River incision into a widespread, upland low-relief landscape, and related patterns of exhumation recorded by low-temperature thermochronology, together underpin geodynamic interpretations for crustal thickening and uplift of the eastern Tibetan Plateau. We report results from a suite of 11 (U-Th-Sm)/He cooling-age samples. Eight samples comprise a 1.2 km relief section collected from elevations up to 4800 m in the Jiulong Shan, an elevated, rugged region located in the hinterland of the Yalong-Longmen Shan Thrust Belt, and surrounded on three sides by upland low-relief landscape surfaces. Zircon and apatite cooling ages record two episodes of rapid exhumation in the early Oligocene and late Miocene, that were separated by a period of stability from similar to 30 to 15 Ma. The first episode is consistent with a similar pulse evident from the Longmen Shan. The second episode is ongoing, and when integrated with adjacent cooling-age data sets, shows that doming of the Jiulong Shan has resulted in 2 to 4 km of differential exhumation of the plateau interior. We show from a compilation of glacial landform-mapping that the elevation of the plateau surface closely tracks global last glacial maximum equilibrium line altitude. We hypothesize that smoothing of highlands by efficient glacial and periglacial erosion, coupled with potential river captures and conveyance of sediments via external drainage, can yield an apparently continuous low-relief plateau landscape formed diachronously at high elevation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study traces the development of Tibetan 'treasure' texts and practices in contemporary times via the life-story and scriptural revelations of the Tibetan 'treasure revealer' (gter ston) Kun bzang bde chen gling pa (1928-2006). It examines how his revelations (gter ma) rooted in the historic spirituality of Tibet, continue and adapt into the twenty first century. The study is important in order to understand the ways this Asian religious concept develops and coalesces in North America. With the dramatic advances in communication through digital technology, it examines how gter ma texts and practices reach a modern audience. Also discussed are the implications of centuries old debates surrounding Buddhist lineage, transmission and ‘authenticity’ as well as concepts such as liberty, equality and authority. All of which are culture-specific constructions that differ radically when seen from a variety of perspectives. The main conclusion drawn from this research is that as a Western Vajrayāna ‘tradition’ emerges and intersects with older Tibetan forms, both must attempt to find a middle path between their differing applications and interpretations if they are to avoid drifting into an arena of extensive commercialisation, dilution and distortion.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The Development of Tibetan Cultural and Religious Identity among Tibetans Living outside of Historical Tibet The topic of my thesis was to find out changes in Tibetan society inside Tibet and in Tibetan exile in last 50. years and how do changes help to progress social capital. Inside Tibet is problem with high percent of nonliterary and high percent of incoming Han people, which cause that Tibetan people are getting on the edge of society, because they didn't have developed their human potential. The main problem is that Tibetan people don't know Chinese language well and this language is becoming more useful for daily life in Tibetan autonomous region. Tibetans, who are very religious, don't have opportunity to practice Tibetan Buddhism under communistic rule of Chine. Tibetans have to renounce His Holiness dalajlama and deny part of their Tibetan identity. Those reasons influence them to escape into exile. The second part of my thesis is concerned to describe push and pull factors of migration. As I found in materials, the main reasons to escape into exile were political, religion, education, economical problems and renounce dalajlama. In my research, Tibetan didn't divide those reasons to those categories, because they think of those problems in holistic way. The last part of thesis in...

The subject of this thesis is self-immolation in Buddhist countries. The author shows examples from both history and the present and interprets them as a ritualised pattern passed on from the fourth century until the present time, the continuity of which was based on literary tradition as well as on historical occurrences. She demonstrates that self-immolations in Vietnam and Tibet also follow the centuries long tradition and prove to have the same components. The author intends to answer the question of the origin of the tradition in Buddhism and its broad popularity compared to other forms of self-sacrifice. Reasons for self-immolations among the Buddhists might have been manyfold: to demonstrate their loyalty to the buddhist doctrine and the Buddha, to use it as means of attaining enlightment immediately or as a form of a political protest. All of the above can be understood as a sacrifice to the Three Jewels of Buddhism, i.e. the Buddha, the Drarma and the Sangha. The author also handles self-immolation in Buddhism as a question of ethics in order to present the problem in its completeness. In doing so, she concentrates on the point of view of the followers of Buddhism themselves. The phenomenon proves to have many forms and therefore even the Buddhists are nor united in their opinions....

Esta tese tem como objetivo a análise de fontes escritas nos contextos das missões jesuítas estabelecidas na corte mogol e no Tibete. Abordamos também a presença da Ordem em Bengala, tecendo relações entre esse espaço e as missões supracitadas. Nosso recorte cronológico cobre o período de 1570 até 1721, isto é, iniciamos nossas investigações na década que antecede o estabelecimento dos religiosos na corte de Akbar, e encerramos nossas análises no ano em que Ippolito Desideri deixa Lhasa. Concentramo-nos principalmente na questão da necessária relação entre as estratégias de conversão adotadas nessas missões e a (re) elaboração de categorias que indicassem e respaldassem o diálogo, a persuasão e o convencimento como os mais prudentes métodos catequéticos / In this thesis, we aim to analyze written sources produced by jesuits stablished at the Mughal court and in Tibet. We shall also approach the presence of the Order in Bengal, weaving relations between this space and the aforementioned missions. Our chronological limits concerns the period from 1570 to 1721, i.e., we began our investigations in the decade preceding the establishment of the jesuits in Akbars court, and resume our survey in Ippolito Desideris last year in Lhasa. We focus mainly on the necessary relationship between the conversion strategies adopted in these missions and the (re) elaboration of categories that indicate dialogue and persuasion as the most prudent catechetical method

In contrast to the oceans, deformation in the continental lithosphere is distributed over broad regions. This dissertation is composed of three separate but related studies investigating the kinematics and dynamics of such deformation. The first two studies look at the Makran subduction zone, and the third focusses on deformation in South East Tibet. The first study is an investigation of the 11 May 2013 M w 6.1 Minab earthquake which occurred at the western end of the Makran subduction zone, adjacent to the transition to continent-continent collision in the Zagros mountains. Seismological, geodetic and field results are used to study the source parameters and slip distribution of this earthquake, and demonstrate that the earthquake was left-lateral and occurred on a fault striking ENE–WSW; approximately perpendicular to previously studied faults in the adjacent Minab-Zendan-Palami fault zone. Geological and geomorphological observations of similar faults in the vicinity are used to infer that vertical-axis rotations allow a series of such faults to accommodate ∼15–19 mm/yr of N–S right-lateral shear. The dynamic implications for the transition between subduction and continental collision are discussed. The second study looks at the Makran region as a whole. First, the shape and depth of the interface with the Arabian plate is constrained by modelling the depths and mechanisms of earthquakes across the region, and combining these with additional seismological constraints. These constraints on the subduction interface are used to investigate elastic strain accumulation on the megathrust in the western Makran, which has important implications for seismic and tsunami hazard in the region. Second, the kinematics at the northern edge of the Makran accretionary prism are investigated using a combination of geodetic and geomorphological observations, addressing the long-standing tectonic problem of how the right-lateral shear taken up by strike-slip faulting in the Sistan Suture Zone in eastern Iran is accommodated at the zone’s southern end. Finally, the kinematics and dynamics of the accretionary prism are investigated. By considering the kinematics of the 2013 Balochistan and Minab earthquakes, local gravitational and far-field compressive forces in the Makran accretionary prism are inferred to be balanced. This force balance allows the mean shear stress and effective coefficient of friction on the Makran megathrust to be calculated, 5–35 MPa and 0.01–0.03 respectively. The final part of this thesis focusses on the temporal evolution of topography in South East Tibet. Recently published paleoaltimetry results based on stable-isotope geochemistry are used to provide constraints on vertical motions. These demonstrate that uplift is much slower than had previously been suggested from thermochronometric data. Numerical modelling of the time evolution of a gravitationally-driven fluid is used to investigate the effect of lateral rheological contrasts on the shape and evolution of topography. In such a flow, material at the surface can be transported hundreds of kilometres, an effect which should be accounted for in paleoaltimetric analysis. Lateral rheological contrasts, analogous to the relatively undeforming Sichuan Basin and Central Lowlands of Myanmar, can reproduce the main features of the present-day topography, GPS velocity field and earthquake-derived strain rate without the need for a low-viscosity lower-crustal channel.

No description available.

Esta tese tem como objetivo a análise de fontes escritas nos contextos das missões jesuítas estabelecidas na corte mogol e no Tibete. Abordamos também a presença da Ordem em Bengala, tecendo relações entre esse espaço e as missões supracitadas. Nosso recorte cronológico cobre o período de 1570 até 1721, isto é, iniciamos nossas investigações na década que antecede o estabelecimento dos religiosos na corte de Akbar, e encerramos nossas análises no ano em que Ippolito Desideri deixa Lhasa. Concentramo-nos principalmente na questão da necessária relação entre as estratégias de conversão adotadas nessas missões e a (re) elaboração de categorias que indicassem e respaldassem o diálogo, a persuasão e o convencimento como os mais prudentes métodos catequéticos / In this thesis, we aim to analyze written sources produced by jesuits stablished at the Mughal court and in Tibet. We shall also approach the presence of the Order in Bengal, weaving relations between this space and the aforementioned missions. Our chronological limits concerns the period from 1570 to 1721, i.e., we began our investigations in the decade preceding the establishment of the jesuits in Akbars court, and resume our survey in Ippolito Desideris last year in Lhasa. We focus mainly on the necessary relationship between the conversion strategies adopted in these missions and the (re) elaboration of categories that indicate dialogue and persuasion as the most prudent catechetical method

In this dissertation, I investigate the characteristics and quality of liminality among the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala, India, and the United States. I argue that the quality of their liminality defines this exile community’s ability to maneuver and voice their influence to geo-political community of states that surround them, all while within their liminal condition. The Tibetan exile people live as stateless foreigners in India but have a better standard of living and better opportunities to acquire transnational resources than their surrounding host community. In the U.S., Tibetan diaspora people live as asylum-seekers and naturalized Tibetan-Americans but have established a popular political campaign (which enjoys the support of considerably many Americans) addressing the plight of Tibetans imposed by China. I argue that the Tibetan diaspora have achieved this unique social and political success as a marginalized community by adopting a cultural practice that I call “flexible liminality.” Flexible liminality is a Tibetan cultural practice that helps transient people adjust to any situation, people, and geo-politics circumstance. Flexible liminality relies on two factors: first, political interest from various nation-states; second, a group’s ability to adjust their cultural practices to match external influences. In the case of the Tibetan exile community, it is important to note that they are excluded by multiple nation-states (China, India, the Western countries) in different ways simultaneously. Therefore, the world collective of Tibetan refugees are not fixed in one state of liminality but experience a variety of liminalities in relation to different nation-states. Second, the Tibetan exile community has adjusted their cultural practices to assimilate with host communities in whichever countries their exile-hood has landed them. Since Tibetans cannot acquire Indian citizenship, the Tibetan exile community uses India as a space to promote their political activism against China, and form better relationship with Western foreigners. In Dharamsala, the Tibetan community has organized institutions that guides Tibetan individuals to form relationships with foreign tourists, and acquire skills (i.e. language, behavior, education, philosophy) that would help them assimilate better when resettling in Western host countries. In both, Dharamsala and the U.S., the Tibetan diaspora have a cultivated cultural practice to advocate Tibetan political plight against China, and to communicate Tibetan religio-socio traditions with the foreign host community. As a result, Tibetans are able to achieve political popularity, and to socially draw empathy from foreign communities that aids in producing a space for Tibetan cultural preservation in exile. The case study on Tibetan exile community sheds a new light on the study of marginality/liminality. This dissertation showcases that there can be a spectrum for the quality of liminality that goes from flexible at one end to inflexible at the other end. Not all exile groups have the same condition of liminality, being an exile community can be beneficial or crippling somewhere in the spectrum. Tibetan exile community has achieved a flexible end of liminality in exile but there are other exile groups who may not have the same maneuvering ability as the Tibetan exile community. This theory of flexible liminality can be used to better understand the lives of exiles by characterizing and measuring the quality of their liminality.