Research

• History for the Future: Politics and Aesthetics in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Cuckoo’s Song

  Ian MacCormack

  5-38

  2023-12-18

  This article translates and interprets several stanzas of poetry from the Cuckoo’s Song (Dpyid kyi rgyal mo’i glu dbyangs), the 1643 political history of Ti... More

• Notes on Shelkar Lingpa’s “Song of Lhasa Memories”

  Andrew Quintman, Kurtis R. Schaeffer

  73-83

  2023-07-26

  Few compositions of the early twentieth century hold a place as dear to the hearts of Tibetan readers as the “Song of Lhasa Memories.” This ornate poem,... More

• Capturing the Quotidian in the Everyday Renunciation of Buddhist Nuns in Tibet

  Somtso Bhum, Holly Gayley

  45-72

  2023-07-26

  In the novella “Lonely Soul” (ཁེར་རྐྱང་གི་རྣམ་ཤེས།), Tsedrön Kyi (ཚེ་སྒྲོན་སྐྱིད?... More

• Praise, Shame, Patronage, and Genre-Blurring: Revisiting Two Vajra Songs of Lama Zhang Tsalpa

  Carl Yamamoto

  5-43

  2023-07-26

  This paper looks at two gur, or “vajra songs,” of the controversial twelfth-century yogin, sorcerer, tantric adept, literary innovator, statesman, and m... More

• “Avadāna of Silver Flowers” : A Discussion on Decolonization and Anti-Colonial Translation Practices for Tibetan Poetry

  Gedun Rabsal, Nicole Willock

  7–46

  2022-11-15

  Our translation and analysis of sections of the epic poem, “Avadāna of Silver Flowers” showcases Tibetan-language poetics or “nyen-ngak” (snyan ngag). ... More

• Studies in the Life and Thought of Mkhas grub rje II: Notes on Poetry, Poetics and Other Things in Mkhas grub rje’s Oeuvre

  Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp

  75–109

  2022-11-15

  The poetic oeuvre of many Tibetan writers still remains relatively unexplored. The present essay deals with several pertinent aspects of the poetic oeuvre of Mk... More

• How to Read Like a Dead Horse Listens: Audience and Affect in "The Tale of the Separation of Horse and Kiang"

  Brandon Dotson

  47–73

  2022-11-15

  “The Tale of the Separation of Horse and Kiang,” a 9th- or 10th-century Tibetan ritual text recovered from Dunhuang, is a work of both simplicity and of ext... More

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