is comprised of five thematic chapters centering Tibetan lay elites, their encounter with Qing imperial power, their participation in Buddhist elite literary culture, and the broader ethical, material, and political concerns they inscribed through their cultural productions spanning the 18th and early 19th century.

(ENGLISH) Proposed dissertation examines a so-far less discussed topic of modern Tibetan literature, which is for the purpose of this study defined ethnically, not as based on language of literary creation. Because of specific socio-historical and cultural conditions, modern literature in the Western sense has not emerged in Tibet until the second half of the 20th century. The emergence of modern Tibetan literature was, as in case of genesis of other Asian modern-style literatures, initiated by an encounter with another culture (i.e. 'Western', 'rational', 'scientific' worldview, which was in case of Tibet introduced through the communist China). In the beginning of the 1980s, this process was de facto enforced by the need (of Chinese as well as Tibetan elites) to establish this literature as an authentic Tibetan voice, affirming their will to modernization through Tibet's belonging to the PRC. At the same time, modern Tibetan literature emerged in a period of certain liberalization after the Cultural Revolution, which in Tibet manifested as a kind of 'national revival', oriented specifically on restoration of religion and related cultural heritage. During that period this literature thus served two seemingly contradictory interests. In Tibetan society it played mainly enlightening and didactic...

This dissertation explores the innovation and creativity behind elite Gelukpa thinking and writing about Buddhist place in Tibet in the long eighteenth century. It argues that writing about place offered Geluk thinkers a way to embed themselves in the land and history of Tibet, giving a rooted support to their expanding influence. More broadly, it demonstrates a growing spatialization of religious thought in Tibet and reveals a continuous and dynamic conversation around Tibetan Buddhist place and the nature of Buddhist space. This conversation went to the heart of matters of history, power, religion, and aesthetics and was tied intimately to the historical context of its production. To contextualize the period of Gelukpa growth, I begin by presenting the history of Tibetan Buddhist place writing across the longue durée. Based on my collection and analysis of over 400 place writing texts, including guidebooks, histories, poetry, and ritual texts, I suggest for the first time a periodization for this history, delineating distinct phases in the development of place writing across time. This periodization reveals that at most points throughout this history, Nyingma writers dominated place writing production. From the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, they set the standard for traditional place writing genres like guidebook literature. Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century, however, Gelukpa authors joined the conversation with great energy, producing both traditional and new styles of place writing in greater numbers than ever seen before. Why did the long eighteenth century see a burgeoning of place writing, both generally and by Gelukpa authors, specifically, and what characterized these new texts? I explore these questions by looking more closely at the work of three Gelukpa writers. First, I show how place writing was part of the Gelukpa rise to political and institutional dominance by an analysis of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s use of the supine demoness narrative in his efforts to unify Tibet under his government. Gelukpa place writing of this period was forced to grapple with earlier Nyingma narratives that in many cases dominated the conversation. Sumpa Khenpo’s Annals of Blue Lake offers an example of the creativity with which writers presented their new visions for Buddhist place in Tibet. Finally, I look at the poetry of Tukwan Lozang Chökyi Nyima as evidenced of the incorporation of new spatial configurations and the cultural exchange happening due to increased interactions with the Qing capital and imperial patronage. These snapshots ultimately show that the Gelukpa used place writing as part of its efforts to cement a growing influence politically, geographically, and culturally in Tibet and across Asia in the long eighteenth century. Just as importantly, however, these examples exhibit the creative power of writers in shaping the Buddhist landscape of Tibet. Through an analysis of an array of place writing texts, this dissertation brings to light one moment in the long history of Tibetan Buddhist place writing and demonstrates that Buddhist place has been a site of dynamic conversation (and often contestation) throughout that history.