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Founded in 1676, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Dominique Townsend investigates the ritual, artistic, and cultural practices inculcated at Mindröling to demonstrate how early modern Tibetans integrated Buddhist and worldly activities through training in aesthetics.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Translations and Transliterations
Introduction: Buddhist Aesthetics, the Cultivation of the Senses, and Beauty’s Efficacy
1. Historical Background: Laying the Foundation for Mindröling
2. A Pleasure Grove for the Buddhist Senses: Mindröling Takes Root
3. Plucking the Strings: On Style, Letter Writing, and Relationships
4. Training the Senses: Aesthetic Education for Monastics
5. Taming the Aristocrats: Cultivating Early Modern Tibetan Literati and Bureaucrats
Epilogue: Destruction and Revival: The Next Generation
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Dominique Townsend is assistant professor of Buddhist studies at Bard College. She is also a poet and the author of Shantideva: How to Wake Up a Hero (2015), a book about Buddhism for children and families.
Summary
Founded in 1676, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Dominique Townsend investigates the ritual, artistic, and cultural practices inculcated at Mindröling to demonstrate how early modern Tibetans integrated Buddhist and worldly activities through training in aesthetics.
Additional text
Dominique Townsend brings to her translations not only a careful reading of Classical Tibetan but also the insight and talents of a poet. She rightly situates Mindroling as the preeminent academy for scores of religious teachers and aristocratic officials, including the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, in seventeenth-century Tibet.
