A Study On Tibetan Folk Religion In The Farming Area Of Central Tibet

Tibetan folk religion embodies all kinds of religious system and folk beliefs and other cultural customs. Tibetan folk religion has been accumulated for a long time throughout the history and has a character of the mix-typed religion. In other words, Tibetan folk religion not only covers Buddhism and Bon religion, but also has accepted a great deal of folk ghosts, gods, cultural heroes, ancestors, the worship for deceased kings and all kinds of wizardry. Tibetan religion has absorbed some religious beliefs of the peripheral nations throughout the history. On the whole, it is a widely diffused and spontaneous Religious belief. It does not have rigorous religious organization, but there are some voluntary groups. It does not have systematic religious doctrines, but it has many half-professional or professional necromancers. It puts some wizardry into practice and includes necessary religious ceremonies. Nowadays, it is difficult to establish a set of study system about Tibetan folk religion without making much effort. Today's Tibetan folk religious belief is a mixture of many ideologies including Buddhism, Bon-po, some pneuma worship, folk ghosts and god adoration. Even if when folk necromancers host ceremonies with the characters of the other two kinds of religions, we can find the basic forms of the folk beliefs. Only detailed and scientific study of the theories of the folk religion and the analysis of historical literature review of this field can help us understand the origin of the folk beliefs. Based on the author's on-the-spot observation, together with the down-to-date research findings about Tibet both at home and abroad, this dissertation, which is composed of 9 chapters, elaborates and analyzes the beliefs, the styles, the various practices including rituals of folk religion in the Farming Area of Central Tibet and its historical evaluative course.Chapter 1 discusses the religious connection between Bon-po and Tibetan folk religion. Based on the historical materials and former researcher's achievements, this chapter analyzes the religious course of the institutionalization of ancient Tibetan Bon-po. This system came into being with the establishment of Tibetan dynasty, and it can be dated back to 7th century. During this age, Bon's disciples not only apotheosized regalia, but also provided relevant servings for the regnal policy. According to the different politics and social demands of dynasty, Bon-po produced more complicated professional divisions of work. All those facts discussed above indicate that Bon-po had already developed into a mature national religion at the early time of the establishment of Tibet regime in ancient China. At the same time, this chapter emphatically analyses the functions of systemic Bon-po in reserving the ancient religious traditions and elaborates the relationship between Bon-po and folk religions.Chapter 2 talks about the religious connection between Buddhism and Tibetan folk religion, mainly analyzes the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan folk religion and Indic folk religion including Tantra. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes the characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism and the course of how it became a folk religion. In addition, people's interests and attitudes related to religion, folk-orientation of Tibetan Buddhism, the functions of Padmasambhava in the process of Tibetan Buddhism folk-popularization and the gter-ma (hidden sutras or treasure) with folk beliefs relation are discussed in this chapter.Based on the data of on-the-spot observation and study, Chapter 3 focuses on the classifications of the deity and demon systems of the folk religion and its activity sites in central Tibet, discovering its basic meaning and representing forms, concluding that Tibetan beliefs have complementary relationship between the systematic religions such as Buddhism, Bon-po and folk religion; Buddhism and non-Buddhism are sometimes parallel. On the one hand, when Buddhism fails to cover some scopes, folk religion can make them up; on the other hand, Buddhism may offset what folk religion fails to include such as ultimate regards and deep thought of empathy. The deities in Buddhism and folk religion play roles in each other's realm, to offer different services to different believers.Chapter 4 classifies and sums up the local deity (yul-lha) worship and its cults, which are most prominent factors in Tibetan folk religion. With the help of the on-the-spot observation and historical findings, this chapter analyzes the characteristics of folk religion and the influence of the systematic religion upon it. It is believed that the local deities can be divided into four types according to the folk religious deity forms and characteristics given by people; the first type is local protective gods, whose representatives are yul-lha and skyes-lha; the second type is the regional deities who are the sign of local and individual spiritual source, whose representatives are gzhi-bdag and dgra-lha; the third type refers to the local deities, who can, clear up the divine power from other local protective gods, the typical deities are sa-bdag and klu; the forth type include special protective deities and power-combined deities who are at special role, whose representatives are vGo-bavi-lha-lnga and other famous power-combined deities such as dPal-ldan-lha-mo, Pe-har etc.The 5^th Chapter mainly talks about the central concept of the beliefs of Tibetan folk religion by elaborating the ritualistic documents related to Bon-po and Buddhism: the concept of soul and its related Rituals. The use of mDos and gLud, which are two important implements in the cults, is specially analyzed in this chapter. Moreover, this chapter makes a comparative study between the rituals of Evocation and Demon-lustration used widely in the community. At the same time, a belief called Das log which means the returning from hell in local Tibetan is introduced.Chapter 6 deals with the recovery-witchcraft and some amulets including the* charms by analyzing the various block-prints of paper or textile from the temples in Tibet. Meanwhile, some special recovery implements are discussed by giving typical examples.In the 7^th Chapter, the author analyzes the folk religious organization mode and its religious authorities and studies the characters and social functions of the folk religious organization named skyid-sdug, chos-grogs, describing some systematic religious activities in Tibetan village, comparing them with the theory of the cult circle and belief circle raised by scholars in Taiwan province.Chapter 8 provides the readers with a detailed study of the status of Tibetan necromancers, including their kinds, social classifications and social functions by giving examples of their great changes in the modern society. Their social functions and influence on the modem life is reflected in an interview of a necromancer.Chapter 9 summarizes the prevalent auguries in Tibet. Three auguries are elaborated in details: twitter augury, dice augury and Tibetan magic square (sMe-ba-dgu) augury.