Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies

by Geoffrey Samuel

Civilized Shamans examines the nature and evolution of religion in Tibetan societies from the ninth century up to the Chinese occupation in 1950. Geoffrey Samuel argues that religion in these societies developed as a dynamic amalgam of strands of Indian Buddhism and the indigenous spirit-cults of Tibet. Samuel stresses the diversity of Tibetan societies, demonstrating that central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government at Lhasa, and the great monastic institutions around Lhasa formed only a part of the context within which Tibetan Buddhism matured. Employing anthropological research, historical inquiry, rich interview material, and a deep understanding of religious texts, the author explores the relationship between Tibet's social and political institutions and the emergence of new modes of consciousness that characterize Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Samuel identifies the two main orientations of this religion as clerical (primarily monastic) and shamanic (associated with Tantric yoga). The specific form that Buddhism has taken in Tibet is rooted in the pursuit of enlightenment by a minority of the people - lamas, monks, and yogins - and the desire for shamanic services (in quest of health, long life, and prosperity) by the majority. Shamanic traditions of achieving altered states of consciousness have been incorporated into Tantric Buddhism, which aims to communicate with Tantric deities through yoga. The author contends that this incorporation forms the basis for much of the Tibetan lamas' role in their society and that their subtle scholarship reflects the many ways in which they have reconciled the shamanic and clerical orientations. This book, the first full account of Tibetan Buddhism in two decades, ranges as no other study has over several disciplines and languages, incorporating historical and anthropological discussion. Viewing Tibetan Buddhism as one of the great spiritual and psychological achievements of humanity, Samuel analyzes a complex society th

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, History, Anthropology

725 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1993

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geoffrey Samuel's study of Buddhism in Tibetan societies is a massive tome, none of which seems extraneous or tangential to the work's focus, albeit a focus on nothing less than a detailed historical, doctrinal, and ritual analysis of Tibetan Buddhism in its myriad forms. With attention to its shifting Central-Asian sociopolitical context over the course of some fifteen centuries leading up to 1959, Samuel explains the adoption, assimilation, and development of Buddhism in Tibet as a dialogue amongst contrasting concerns of pragmatism and enlightened transcendence; political powers both foreign and indigenous, based in local lineage or aspiring to centralized statehood; antinomian yogic praxis and bodhicitta.

In Samuel's narrative, Buddhism's Tibetan trajectory resolves into two systems - the Gelugpa monastic order and the ecumenical Rimed movement - each synthesizing the clerical and shamanic tendencies inherent within Buddhism ever since its earliest genesis in India, with the clerical mode emphasizing the gradual, discursive path toward enlightenment and liberation, facilitated by the accrual of meritorious karma, and the shamanic concerned with effecting socially pragmatic ends by manipulating cultural patterns grasped in the transcendent state experienced by means of the shaman's vision/the Buddhist's prajna. Each ultimately serves distinctly different, but comparably vital, social functions.

Samuel's understanding of shamanism, and shamanic aspects of Buddhist practice, is explicitly grounded in his psycho-social theory of 'modal states', and while this interpretive frame has its merits, one should be aware that it colors his analysis. That being said, readers interested in almost any aspect of Buddhist thought, practice, or history, Tibetan or otherwise, should find this book a valuable resource.

[John Eliade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book that really felt like a trilogy. The first was as horizontal survey through Tibetan societies, taking a cruise through Amdo, Kham, central Tibet (U-Tsang), as well as Ladakh, Nepal, and the Indian Himalayas. I actually really loved this section because Samuel goes over some of the classics of primary source literature from the early 20th Century and evaluates them based on our modern reunderstandings of Tibetan history and with the perspective of time and additional literature. The second part goes over a brief survey of Tibetan Buddhism, going over the ways that Buddhism threads its way through Tibetan society, and how Tibet threads its way through the Buddhist religion, intertwining Buddhism's monks with Tibet's traditional shamans. Finally, Samuel ties those sections together through a vertical examination of the history of Buddhism through India and its passage into Tibet. All of this leading to Samuel's conclusion: shamanism remained a viable alternative in Tibetan society because of the challenges presented to the Gelugpa administration, the harsh geography of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and the inability of central control to exert total dominance and establish a complete and uniform theological rule and order.

At least, that was my understanding. I was led to this book when my professor criticised Samuel's ordering of society. (I can't currently remember what the precise criticism was...) But seeing as how the book was ~500 pages, I decdied that there must be something at least interesting in the book even if proper Doctorates in Tibetology disagreed with the Anthropologist. And that's an important angle to this book: Geoffrey Samuel is an Anthropologist, not a Tibetologist. That doesn't make his conclusions, findings, and research worthless - far from - but angled differently from the way a historian or linguist would. This also explains Samuel's insistence on using phonetic, Lhasa-dialect, except-when-conventional-spelling-is-better, instead of the tried and true, yet somewhat bizarre Wylie spellings for Tibetan words... and then including a massive glossary with translations of his spellings into Wylie.*

I'm not qualified to analyze and criticize his theory. It's very interesting, and based on what I know about Tibetic peoples, the history of the Himalayas, and Buddhism around the world, it holds up. That said, it seems to me like more of a reference work than a narrative history or analysis. Still solid.

*Ok, example because this drives me up a wall: the Tibetan word for monk is pronounced "gelong." But the way Tibetan language would spell the word is by stacking letters into blocks of syllables: "ge" and "long." But both of those syllables also have silent letters so the word should properly be transliterated as "dge slong." Which yes, looks extremely awkward for non-specialists. But that's not even the craziest. The proper name for Bhutan is "Druk Yul," or in Wylie, "'brug yul." Since there's so many shifts based on letter combinations, it would wreak havoc on a person's tongue who is not initiated in the Tibetan language. And Samuel clearly knows this. I'm just trying to figure out what kind of non-specialist is trying to read this 500 page long treatise on Tibetan Buddhism.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book for understanding Tibet in all its fascinating complexities. Is Tibetan Buddhism a disciplined, clerical religion developed over a thousand years, like its 'ancestor' religion in India? Or is it a shamanistic practice, more concerned with personal power and controlling the spirits of the weather and the mountains? What is the central power in Tibet -- political, religious, or both? And what is the role of China -- the real one, not the one the Chinese claim? Samuel lays out a complicated and (in many ways) tragic history of a people in constant flux against the backdrop of the ageless mountains of the Himalayas. This is a long, academic, and thoroughgoing book. But it repays the work involved in reading it for anyone interested in Tibet.

[A.L. Stumo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best introduction to Tibetan Buddhism I have ever seen because he looks at the culture in all its aspects and all the religion on all its layers. The opposite of generalizing or reductionist.