Barbara Gerke
Biographic Data
| ID | 176091 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Barbara Gerke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Barbara |
| FAMILY NAME | Gerke |
| SIGNATURE | GERKE B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5271-8394 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Pandemic Causation and Protection. Health and More-Than-Human Relations in Phushar Village, Bhutan
This paper explores pandemic narratives in Phushar village, Western Bhutan, focusing on the interplay between humans, local deities (tsen, gyap), Buddhist protector and tutelary deities and public health measures during COVID-19. Villagers combined deity appeasement rituals with divinations and public health measures. Memories of past epidemics shaped adherence to quarantine, physical distancing and modern healthcare. The narratives reflect a shi…
Sowa Rigpa, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Covid-19 Vaccines in India and Bhutan
In this paper, I explore how both the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India, and the Bhutanese government utilized Buddhist leaders and religious practices to promote public health measures during the pandemic, considering that there was a high acceptance rate of COVID -19 vaccination in these Buddhist communities. I also touch upon how classical Sowa Rigpa understandings of infectious disease transmission and prevention might have …
A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine, written by C. Pierce Salguero
Tibetan Medicine, Buddhism and Psychiatry: Mental Health and Healing in a Tibetan Exile Community, written by Susannah Deane
Thinking through complex webs of potency
The epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been in the headlines since December 2019. This Think Piece presents ethnographic vignettes from a recent (February 2020) field visit to Dharamsala, where the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and a Tibetan exile community reside in the northwestern Indian Himalayas. At that time there were no COVID-19 cases in India except in Kerala, South India, which ha…
Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion
This article examines the circulation of humanitarian ideas, materials, and actions in a non-biomedical and non-Judeo-Christian context: Sowa Rigpa or Tibetan medical camps in India and Nepal. Through these camps, practitioners and patients alike often overtly articulate Sowa Rigpa medicine as part of a broader humanitarian "good" motivated by a Buddhist-inflected ethics of compassion and a moral economy of care, diverging from mainstream public …
The Buddhist-Medical Interface in Tibet: Black Pill Traditions in Transformation
This paper introduces Tibetan pill traditions and examines two exceptional pill formulas that emerged from an early Buddhist-medical interface in Tibet, but followed different trajectories due to the increased specialization of religious and medical knowledge. "Black pills" are the most revered consecrated healing compound of the Karmapas (the incarnate heads of the Karma Kagyü School of Tibetan Buddhism), while the "Cold Compound Black Pill"-a p…
The Potency of Tradition: Turquoise, Coral, and Pearl in Sowa Rigpa
Turquoise, coral, rubies, diamonds, amber, and pearls are among the potent substances used in Tibet's medical traditions, specifically in 'precious pills' or rinchen rilbu (rin chen ril bu). Tibetan physicians use precious stones as medicines only after processing, without which none of them are considered medically beneficial. In this paper, I analyze three precious substances-turquoise, coral, and pearl-which appear together in many precious pi…
Introduction | Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia
Introduction to themed research articles on Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia
Gallery | Potent Substances in a Thirteenth Century Japanese Scroll Painting
Taee, Jonathan: The Patient Multiple. An Ethnography of Healthcare and Decision-Making in Bhutan
Anthropos , Seite 761 - 762
Naming and forgetting
Sowa Rigpa is generally translated as ‘the science of healing’ and often used synonymously for ‘Tibetan medicine’. Historically, Sowa Rigpa can be considered a borrowed term from Sanskrit, accompanied by an adopted sense of ‘science’, which initially signified all forms of medicine known to the Tibetan world, regardless of their place of origin. Over the centuries, Sowa Rigpa became linked to local, indigenous, and ‘enskilled’ practices; later, t…
Biographies and Knowledge Transmission of Mercury Processing in Twentieth Century Tibet
The processing of metallic mercury into the form of a mercury sulphide ash, called tsotel ( btso thal ), is considered the most refined pharmacological technique known in Tibetan medicine. This ash provides the base material for many of the popular “precious pills” ( rin chen ril bu ), which are considered essential by Tibetan physicians to treat severe diseases. Making tsotel and precious pills in Tibet’s past were rare and expensive events. The…
The Poison of Touch: Tracing Mercurial Treatments of Venereal Diseases in Tibet
Journal Article The Poison of Touch: Tracing Mercurial Treatments of Venereal Diseases in Tibet Get access Barbara Gerke Barbara Gerke * *Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Zentralasien-Seminar, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 28, Issue 3, August 2015…
Coproducing Efficacious Medicines: Collaborative Event Ethnography with Himalayan and Tibetan Sowa Rigpa Practitioners
This article emerges from a workshop titled "Producing Efficacious Medicine: Quality, Potency, Lineage, and Critically Endangered Knowledge," held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in December 2011. An experiment in collaborative event ethnography (CEE), this workshop brought together Tibetan medicine practitioners (amchi) from India, Nepal, and Tibetan regions of the People's Republic of China, with anthropologists who have been working with amchi for decade…
Manufacturing an Industry Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine: The Creation of an Industry and the Moral Economy of Tibetanness . By Martin Saxer. Oxford: Berghahn, 2013
The Social Life of Tsotel
No other compound in Tibetan medical pharmacology seems to be as fascinating, controversial, and enigmatic as tsotel ( btso thal , lit. ‘cooked ash’), the processed mercury sulphide ash that provides the base material of many of the popular Tibetan ‘precious pills’ ( rin chen ril bu ). The compound contains—apart from numerous herbs and other ingredients—eight metals and eight rock components. Tsotel practices, which can be traced back to the thi…
Treating Essence with Essence: Re-inventing bcud len as Vitalising Dietary Supplements in Contemporary Tibetan Medicine
Bcud len (pronounced chulen) or 'essence extraction' practices have been described in classical Tibetan medical and religious texts as an element of rejuvenation therapies and preventive antiageing methods. These practices include the ingestion of bcud len pills taken as a dietary supplement or as a substitute for food during meditation and fasting retreats. This paper 1 discusses how ideas of bcud len are interpreted by Men-Tsee-Khang-trained Ti…
Kalte Kräuter und Heisse Bäder: Die Anwendung der Tibetischen Medizin in den Klöstern Amdos (‘Cold Herbs and Hot Baths: The Application of Tibetan Medicine in Amdo’s Monasteries’)
"Kalte Kräuter und Heisse Bäder: Die Anwendung der Tibetischen Medizin in den Klöstern Amdos (‘Cold Herbs and Hot Baths: The Application of Tibetan Medicine in Amdo’s Monasteries’)" published on 01 Jan 2009 by Brill
Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World: Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice
Th is edited volume on Tibetan medicine stands on a par with the recently published volume Soundings of Tibetan Medicine, edited by Mona Schrempf (2007), although it is not based on conference proceedings.Th e papers are of a great variety, incorporating views from the practical clinical side of Tibetan medicine (Tokar) as well as contemporary anthropological studies.Th e studies range from Ladakh (Pordié), Nepal (Craig, Aumeeruddy-Th omas and La…
Coproducing Efficacious Medicines: Collaborative Event Ethnography with Himalayan and Tibetan Sowa Rigpa Practitioners
This article emerges from a workshop titled "Producing Efficacious Medicine: Quality, Potency, Lineage, and Critically Endangered Knowledge," held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in December 2011. An experiment in collaborative event ethnography (CEE), this workshop brought together Tibetan medicine practitioners (amchi) from India, Nepal, and Tibetan regions of the People's Republic of China, with anthropologists who have been working with amchi for decade…
Naming and forgetting
Sowa Rigpa is generally translated as ‘the science of healing’ and often used synonymously for ‘Tibetan medicine’. Historically, Sowa Rigpa can be considered a borrowed term from Sanskrit, accompanied by an adopted sense of ‘science’, which initially signified all forms of medicine known to the Tibetan world, regardless of their place of origin. Over the centuries, Sowa Rigpa became linked to local, indigenous, and ‘enskilled’ practices; later, t…
Thinking through complex webs of potency
The epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been in the headlines since December 2019. This Think Piece presents ethnographic vignettes from a recent (February 2020) field visit to Dharamsala, where the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and a Tibetan exile community reside in the northwestern Indian Himalayas. At that time there were no COVID-19 cases in India except in Kerala, South India, which ha…
Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion
This article examines the circulation of humanitarian ideas, materials, and actions in a non-biomedical and non-Judeo-Christian context: Sowa Rigpa or Tibetan medical camps in India and Nepal. Through these camps, practitioners and patients alike often overtly articulate Sowa Rigpa medicine as part of a broader humanitarian "good" motivated by a Buddhist-inflected ethics of compassion and a moral economy of care, diverging from mainstream public …
Sowa Rigpa, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Covid-19 Vaccines in India and Bhutan
In this paper, I explore how both the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India, and the Bhutanese government utilized Buddhist leaders and religious practices to promote public health measures during the pandemic, considering that there was a high acceptance rate of COVID -19 vaccination in these Buddhist communities. I also touch upon how classical Sowa Rigpa understandings of infectious disease transmission and prevention might have …
The Buddhist-Medical Interface in Tibet: Black Pill Traditions in Transformation
This paper introduces Tibetan pill traditions and examines two exceptional pill formulas that emerged from an early Buddhist-medical interface in Tibet, but followed different trajectories due to the increased specialization of religious and medical knowledge. "Black pills" are the most revered consecrated healing compound of the Karmapas (the incarnate heads of the Karma Kagyü School of Tibetan Buddhism), while the "Cold Compound Black Pill"-a p…
Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World: Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice
Th is edited volume on Tibetan medicine stands on a par with the recently published volume Soundings of Tibetan Medicine, edited by Mona Schrempf (2007), although it is not based on conference proceedings.Th e papers are of a great variety, incorporating views from the practical clinical side of Tibetan medicine (Tokar) as well as contemporary anthropological studies.Th e studies range from Ladakh (Pordié), Nepal (Craig, Aumeeruddy-Th omas and La…
Kalte Kräuter und Heisse Bäder: Die Anwendung der Tibetischen Medizin in den Klöstern Amdos (‘Cold Herbs and Hot Baths: The Application of Tibetan Medicine in Amdo’s Monasteries’)
"Kalte Kräuter und Heisse Bäder: Die Anwendung der Tibetischen Medizin in den Klöstern Amdos (‘Cold Herbs and Hot Baths: The Application of Tibetan Medicine in Amdo’s Monasteries’)" published on 01 Jan 2009 by Brill
Treating Essence with Essence: Re-inventing bcud len as Vitalising Dietary Supplements in Contemporary Tibetan Medicine
Bcud len (pronounced chulen) or 'essence extraction' practices have been described in classical Tibetan medical and religious texts as an element of rejuvenation therapies and preventive antiageing methods. These practices include the ingestion of bcud len pills taken as a dietary supplement or as a substitute for food during meditation and fasting retreats. This paper 1 discusses how ideas of bcud len are interpreted by Men-Tsee-Khang-trained Ti…
The Social Life of Tsotel
No other compound in Tibetan medical pharmacology seems to be as fascinating, controversial, and enigmatic as tsotel ( btso thal , lit. ‘cooked ash’), the processed mercury sulphide ash that provides the base material of many of the popular Tibetan ‘precious pills’ ( rin chen ril bu ). The compound contains—apart from numerous herbs and other ingredients—eight metals and eight rock components. Tsotel practices, which can be traced back to the thi…
Manufacturing an Industry Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine: The Creation of an Industry and the Moral Economy of Tibetanness . By Martin Saxer. Oxford: Berghahn, 2013
Biographies and Knowledge Transmission of Mercury Processing in Twentieth Century Tibet
The processing of metallic mercury into the form of a mercury sulphide ash, called tsotel ( btso thal ), is considered the most refined pharmacological technique known in Tibetan medicine. This ash provides the base material for many of the popular “precious pills” ( rin chen ril bu ), which are considered essential by Tibetan physicians to treat severe diseases. Making tsotel and precious pills in Tibet’s past were rare and expensive events. The…
The Poison of Touch: Tracing Mercurial Treatments of Venereal Diseases in Tibet
Journal Article The Poison of Touch: Tracing Mercurial Treatments of Venereal Diseases in Tibet Get access Barbara Gerke Barbara Gerke * *Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Zentralasien-Seminar, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 28, Issue 3, August 2015…
Coproducing Efficacious Medicines: Collaborative Event Ethnography with Himalayan and Tibetan Sowa Rigpa Practitioners
This article emerges from a workshop titled "Producing Efficacious Medicine: Quality, Potency, Lineage, and Critically Endangered Knowledge," held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in December 2011. An experiment in collaborative event ethnography (CEE), this workshop brought together Tibetan medicine practitioners (amchi) from India, Nepal, and Tibetan regions of the People's Republic of China, with anthropologists who have been working with amchi for decade…
Naming and forgetting
Sowa Rigpa is generally translated as ‘the science of healing’ and often used synonymously for ‘Tibetan medicine’. Historically, Sowa Rigpa can be considered a borrowed term from Sanskrit, accompanied by an adopted sense of ‘science’, which initially signified all forms of medicine known to the Tibetan world, regardless of their place of origin. Over the centuries, Sowa Rigpa became linked to local, indigenous, and ‘enskilled’ practices; later, t…
Taee, Jonathan: The Patient Multiple. An Ethnography of Healthcare and Decision-Making in Bhutan
Anthropos , Seite 761 - 762
The Buddhist-Medical Interface in Tibet: Black Pill Traditions in Transformation
This paper introduces Tibetan pill traditions and examines two exceptional pill formulas that emerged from an early Buddhist-medical interface in Tibet, but followed different trajectories due to the increased specialization of religious and medical knowledge. "Black pills" are the most revered consecrated healing compound of the Karmapas (the incarnate heads of the Karma Kagyü School of Tibetan Buddhism), while the "Cold Compound Black Pill"-a p…
The Potency of Tradition: Turquoise, Coral, and Pearl in Sowa Rigpa
Turquoise, coral, rubies, diamonds, amber, and pearls are among the potent substances used in Tibet's medical traditions, specifically in 'precious pills' or rinchen rilbu (rin chen ril bu). Tibetan physicians use precious stones as medicines only after processing, without which none of them are considered medically beneficial. In this paper, I analyze three precious substances-turquoise, coral, and pearl-which appear together in many precious pi…
Introduction | Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia
Introduction to themed research articles on Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia
Gallery | Potent Substances in a Thirteenth Century Japanese Scroll Painting
Tibetan Medicine, Buddhism and Psychiatry: Mental Health and Healing in a Tibetan Exile Community, written by Susannah Deane
Thinking through complex webs of potency
The epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been in the headlines since December 2019. This Think Piece presents ethnographic vignettes from a recent (February 2020) field visit to Dharamsala, where the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and a Tibetan exile community reside in the northwestern Indian Himalayas. At that time there were no COVID-19 cases in India except in Kerala, South India, which ha…
Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion
This article examines the circulation of humanitarian ideas, materials, and actions in a non-biomedical and non-Judeo-Christian context: Sowa Rigpa or Tibetan medical camps in India and Nepal. Through these camps, practitioners and patients alike often overtly articulate Sowa Rigpa medicine as part of a broader humanitarian "good" motivated by a Buddhist-inflected ethics of compassion and a moral economy of care, diverging from mainstream public …
A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine, written by C. Pierce Salguero
Sowa Rigpa, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Covid-19 Vaccines in India and Bhutan
In this paper, I explore how both the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India, and the Bhutanese government utilized Buddhist leaders and religious practices to promote public health measures during the pandemic, considering that there was a high acceptance rate of COVID -19 vaccination in these Buddhist communities. I also touch upon how classical Sowa Rigpa understandings of infectious disease transmission and prevention might have …
Pandemic Causation and Protection. Health and More-Than-Human Relations in Phushar Village, Bhutan
This paper explores pandemic narratives in Phushar village, Western Bhutan, focusing on the interplay between humans, local deities (tsen, gyap), Buddhist protector and tutelary deities and public health measures during COVID-19. Villagers combined deity appeasement rituals with divinations and public health measures. Memories of past epidemics shaped adherence to quarantine, physical distancing and modern healthcare. The narratives reflect a shi…
Medicine (16 works) · History (13 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Traditional medicine (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Buddhism (8 works) · Anthropology (7 works) · Ethnography (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works)