- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Columbia University Press (28 Dec 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0231143206
- ISBN-13: 978-0231143202
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 16 x 3.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,314,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Exhibits that rare combination of meticulous historical research and lively prose in recounting a tale that is sure to intrigue readers. -- Holly Gayley Buddhadharma Fall 2008 A significant contribution to Tibetan cultural history and gender studies. -- Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol 77, No 4 Finnane has produced an impressive history of modern Chinese fashion. -- Robert Culp The Journal of Asian Studies Vol 68, No 1 There are too many points of interest in this brilliany and often innovating book to be mentioned here. Historian 10/1/10
Product Description
In the fifteenth century, the princess Chokyi Dronma was told by the leading spiritual masters of her time that she was the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo, the Thunderbolt Female Pig. After suffering a great personal tragedy, Chokyi Dronma renounced her royal status to become a nun, and, in turn, the tantric consort of three outstanding religious masters of her era. After her death, Chokyi Dronma's masters and disciples recognized a young girl as her reincarnation, the first in a long, powerful, and influential female lineage. Today, the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo leads the Samding monastery and is a high government cadre in the Tibet Autonomous Region. 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: although it had been believed that women in Tibet were not allowed to obtain full ordination equivalent to monks, Chokyi Dronma not only persuaded one of the highest spiritual teachers of her era to give her full ordination but also established orders for other women practitioners and became so revered that she was officially recognized as one of two principal spiritual heirs to her main master. 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 introductory, 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 the peculiarly contradictory communist system.
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This book is about a woman born five hundred years ago in southwestern Tibet, recognized by two of the greatest scholars of her time as the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, and known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo or "the Thunderbolt Female Pig." Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
This book is about a woman born five hundred years ago in southwestern Tibet, recognized by two of the greatest scholars of her time as the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, and known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo or "the Thunderbolt Female Pig." Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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