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In the fifteenth century, the princess Chokyi Dronma was told by leading spiritual masters that she was the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo, the Thunderbolt Female Pig. Hildegard Diemberger builds her book around the translation of the first biography of Chokyi Dronma recorded by her disciples in the wake of her death. The account reveals an extraordinary phenomenon: Chokyi Dronma not only persuaded one of the highest spiritual teachers of her era to give her full ordination but was also officially recognized as one of two principal spiritual heirs to her main master--and she went on to establish a long, influential lineage and Buddhist order herself.Diemberger offers a number of theoretical arguments about the importance of reincarnation in Tibetan society and religion; the role of biographies in establishing a lineage; the necessity for religious teachers to navigate complex networks of political and financial patronage; the cultural and social innovation linked to the revival of ancient Buddhist civilizations; and the role of women in Buddhism. Four stage-setting chapters precede the biography, and four concluding chapters discuss the establishment of the reincarnation lineage and the role of the current incarnation under Tibet's peculiarly contradictory communist system.
List of contents
List of IllustrationsForeword, by Marilyn StrathernPrefaceAcknowledgments Introduction Part I1. The World of Chokyi Dronma2. The Life of Chokyi Dronma3. The Manuscript and Its Enigmas4. Princess, Nun, YoginiPart IITranslation of the Biography of the Venerable Chokyi DronmaPart III5. Succession and Spiritual Lineages: Meaning and Mysteries of Chokyi Dronma's Reincarnation6. "Lady of the Lake": The Dorje Phagmo at Samding7. Dorje Phagmo in the Twentieth Century: Embodied Divinity and Government Cadre8. The Living Tradition and the Legacy of the PrincessEpilogueTwin Reincarnation Line and Tentative ChronologyThe Families of Chokyi DronmaNotesReferencesIndex
About the author
Hildegard Diemberger is director of the Tibetan Studies Programme at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and is a research associate of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and of the Italian Ev-K2-CNR committee. She has published extensively on the anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayan regions and, with Pasang Wangdu, has co-authored the translations of the Shel dkar chos 'byung and the dBa' bzhed.
Summary
In the fifteenth century, the princess Chokyi Dronma was told by leading spiritual masters that she was the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo, the Thunderbolt Female Pig. Hildegard Diemberger builds her book around the translation of the first biography of Chokyi Dronma recorded by her disciples in the wake of her death. The account reveals an extraordinary phenomenon: Chokyi Dronma not only persuaded one of the highest spiritual teachers of her era to give her full ordination but was also officially recognized as one of two principal spiritual heirs to her main master--and she went on to establish a long, influential lineage and Buddhist order herself.Diemberger offers a number of theoretical arguments about the importance of reincarnation in Tibetan society and religion; the role of biographies in establishing a lineage; the necessity for religious teachers to navigate complex networks of political and financial patronage; the cultural and social innovation linked to the revival of ancient Buddhist civilizations; and the role of women in Buddhism. Four stage-setting chapters precede the biography, and four concluding chapters discuss the establishment of the reincarnation lineage and the role of the current incarnation under Tibet's peculiarly contradictory communist system.
