TY  - BOOK
AU  - Gerke,Barbara
TI  - Long lives and untimely deaths: life-span concepts and longevity practices among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India 
T2  - Brill's Tibetan studies library,
SN  - 9789004217485
AV  - DS432.T5 G47 2012
U1  - 305.895/4105414 23
CY  - Boston
PB  - Brill.
KW  - Tibetans
KW  - India
KW  - Darjeeling (District)
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - Religion
KW  - Longevity
KW  - Life span, Productive
KW  - Old age
KW  - Darjeeling (India : District)
KW  - Religious life and customs
KW  - Social life and customs
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index; Preliminary Material -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills: The Socio-Political and Historical Background -- 3 Contextualising Tibetan Longevity Practices -- 4 Temporal Dimensions of Life-forces -- 5 Detecting the Life-forces in the Body and the Life-span in the Pulse -- 6 Merit, Karma, Liberating Animals, and the Five Astrological Factors -- 7 Untimely Deaths, Remaining, and Maximum Life-spans -- 8 Divining the Life-span -- 9 Ritual Layers of Long-life Empowerments -- 10 The Sakya Tshe dbang: An Ethnographic Account of a Long-life Empowerment -- 11 Summary and Conclusions -- Appendices -- Glossary of Recurrent Tibetan and Sanskrit Terms -- List of Tibetan Proper Names -- Bibliography -- Index; Available to subscribing member institutions only
N2  - Longevity and long-life practices have been a pan-Tibetan concern for a very long time, but have hardly been studied by anthropologists. This book presents ethnographic accounts and textual material demonstrating how Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India, view the life-span and map out certain life-forces in various areas of knowledge. These life-forces follow daily, monthly, and annual cycles. Divinations and astrological calculations are widely but varyingly used by Tibetans to assess the strength of life-forces and forecast difficult periods in their lives. Loss, exhaustion, or periodic weaknesses of life-forces are treated medically or through Tibetan Buddhist practices and rituals. In all these events, temporality and agency are deeply interlinked in the ways in which Tibetans enhance their vitality, prolong their life-spans, and avoid ‘untimely deaths.’
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004217485
ER  -