The Navel of the Demoness Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in Highland Nepal

This groundbreaking study focuses on a village called Te in a"Tibetanized" region of northern Nepal. While Te's people are nominallyBuddhist, and engage the services of resident Tibetan Tantric priests for arange of rituals, they are also exponents of a local religion that involvesblood sacrifices to wild, unconverted territorial gods and goddesses. Thevillage is unusual in the extent to which it has maintained its local autonomyand also in the degree to which both Buddhism and the cults of local gods havebeen subordinated to the pragmatic demands of the village community. Charles Ramble draws on extensive fieldwork, as well as 300 years' worth oflocal historical archives (in Tibetan and Nepali), to re-examine the subject ofconfrontation between Buddhism and indigenous popular traditions in the Tibetancultural sphere. He argues that Buddhist ritual and sacrificial cults are justtwo elements in a complex system of self-government that has evolved over thecenturies and has developed the character of a civil religion. This civilreligion, he shows, is remarkably well adapted to the preservation of thecommunity against the constant threats posed by external attack and theself-interest of its own members. The beliefs and practices of the local popularreligion, a highly developed legal tradition, and a form of government that isboth democratic and accountable to its people all these are shown to havedeveloped to promote survival in the face of past and present dangers. Ramble's account of how both secular and religious institutions serve as thebuilding blocks of civil society opens up vistas with important implications forTibetan culture as a whole.

Charles Ramble is Lecturer in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, University of Oxford.