M. James Gentry, professeur à l’Université de Stanford, sera directeur d’études invité à l’EPHE en mai par Marta Sernesi, et donnera une série de quatre conférences portera sur le thème « Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pill: A Material Cultural History of Tantra in Tibet » et aura lieu à la Maison de l’Asie (22, avenue du Président Wilson) aux dates suivantes :
- 6/05 (10h–12h Grand Salon) Crafting the Maṇi Pill: Kinship and Collective Practice in the Formation of a Buddhist Medicinal Tradition
- 14/05 (10h–12h salle du RDC) Narrating the Maṇi Pill: Tibetan Transformations of an Indian Literary Vignette
- 16/05 (10h–12h Grand Salon) Revitalizing the Maṇi Pill: Revelation, Redaction, and Consecration in 15th Century Tibet
- 29/05 (10h–12h Grand Salon) Reimagining the Maṇi Pill: Ritual Innovation and Invention of Tradition in 17th and 18th Century Tibet
Résumé :
Today the small reddish-brown maṇi pills are most famously produced by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935) from the relics of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and other past Indian and Tibetan saints, mixed with ingredients commonly used in Tibetan medicine, and consecrated for mass distribution and consumption through a liturgy centering on the bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteśvara and his mantra. Contemporary maṇi-pill traditions incorporate ritual, medicinal, and narrative elements from diverse sources, some of which stretch back over a millennium.My study traces the history of the maṇi pill over its longue-durée, from Indian Buddhist scriptures and practice traditions transmitted into Tibet in the eighth century, up to the present period, by examining its most pivotal transformations. Together, the four lectures will outline a material cultural history of tantra in Tibet at the nexus of its medicinal and ritual dimensions through the lens of this single pill tradition. In so doing, this lecture series will shed light on the Tibetan reception and adaptation of Indian Buddhist tantra with ramifications for the historical study of the interface between Buddhism and Tibetan medicine, and how this interface has influenced the formation and transformation of Tibetan conceptions of their identity and past.