While providing unique and detailed information on early Tibeto-Burman languages and their contact and relationship to other languages, this book at the same times sets out to establish a field of Tibeto-Burman comparative-historical linguistics based on the classical Indo-European model. With papers by C. Bauer on Burmese and Mon, C. Beckwith on Old Tibetan syllable margins, B. Zeisler on Tibetan case marking, R. Yanson on Burmese historical phonology, G. Jacques on Tangut rimes, K. Iwasa on early Lolo manuscripts, v. Kasevich on the causative in Tibeto-Burman, and C. Beckwith on old Tibetan...

This book is the first description of Kulung, a complex-pronominalising Kiranti (Tibeto-Burman) language spoken in eastern Nepal. This grammar of Kulung is an exhaustive reference work for Tibeto-Burman linguistics, language typology, and linguistic theory.

Since their discovery a century ago, the Dunhuang manuscripts have revolutionized the study of Asian religions. Until recently, however, the rich materials relating to esoteric tantric Buddhism have been largely ignored. This volume provides an indispensable doorway into these materials. An introduction summarizes the discovery, worldwide dissemination and general character of these Tibetan treasures. The catalogue entries provide introductory discussions of the manuscripts' contents, in addition to reordering the often scrambled folios, linking them to their long-lost counterparts in other...

Collectively, the papers of this volume reveal the cultural dynamism of Tibet in the period between 900 and 1400CE, when the fundamental contours of Tibetan Buddhism were still fluid and highly contested. The papers address a spectrum of issues in Tibetan religion and literature, ranging in time and space from the far eastern oasis of Dunhuang in the tenth century through 'high classical' developments in Central Tibet in the early fifteenth century. It is divided into four parts, addressing respectively literary and religious issues in tenth-century Dunhuang, the textual history of the Old...

Essays discussing transdisciplinary methodology introduce case studies on Buddhist manuscripts, inscriptions, art and oral traditions of the Indian Himalayas and Central Tibet. The research was carried out within the context of an Interdisciplinary Research Unit financed by the Austrian Science Fund.

This anthropological study of Ladakh analyses the means by which small communities create spaces of order amidst the heterogeneous forces of modernity. In doing so it also filling a conspicuous gap in the secondary literature on Tibetan law.

This book presents the first comprehensive anthropological account of premodern Tibetan pastoral economy and social organization in the Kham region of eastern Tibet, and convincingly readdresses anthropological debates and political claims about feudalism or serfdom in Tibetan societies.

The study of the rise and institutions of the Tibetan empire of the seventh to ninth centuries, and of the continuing development of Tibetan civilization during the obscure period that followed, have aroused growing interest among scholars of Inner Asia in recent decades. The six contributions presented here represent refinements in substance and method characterizing current work in this area. A chapter by Brandon Dotson provides a new perspective on law and divination under the empire, while the post-imperial international relations of the Tsong kha kingdom are analyzed by Bianca Horlemann....

This is the first major publication in the West to study the modernity and its impact on contemporary Tibet. Based on field work by researchers from the fields of anthropology, sociology, environmental science, literature, art and linguistics, it presents essays on education, economics, childbirth, environment, caste, pop music, media and painting in Tibetan communities today. The findings emerge from studies carried out in Ladakh, Golok, Lhasa, Xining, Shigatse and other areas of the Tibetan world. It will provide important and sometimes surprising results for students of Tibet, China,...

This volume focuses on the interface between Mongolian and Tibetan cultures and aims to create a platform to encourage the development of new forms of scholarship across geographical and disciplinary boundaries. This forum lets new materials emerge and brings to the fore a variety of different approaches to studying Mongolian and Tibetan cultures and societies. The papers in this volume deal not only with the substantial Mongolian contribution to and engagement with Tibetan Buddhism, but also with multiple readings of shared history and religion, reconstruction of traditions, shifting ethnic...