The Origins of Himalayan Studies

The Origins of Himalayan Studies

Author: David Waterhouse

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-10-28

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1134383630

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Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and published extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Contributors from leading historians of Nepal and South Asia and from specialists in Buddhist studies, art history, linguistics, ornithology and ethnography, critically examine Hodgson's life and achievement within the context of his contribution to scholarship. Many of the drawings photographed for this book have not previously been published.


The Origins of Himalayan Studies

The Origins of Himalayan Studies

Author: David Waterhouse

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-10-28

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1134383649

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Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and published extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Contributors from leading historians of Nepal and South Asia and from specialists in Buddhist studies, art history, linguistics, ornithology and ethnography, critically examine Hodgson's life and achievement within the context of his contribution to scholarship. Many of the drawings photographed for this book have not previously been published.


Himalayan Histories

Himalayan Histories

Author: Chetan Singh

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2018-12-27

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1438475233

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Himalayan Histories, by one of India's most reputed historians of the Himalaya, is essential for a more complete understanding of Indian history. Because Indian historians have mainly studied riverine belts and life in the plains, sophisticated mountain histories are relatively rare. In this book, Chetan Singh identifies essential aspects of the material, mental, and spiritual world of western Himalayan peasant society. Human enterprise and mountainous terrain long existed in a precarious balance, occasionally disrupted by natural adversity, in this large and difficult region. Small peasant communities lived in scattered environmental niches and tenaciously extracted from their harsh surroundings a rudimentary but sustainable livelihood. These communities were integral constituents of larger political economies that asserted themselves through institutions of hegemonic control, the state being one such institution. This laboriously created life-world was enlivened by myth, folklore, legend, and religious tradition. When colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century, it transformed the peasants' relationship with their natural surroundings. While old political allegiances were weakened, resilient customary hierarchies retained their influence through religio-cultural practices.


Origins and Migrations in the Extended Eastern Himalayas

Origins and Migrations in the Extended Eastern Himalayas

Author: Toni Huber

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-02-03

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 9004226915

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Origins and migration are core elements in the histories, identities and stories of Tibeto-Burman-speaking populations in the extended eastern Himalayas. These essays explore theories of explaining origins and migration, methods for studying them and expressions of them in local cultures.


The Prisoner of Kathmandu

The Prisoner of Kathmandu

Author: Charles Allen

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781910376119

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The Prisoner of Kathmandu is the story of Brian Hodgson, Britain's "father of Himalayan studies." Born in 1801, Hodgson joined the Bengal Civil Service as a privileged but sickly young man. Posted to Kathmandu as a junior political officer, he initially felt isolated and trapped as he struggled to keep peace between the fiercely independent mountain kingdom and the British East India Company. Ultimately, his efforts were rewarded with an enduring friendship between Nepal and the United Kingdom. More than a biography of Hodgson and a study of political relations between countries, this book is also an in-depth look at the western Orientalist movement driven by the European Enlightenment. Hodgson, who studied Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhism, soon took interest in Nepal's biodiversity and the region's peoples and geography. He was also a key player in the struggle between those hoping to reshape India along British lines and those working to preserve local culture. Though overlooked in his own lifetime, Hodgson was later recognized as a major figure in Asian studies, a leader whose achievements have contributed to anthropology, ethnology, and natural history. The extraordinary story of an extraordinary man, The Prisoner of Kathmandu sets the record straight while illuminating the history of Asian studies in the West.


Trans-Himalayan Linguistics

Trans-Himalayan Linguistics

Author: Thomas Owen-Smith

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-12-12

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 311031083X

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The Himalaya and surrounding regions are amongst the world's most linguistically diverse places. Of an estimated 600 languages spoken here at Asia's heart, few are researched in depth and many virtually undocumented. Historical developments and relationships between the region's languages also remain poorly understood. This book brings together new work on under-researched Himalayan languages with investigations into the complexities of the area's linguistic history, offering original data and perspectives on the synchrony and diachrony of the Greater Himalayan Region. The volume arises from papers given and topics discussed at the 16th Himalayan Languages Symposium in London in 2010. Most papers focus on Tibeto-Burman languages. These include topics relating to individual - mostly small and endangered - languages, such as Tilung, Shumcho, Rengmitca, Yongning Na and Tshangla; comparative research on the Tibetic, East Bodish and Tamangic language groups; and several papers whose scope covers the whole language family. The remaining paper deals with the origins of Burushaski, whose genetic affiliation remains uncertain. This book will be of special interest to scholars of Tibeto-Burman, and historical as well as general linguists.


Himalayan Tectonics

Himalayan Tectonics

Author: P.J. Treloar

Publisher: Geological Society of London

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 1786204053

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The Himalaya–Karakoram–Tibet mountain belt resulted from Cenozoic collision of India and Asia and is frequently used as the type example of a continental collision orogenic belt. The last quarter of a century has seen the publication of a remarkably detailed dataset relevant to the evolution of this belt. Detailed fieldwork backed up by state-of-the-art structural analysis, geochemistry, mineral chemistry, igneous and metamorphic petrology, isotope chemistry, sedimentology and geophysics produced a wide-ranging archive of data-rich scientific papers. The rationale for this book is to provide a coherent overview of these datasets in addressing the evolution of the mountain ranges we see today. This volume comprises 21 specially invited review papers on the Himalaya, Kohistan arc, Tibet, the Karakoram and Pamir ranges. These papers span the history of Himalayan research, chronology of the collision, stratigraphy, magmatic and metamorphic processes, structural geology and tectonics, seismicity, geophysics, and the evolution of the Indian monsoon. This landmark set of papers should underpin the next 25 years of Himalayan research.


Himalayan Bronzes

Himalayan Bronzes

Author: Chandra L. Reedy

Publisher: Associated University Presse

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780874135701

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Himalayan Bronzes focuses on a complete study of 340 medieval-period copper alloy sculptures from the Himalayan regions of Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Nepal, and Tibet. For more than 1,500 years, artists in isolated valleys in and adjacent to the mountains of the Himalayas have created magnificent copper-based statues representing deities and spiritual leaders of the Hindu, Buddhist and Bon-Po religions. Author Chandra L. Reedy's multidisciplinary approach to the study of these statues integrates methods and techniques from art history, art conservation, geology, chemistry, statistics, archaeology, and ethnography to answer art historical and anthropological questions. Her guiding premise is that gathering and combining several types of information will result in more and better answers than any one type alone.


Being Human in a Buddhist World

Being Human in a Buddhist World

Author: Janet Gyatso

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2015-01-20

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 0231538324

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Critically exploring medical thought in a cultural milieu with no discernible influence from the European Enlightenment, Being Human in a Buddhist World reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It further studies the adaptation of Buddhist concepts and values to medical concerns and suggests important dimensions of Buddhism's role in the development of Asian and global civilization. Through its unique focus and sophisticated reading of source materials, Being Human adds a crucial chapter in the larger historiography of science and religion. The book opens with the bold achievements in Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso, then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authority on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It follows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. Being Human in a Buddhist World ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.