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SUMMARY:Why did Books come down from the Sky?  Or is there a Grain of Trut
 h in an Old Buddhist Literary Topos?
DTSTART:20230419T120000Z
DTEND:20230419T140000Z
DTSTAMP:20260416T204745Z
UID:why-did-books-come-down-from-the-sky-or-is-there-a-9303@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:BuddhistRoad Guest Lecture by Joanna Bialek (Berlin)\n\nThe le
 cture will be live at Zoom. Please pre-register until 18 April 2023\, 12 p
 m. Zoom lecture time: 2 pm (CEST)\n\nThe story of books coming from the sk
 y is presented in native Tibetan historiographies and histories of religio
 n as the first appearance of Buddhist teachings in the Yarlung Kingdom (?
 –6th c.) and as such it became an indispensable element in western textb
 ooks on Tibetan Buddhism. Its standard formulation has a set of books cont
 ained in a casket that falls down from the sky and lands on the roof of a 
 royal palace during the reign of king Lha Totori Nyentsen (Tib. Lha Tho th
 o ri gNyan bTsan). The story in its earliest known variants consists of at
  least three originally independent motifs that were linked to each other 
 and woven into one topos most probably not earlier than in the 11th or 12t
 h century. The motifs are: (1) the first encounter with Buddhism during th
 e reign of Lha Totori Nyentsen\; (2) books falling from the sky\; and (3) 
 valued works enclosed in a casket. Even though questioned by Nelpa Paṇ
 ḍita (fl. 13th c.\, Nel pa Paṇḍita)\, the historical value of the st
 ory has been rather widely acknowledged by Tibetan scholars and should rec
 eive additional support from the analysis presented in the paper. I attemp
 t to elucidate two main problems related to the story: (1) the presumed in
 dependent origins of the single motifs\; and (2) the historical events vei
 led behind the seemingly legendary account. Moreover\, textual and linguis
 tic analyses shall support the hypothesis that some parts of the story mus
 t have originated in a multicultural and multilingual environment for whic
 h Central Asian oases would be an ideal candidate. A comparison of this sh
 ort account across various sources provides interesting insights on the so
 cio-historical background of the compositions\, informing our understandin
 g of the processes of social and cultural change.\n\nJoanna Bialek receive
 d her master’s degree in Religious Studies from the Jagiellonian Univers
 ity\, Krakow (Poland) and completed her Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies at the Ph
 ilipps University\, Marburg (Germany). She led a postdoctoral research on 
 grammar of Old Literary Tibetan at the Central Asian Seminar\, the Humbold
 t University (Berlin\, Germany). Her research interests include Old and Cl
 assical Tibetan languages\, Old Tibetan ritual literature\, historical dev
 elopment of Tibetan religious languages\, as well as funeral rituals on th
 e Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas. Her most recent publications inclu
 de: Joanna Bialek. A Textbook in Classical Tibetan. London: Routledge\, 20
 22.\, Joanna Bialek. “Social Roots of Grammar: Old Tibetan Perspective o
 n Grammaticalization of Kinterms.” In Crossing Boundaries. Tibetan Studi
 es Unlimited\, edited by Diana Lange\, Jarmila Ptáčková\, Marion Wettst
 ein and Mareike Wulff\, 253–88. Prague: Academia Publishing House\; Joan
 na Bialek. “Naming the Empire: from Bod to Tibet. A Philologico-Historic
 al Study on the Origin of the Polity.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 61 (
 2021): 339–402\; and Joanna Bialek. “Body Exposure and Embalming in th
 e Tibetan Empire and Beyond. A Study of the btol Rite.” Acta Orientalia 
 Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 74.4 (2021): 625–650.\n\nTo join the le
 cture\, please register at https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/meeting/regist
 er/u50rcuuvrT8qGdDtdrFAPfTL0N8XT_H-MhWK
LOCATION:Online-Veranstaltung
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/de/events/why-did-books-come-down-from-the-sky-or
 -is-there-a/
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