This thesis presents a close iconographic and contextual study of a set of seven Tibetan thangka paintings depicting portraits of the First through the Ninth Dalai Lamas, currently in a private collection and dated to the nineteenth-century. Through this case study, I propose to situate the genre of Dalai Lama portraits within the larger context of Tibetan Buddhist practice by considering their role and function in merit-making activities. I propose that as visual reminders of the Dalai Lamas, these portraits can be considered a type of “relic” that is foundational to devotional practices in Buddhism. Specifically, this thesis will investigate portraits of Dalai Lamas within the framework of Buddhist relic traditions. As a secondary focus, the thesis will examine the artistic conventions through which the figures are rendered present, problematizing the notion of “portrait-likeness.”

Recent effort to teach Western science in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries has drawn interest both within and outside the quarters of these monasteries. This novel and historic move of bringing Western science in a traditional monastic community began around year 2000 at the behest of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism. Despite the novelty of this effort, the literature in science education about learners from non-Western communities suggests various "cognitive conflicts" experienced by these non-Western learners due to fundamental difference in the worldview of the two knowledge traditions. Hence, in this research focuses on how six Tibetan Buddhist monks were situating/reconciling the scientific concepts like the theory of evolution into their traditional Buddhist worldview. The monks who participated in this study were engaged in a further study science at a university in the U.S. for two years. Using case study approach, the participants were interviewed individually and in groups over the two-year period. The findings revealed that although the monks scored highly on their acceptance of evolution on the Measurement of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE) survey, however in the follow-up individual and focus group interviews, certain conflicts as well as agreement between the theory of evolution and their Buddhist beliefs were revealed. The monks experienced conflicts over concepts within evolution such as common ancestry, human evolution, and origin of life, and in reconciling the Buddhist and scientific notion of life. The conflicts were analyzed using the theory of collateral learning and was found that the monks engaged in different kinds of collateral learning, which is the degree of interaction and resolution of conflicting schemas. The different collateral learning of the monks was correlated to the concepts within evolution and has no correlation to the monks’ years in secular school, science learning or their proficiency of English language. This study has indicted that the Tibetan Buddhist monks also experience certain cognitive conflict when situating Western scientific concepts into their Buddhist worldview as suggested by research of science learners from other non-Western societies. By explicating how the monks make sense of scientific theories like the theory of evolution as an exemplar, I hope to inform the current effort to establish science education in the monastery to develop curricula that would result in meaningful science teaching and learning, and also sensitive to needs and the cultural survival of the monastics.

Mental health in the Tibetan refugee community has been studied extensively; but like most research on political violence, these studies focus almost exclusively on trauma. We know little about those who manage to thrive and what kinds of sociocultural practices enhance their resilience. This dissertation, "Spacious Minds, Empty Selves: Coping and Resilience in the Tibetan Exile Community" investigates how Buddhism and other sociocultural factors support coping and resilience among Tibetan refugees living in Dharamsala, India. In contrast to other work that focuses exclusively on trauma, the aim of this project was to examine the broad range of reactions to political violence, exploring how people thrive in the face of adversity. Drawing on 14 months of extended participant observation and 80 in-depth interviews conducted in the Tibetan language, this project investigates how communities through social processes cope in the context of political violence and resettlement. The study draws upon and aims to extend theory in three distinct but overlapping areas: 1) trauma and resilience; 2) the anthropology of memory and temporality; and 3) the transferability of interventions across cultures. The dissertation argues that the Tibetan concept of resilience is more an active process than a personality attribute. Seeing emotions as impermanent and changing, Tibetans living in exile are reticent to dwell on distress, which seems only to stagnate or prolong suffering. Rather than processing the details of traumatic events, members of this community attempt to transform distress through cultural practices that emphasize compassion and impermanence. Many forms of coping in Dharamsala work to create a greater sense of spaciousness, openness and flexibility within the mind--qualities associated with resilience and wellbeing. In practicing flexibility, the durability of negative emotions is diminished, such that the encoding of trauma is derailed and disrupted. The contribution I make involves using a "resilience imaginary" as a fruitful site for pushing the boundaries of how we understand human freedom and agency.

Representing the first comprehensive study of Tibetan medical institutions, this dissertation argues that medicine played a crucial role in the development of Tibetan Buddhism outside of Tibet during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), while Tibetan Buddhism played a vital role in the governance of the northern and western borderlands of the Qing Empire. During the same period remembered today for the rise of science along mercantile-colonialist sea routes, an inland network of Tibetan Buddhist monastic medical colleges (gso rig or sman pa grwa tshang) proliferated in tandem with the expansion of the Qing Empire over Inner Asia. My study examines these developments from a regional rather than an anachronistic nation-state perspective, historicizing both the "Tibetan" medical system and its community of practitioners within the context of Qing imperial expansion and decline. Combining the approaches of intellectual and institutional history, I argue that the medical colleges of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries bridged the realms of ritual and materiality that we understand as separate today, providing a key site for the display of benevolent governance, and serving as a vital forum for intellectual and material exchange between the Qing court and peoples of the Tibetan Buddhist frontiers. The "monastic guidelines" (bca' yig) of Tibetan medical colleges provide a window into these institutions' ritual and medical curricula, as well as debates over medical orthodoxy that took place within and between them. Historical narratives within monastic guidelines served as frameworks of legitimacy and templates for ritual practice, and the boundaries of medicine as a discipline were negotiated through the selective incorporation of various medical lineages and traditions. I explore the relationship between ritual debates, doctrinal debates, and ideas about how to both encourage and circumscribe experience within the monastic guidelines of medical colleges. One of the major issues at stake was the relationship between innovation and revelation, as physicians could claim a special insight into the experience of their predecessors in a medical lineage. While innovation was necessary for expertise in healing, revelation was potentially dangerous to the state. Such medical debates give us insight into ideas about the relationship between social and epistemic order taught within Tibetan Buddhist institutions as they spread within the Qing Empire. With the advent of new ways of defining territorial and disciplinary boundaries in the early twentieth century, ritual technologies for defining social and epistemic order were replaced by new institutional structures. I consider why the greater circulation of medical knowledge within the Qing Empire was followed by a fragmentation of medical nationalisms. While Han Chinese nationalists embraced the culture of science as a defensive strategy against Western powers and as a political strategy to distance themselves from the Qing formation, Tibetan Buddhists did not seek such a radical break. Similar and connected medical reforms in Lhasa, Eastern Tibet, Mongolia, and Buryatia reveal the continuity of Tibetan Buddhist knowledge networks and early cooperation among their separate nationalist projects. In the broader context of the history of science, the example of Tibetan Buddhist medical institutions points to the centrality of early modern networks of knowledge in determining modern political configurations.

Cette étude vise à fournir une description détaillée de l’évidentialité en anglais dans une approche contrastive avec le tibétain. Elle repose sur un corpus spécialement recueilli au Tibet et en Angleterre (TSC et CSC/LAC, 2010-2012, 10 h.). Le tibétain possède un système évidentiel complexe et grammaticalisé dont la description peut fournir une grille d’analyse préliminaire pour notre étude de l’évidentialité en anglais. Des exemples authentiques et des données quantitatives issus du corpus nous permettent d’illustrer et de compléter les descriptions du groupe verbal tibétain dans plusieurs travaux pionniers antérieurs à la présente recherche (Tournadre & Sangda Dorje 1998) afin de poser les bases de la sémantique évidentielle. Les marqueurs évidentiels qui émergent dans les parties tibétaine et anglaise du corpus sont examinés afin de déterminer les paramètres qui motivent leur utilisation. Les marqueurs tibétains sont principalement grammaticaux et intégrés à des paradigmes syntaxiques : copules, suffixes verbaux et enclitiques. Les marqueurs évidentiels anglais sont lexicaux ou semi-grammaticaux : verbes de perception, verbes de cognition, verbes de discours, modaux, adverbes, conjoints, parenthétiques et marqueurs de discours (Nuyts 2001a, Cappelli 2007, Sanders & Sweetser 2009, Mortensen 2010, Whitt 2010, Gisborne 2010, Miller 2008, Boulonnais 2010, Gurajek 2010, Kaltenböck et coll. 2011, Heine 2013). Cette description de l’évidentialité en tibétain et en anglais nous permet d’analyser les conséquences d’un rendu grammatical ou lexical de cette notion (Talmy 2000, Bybee et coll. 1994, Nuyts 2001a, Boye & Harder 2009). Des analyses quantitatives et qualitatives du corpus contrastif et sur large corpus illustrent les différences de complexité, d'optionalité, de fréquence, de restriction sémantique, de prise en charge, de statut informatif, et de stratégie de discours dans les deux systèmes.Enfin, nous réévaluons la dichotomie, souvent considérée comme acquise, entre évidentialité grammaticale et lexicale (Aikhenvald 2004). Nous avançons que les marqueurs évidentiels des deux langues se positionnent à différents endroits sur un continuum multidimensionnel lexique-grammaire. Cette étude ne remet pas en question que le système évidentiel tibétain est plus grammaticalisé que le système anglais, mais démontre que ce dernier présente tous les signes d’une grammaticalisation partielle. Nous concluons ainsi que l’évidentialité est une notion pertinente et nécessaire pour une description linguistique complète de l’anglais. / This study aims to give a detailed description of evidentiality in English in contrast with Tibetan. It is based on a specialised corpus collected in Tibet and in England (TSC and CSC/LAC, 2010-2012, 10 h.).Tibetan has a complex and grammaticalised evidential system, and its description can provide a preliminary analytical grid for a semantic assessment of English evidentiality. Athentic examples and quantitative data from the corpus illustrate and supplement the analyses of the Tibetan verb phrase from previous research (Tournadre & Sangda Dorje 1998), in order to lay the foundation of the semantics of evidentiality. The evidential markers that emerge in the Tibetan and English sections of the corpus are examined so as to determine the parameters that motivate their usage. Tibetan evidentials are mainly grammatical and paradigmatised: copulas, verb suffixes and enclitics. English evidentials are either lexical or semi-grammatical: perception verbs, cognition verbs, speech verbs, modals, adverbs, conjuncts, parentheticals and discourse markers (Nuyts 2001a, Cappelli 2007, Sanders & Sweetser 2009, Mortensen 2010, Whitt 2010, Gisborne 2010, Miller 2008, Boulonnais 2010, Gurajek 2010, Kaltenböck et al. 2011, Heine 2013).This survey of Tibetan and English evidentiality provides precise data for the analysis of the consequences of a grammatical or a lexical rendering of this notion (Talmy 2000, Bybee et al. 1994, Nuyts 2001a, Boye & Harder 2009). Qualitative and quantitative evidence illustrates the differences in complexity, optionality, frequency, semantic restriction, speaker commitment, informative status and discourse strategy in the two systems. Finally, this study reassesses the assumed dichotomy between grammatical and lexical evidentiality (Aikhenvald 2004), arguing that evidentials in both Tibetan and English inhabit a lexicon-grammar multidimensional continuum, merely in different positions. This study does not question that the Tibetan evidential system is more grammaticalised than the English one, but it shows that the latter presents all the signs of partial grammaticalisation. This reassessment leads to the conclusion that evidentiality is a relevant and necessary notion for a thorough linguistic description of English.

The core premise of the thesis is that our global environmental and social crises are of our own making and can only be transformed by us. Therefore it is imperative that humanity finds ways of protecting and sustaining the natural environment for our collective survival. This necessarily depends on human beings� ability to co-exist in harmony with other humans and species and to feel connected to and protect nature. This thesis examines three spiritual or wisdom traditions � Aboriginal spiritualities, the Goddess movement and Tibetan Buddhism, as they relate to Arne Naess�s concept of the �ecological self.� The ecological self is a psychological construct that suggests that human beings can evolve from a narrow egocentric way of being and relating to others, to one that is more open, inclusive of the �other� and where one sees all lives as important. One is ultimately able to embrace the whole earth community, so that nothing is excluded as �other�. This process of increasingly �wide identification� Naess defined to be the process of the development of the ecological self. There is much written about spirituality and the environment but little relevant research that specifically examines spiritual traditions as they relate to the ecological self. The insights of transpersonal psychology elucidate the maturation from ego consciousness to eco-consciousness � a process of progressively inclusive identification with �others�, including the environment. However, transpersonal psychology does not directly �converse� with Naess�s construct of an ecological self. This thesis examines the nexus between Arne Naess�s ecological self, transpersonal psychology and the three spiritual traditions. �Aboriginal spiritualities� refers to Australian Aboriginal spiritualities, unless other wise stated. The literature review covers relevant background to the ecological self in relation to Western science and thought; this includes constructions of self and �other� and story. Literature reviews of the three traditions informed in-depth interviews with five research participants who practise or identify with their particular spiritual tradition. I believe this research will enable the reader to gain an overview of the ecological wisdom of these three spiritual traditions, grounded in the lived experience of practitioners who embody these traditions. Each wisdom tradition has a long history of imparting psychological, social and ecological insights and understandings that are profoundly helpful and relevant to the current period of ecological crisis. The interviews are analysed under the broad conceptual themes of ecology, compassion and story. These traditions will be shown to encourage compassion, connectedness, interdependency and impart ecological wisdom - all vital to the realisation of the �ecological self�. Story, lifelong learning and the ecoeducational model are used as frameworks for examining the educational potential of the spiritual traditions involved. A choice must be made: will we continue to base our knowledges on Western science or will we examine alternate constructions of reality, such as those of the three spiritual traditions examined in this thesis? The three spiritual traditions provide a compassionate and non-violent view of human consciousness with the potential to transform into an ecologically sensitive creative force. This thesis argues that great wisdom is held by these three wisdom traditions in the context of education for sustainability. This thesis examines this context.

<p>The glacial history of the Tibetan Plateau has long been a contentious topic with widely different reconstructions. For Tanggula Shan, an extensive mountain range on the central Tibetan Plateau, multiple glacial reconstruc- tions and studies on the glacial chronology have been presented. However, the glacial geomorphological record has been sparse resulting in insufficient data to fully infer the area’s palaeoglaciology. Focussing on four landform categories, glacial valleys, marginal moraines, hummocky terrain, and glacial lineations; a glacial geomorphological map was produced, using Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery, SRTM digital elevation model, and Google Earth. This map, together with GIS analyses and available cosmogenic exposure and electron spin reso- nance ages from the study area, was used to investigate the extent of former glaciations. Cosmogenic exposure and electron spin resonance ages range from 18.4 ± 1.6 to 203.4 ± 33.2 ka (recalculated using the CRONUS calculator). The extent of the glacial footprint is restricted to the high mountain areas, and is similar in extent to earlier glacial reconstructions. This glacial footprint can tentatively be explained by a monsoonal influence in the southeast, with the influence diminishing to the northwest. Alternatively, the precipitation gradient might have resulted in cold-based ice in the west and warm-based ice in the east. These variations in ice regime could have left fewer traces of glaciation in the west, than in the east. There is no evidence supporting an ice sheet covering the entire Tibetan Plateau. Rather, the available data support a smaller ice field in the high mountain areas, with a maximum extent well before the Last Glacial Maximum.</p>

The Tibetan Plateau is the largest elevated landmass in the world and profoundly influences atmospheric circulation patterns such as the Asian monsoon system. Therefore this area has been increasingly in focus of palaeoenvironmental studies. This thesis evaluates the applicability of organic biomarkers for palaeolimnological purposes on the Tibetan Plateau with a focus on aquatic macrophyte-derived biomarkers. Submerged aquatic macrophytes have to be considered to significantly influence the sediment organic matter due to their high abundance in many Tibetan lakes. They can show highly 13C-enriched biomass because of their carbon metabolism and it is therefore crucial for the interpretation of δ13C values in sediment cores to understand to which extent aquatic macrophytes contribute to the isotopic signal of the sediments in Tibetan lakes and in which way variations can be explained in a palaeolimnological context. Additionally, the high abundance of macrophytes makes them interesting as potential recorders of lake water δD. Hydrogen isotope analysis of biomarkers is a rapidly evolving field to reconstruct past hydrological conditions and therefore of special relevance on the Tibetan Plateau due to the direct linkage between variations of monsoon intensity and changes in regional precipitation / evaporation balances. A set of surface sediment and aquatic macrophyte samples from the central and eastern Tibetan Plateau was analysed for composition as well as carbon and hydrogen isotopes of n-alkanes. It was shown how variable δ13C values of bulk organic matter and leaf lipids can be in submerged macrophytes even of a single species and how strongly these parameters are affected by them in corresponding sediments. The estimated contribution of the macrophytes by means of a binary isotopic model was calculated to be up to 60% (mean: 40%) to total organic carbon and up to 100% (mean: 66%) to mid-chain n-alkanes. Hydrogen isotopes of n-alkanes turned out to record δD of meteoric water of the summer precipitation. The apparent enrichment factor between water and n-alkanes was in range of previously reported ones (≈-130‰) at the most humid sites, but smaller (average: -86‰) at sites with a negative moisture budget. This indicates an influence of evaporation and evapotranspiration on δD of source water for aquatic and terrestrial plants. The offset between δD of mid- and long-chain n-alkanes was close to zero in most of the samples, suggesting that lake water as well as soil and leaf water are affected to a similar extent by those effects. To apply biomarkers in a palaeolimnological context, the aliphatic biomarker fraction of a sediment core from Lake Koucha (34.0° N; 97.2° E; eastern Tibetan Plateau) was analysed for concentrations, δ13C and δD values of compounds. Before ca. 8 cal ka BP, the lake was dominated by aquatic macrophyte-derived mid-chain n-alkanes, while after 6 cal ka BP high concentrations of a C20 highly branched isoprenoid compound indicate a predominance of phytoplankton. Those two principally different states of the lake were linked by a transition period with high abundances of microbial biomarkers. δ13C values were relatively constant for long-chain n-alkanes, while mid-chain n-alkanes showed variations between -23.5 to -12.6‰. Highest values were observed for the assumed period of maximum macrophyte growth during the late glacial and for the phytoplankton maximum during the middle and late Holocene. Therefore, the enriched values were interpreted to be caused by carbon limitation which in turn was induced by high macrophyte and primary productivity, respectively. Hydrogen isotope signatures of mid-chain n-alkanes have been shown to be able to track a previously deduced episode of reduced moisture availability between ca. 10 and 7 cal ka BP, indicated by a 20‰ shift towards higher δD values. Indications for cooler episodes at 6.0, 3.1 and 1.8 cal ka BP were gained from drops of biomarker concentrations, especially microbial-derived hopanoids, and from coincidental shifts towards lower δ13C values. Those episodes correspond well with cool events reported from other locations on the Tibetan Plateau as well as in the Northern Hemisphere. To conclude, the study of recent sediments and plants improved the understanding of factors affecting the composition and isotopic signatures of aliphatic biomarkers in sediments. Concentrations and isotopic signatures of the biomarkers in Lake Koucha could be interpreted in a palaeolimnological context and contribute to the knowledge about the history of the lake. Aquatic macrophyte-derived mid-chain n-alkanes were especially useful, due to their high abundance in many Tibetan Lakes and their ability to record major changes of lake productivity and palaeo-hydrological conditions. Therefore, they have the potential to contribute to a fuller understanding of past climate variability in this key region for atmospheric circulation systems. / Das tibetische Hochplateau ist die größte gehobene Landmasse der Erde und beeinflusst maßgeblich atmosphärische Zirkulationsmuster wie den Asiatischen Monsun. Um die Auswirkungen zukünftiger Schwankungen der Monsundynamik auf das regionale Klima besser einschätzen zu können, ist es wichtig, ein fundiertes Verständnis vergangener Klimaänderungen zu entwickeln. Daher ist das Tibetplateau in den letzten Jahren mehr und mehr in den Fokus paläoklimatischer Studien gerückt. Die große Anzahl an Seen in der Region bietet ein unerschöpfliches Klimaarchiv und viele Studien haben sich bereits mit Seesedimenten zur Klimarekonstruktion befasst. Dabei wurde in erster Linie auf biologische, sedimentologische und geochemische Parameter zurückgegriffen, wohingegen organische Biomarker bisher recht selten benutzt wurden. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Anwendbarkeit dieser potentiellen Klimaindikatoren auf dem Tibetplateau. Hierbei wurde ein Schwerpunkt auf die Analyse kutikularer Blattwachse von Wasserpflanzen gelegt, da diese wegen ihres starken Auftretens in tibetischen Seen einen erheblichen Beitrag zur organischen Substanz im Sediment leisten. Um den Einfluss von Wasserpflanzen auf das Sediment über einen weiten klimatischen Gradienten zu untersuchen, wurden Oberflächensedimente und Wasserpflanzen vom zentralen und östlichen Tibetplateau auf ihre Biomarkerzusammensetzung sowie auf ihre Kohlen- und Wasserstoffisotopensignatur untersucht. Dadurch wurde das Verständnis über beeinflussende Faktoren auf diese Parameter in Sedimenten vertieft. In einem Sedimentbohrkern des Koucha-Sees (östliches Tibetplateau) konnten diese Parameter dann im Hinblick auf Änderungen der Produktivität im See sowie der hydrologischen und klimatischen Bedingungen der letzten 15000 Jahre interpretiert werden. Es zeigte sich, dass der See bis 8000 Jahre vor Heute stark mit Wasserpflanzen bewachsen war, während die letzten 6000 Jahre Algen dominierten. Mit Hilfe von Wasserstoffisotopen wurden eine Zunahme des Monsuns und steigende Niederschläge zwischen 15000 und 10000 Jahren vor Heute sowie eine relativ trockene Periode zwischen 10000 und 7000 Jahren vor Heute rekonstruiert. Durch Kombination von Biomarkerkonzentrationen sowie deren Kohlenstoffisotopensignal wurden außerdem kurzzeitige Kälteperioden um ca. 6000, 3100 und 1800 Jahren vor Heute nachgewiesen, die vorher bereits in anderen Klimaarchiven in Tibet sowie auf der nördlichen Hemisphäre belegt wurden. Mit Hilfe von organischen Biomarkern konnte so ein detailliertes Bild über die Entwicklung des Koucha-Sees seit dem letzten Glazial gewonnen werden. Organische Biomarker haben sich somit als geeignet erwiesen, einen Beitrag zur Klimarekonstruktion auf dem Tibetplateau zu leisten.

名古屋大学年代測定総合研究センターシンポジウム報告

This thesis presents a case study, exploring a Tibetan boarding class in inland China from a Tibetan learner’s perspective. As one of a number of forms of Chinese minority education, Tibetan boarding schools/classes are little known internationally (Wang & Zhou, 2003). To respond to the need for more research in this area, this case study gives voice to a Tibetan learner who experienced the boarding class. An attendee of a Tibetan boarding class in Jiahe served as the particular “case” in this study. Underpinned by a theoretical framework of language ecology, this study centers on a learner, considers the impacts of his referential contexts, and explores a particular Tibetan boarding class as an example of Chinese minority education in practice. Data collected through interviews, observations, and document review reveal that language learners constantly negotiate with multiple identities and interact with their referential contexts. Meanwhile, the multilayered and multifaceted referential contexts play an influential role in learners’ experiences and learning outcomes. Tibetan Education, as exemplified by the Tibetan boarding class, facilitates and encourages minority learners to participate in the mainstream education and the majority cultural practice. However, Tibetan education also impedes the maintenance and preservation of their indigenous languages. In conclusion, Chinese minority education endeavors to ensure that various ethnic and linguistic learners have educational opportunities and qualities to develop individuals’ ability; to strengthen their competence; to upgrade their social, educational, and economic situations; and to invest in what they define as worthwhile and valuable in a way that they view as effective. The present study is informed by multicultural education, a notion grounded and well studied in North American discourse. In addition, suggestions for further improvement of Tibetan boarding classes are also discussed. Yet in view of the variations between North American discourse and Chinese context, the notion of multicultural education can not be entirely applied to Chinese minority education. Therefore, future studies could aim to develop theories grounded in Chinese minority education context. / February 2008