Bowing with Words

Paper, Ink, and Bodies in Tibetan Buddhist Epistles

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8201267
AutoresChristina Kilby (James Madison University), Christina A Kilby (James Madison University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume87
Fascículo1
Páginas260-281
Data de publicação2019-03-06
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfy036
OpenAlexW2908557194
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas13

This article analyzes the ritual dimensions of Tibetan epistolary style. By examining the material aspects of handwritten Tibetan epistles—paper size and shape, script size and style, text spacing and margins—along with the formal instructions found in Tibetan epistolary manuals, I show how an epistle’s physical constitution renders two bodies performing a symbolic display of hierarchy on the page. This display of hierarchy is most dramatic in the genre of the epistle offered to a superior, in which the body of the writer bows in homage before the body of the recipient. I use this study to contribute to a Tibetan hermeneutic that reads texts as devotional subjects with ritual agency. More broadly, I also argue that bibliographical analysis (focused on a text’s physical production and material features) can radically shift an understanding of the genre in which that text participates.

Art · Buddhism · Constitution · Hierarchy · Linguistics · Literature · Style (visual arts) · Asian Studies and History · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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