Biography and Hierarchy: The Tibetan Ruling House of Phag-mo-gru and the Singular Volume of the Rlangs (Rlangs-kyi-po-ti-bse-ru). Medieval Worlds|Medieval Biographical Collections: Perspectives from Buddhist, Christian and Islamic Worlds - Volume 15 special issue. 2022 medieval worlds Volume 15 special issue. 2022|
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8 juin 2022
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.a375e3...
- issn: 2412-3196
- doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s75
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Mots-clés
biography, genealogy, hagiography, clans, ancestry, bKa'-brgyud Buddhism, gter-ma,Medieval StudiesSujets proches
Biographies Memoirs Life histories History--BiographyCiter ce document
« Biography and Hierarchy: The Tibetan Ruling House of Phag-mo-gru and the Singular Volume of the Rlangs (Rlangs-kyi-po-ti-bse-ru). Medieval Worlds|Medieval Biographical Collections: Perspectives from Buddhist, Christian and Islamic Worlds - Volume 15 special issue. 2022 medieval worlds Volume 15 special issue. 2022| », Elektronisches Publikationsportal der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschafte, ID : 10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s75
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This article details how the Tibetan ruling house of Phag-mo-gru employed biography within a 14th-century genealogical work as well as how its later representatives would reflect on and adapt the work in its reading tradition. Addressing the genealogy’s dating, structure and the various influences at play within its pages, the author argues that the work’s initial composition involved a mash-up of contemporary political and cultural sensibilities, archaic material and also traditions drawn from the ruling house’s ancestral homelands in the eastern region of Khams. A critical look at individual biographies within the work illustrates how these life stories provided a canvas on which respectable ancestry could be painted, with the creator(s) not shying away from including anachronistic and fantastic content. The article concludes with a broader theoretical look at how this work’s biographical collection, and similar compilations in general, may serve to affirm social hierarchies by rephrasing them in a language of long-standing moral relations.
