Tibetan Amulet Research

Amulet is one of the more common religious objects for the Tibetan ethnic group and the whole world, it produced in the same early period when supernatural sense of primitive human ancestors occurred. It was the religious expression in the world of ideas of human beings communication between human and divine supernatural universe, also was the most concrete "object representation" that the primitive humans good and evil philosophy of dualistic thinking occurred, so it proved the classical reasoning and the fact that "Human religion generally have a uniform starting point "of Max·Muller.Similarly, the Tibetan amulet was religious masterpiece of the Tibetan ancestor in the early period that lived in the snow-covered plateau of Tibetan areas, it was evidence of "the starting point of religious unity" that human religion existed in the Tibetan areas, in the other hand, it was the compelling evidence that Tibetan family source came from the local community, the fact is so eloquent which can not be tampered.Tibetan amulet was one of the religious physical forms that the Tibetan ancestors' thought changed from the chaos to binary logic, also was the process of the inner struggle of the self-confidence to achieve the embodiment of Personality when they faced with unpredictable nature, demonstrated the first ancient Tibetan China's strong personality.It gathered initial impulse of religious concepts and aesthetic values together, in which estimated Tibetan experienced difficult process from ancient history to today:Religion experienced primitive religion-Bon religion-Buddhism turnover, it deposited religious idea factors in different periods; The production of tools experienced Tibetan Stone Age-Bronze Age-Iron Age-the information age progression, it collected stone, bronze, iron and many vignettes of contemporary material.So, the Tibetan amulet was the carrier of the formation, development and variation of Tibetan religion, culture and customs, but also was the evidence of the development of productive forces in various historical stages, was "living fossil" to study the ancient Tibetan. The article combined field research and literature, used theoretical basis of Tibetan studies and associated with the anthropology, sociology, folklore and other disciplines to resolve the right religious essence of amulet and cultural symbols, etc. It raised the cultural content of Tibetan amulet, thus to show profound implication culture of the Tibetan amulet open.This paper consists of eight chapters, and the major content of each chapter in the following: The first chapter:the preface. It introduced purpose, significance, research methods, as well as domestic and international research trends of main topics.ChapterⅡ:the introduction of Tibetan amulet. It mainly clarified the concepts of Tibetan amulet, and the asymmetry between Chinese amulet and Tibetan talisman was sorted out; the Tibetan amulet and ancient Tibetan strong personality was discussed briefly; the amulet and the northern nomadic culture circle was discussed briefly to pave the way for the after chapters that discussed the Tibetan amulet which contained the exchange of Tibetan and the other around civilization.ChapterⅢ:the ideological foundation and the history of the Tibetan amulet. It mainly focused on the ideological basis and the principles of amulets, such as animism, the opposite view of good and evil, and applied Fraser's magic principles to explore the principles of making amulet.ChapterⅣ:the historical origins of Tibetan amulet. It sorted out and discussed the Amulet from the Tibetan community from the primitive religion-Bon-the evolution of the Buddhist period separately.ChapterⅤ:types of the Tibetan amulet. This chapter was focus part of the paper. It took the Tibetan amulet that was common in Tibetan areas as reference to sort into bone, precious stones, metals, painted surfaces and loose wide five major categories, then the next level of classification was made, and their cultural meaning and religious symbols were resolved.ChapterⅥ:the cultural functions of Tibetan amulet. It took Sociology of religion and folklore theory as the theoretical basis to analyze the cultural identity, social, religious and cultural functions of the Tibetan amulet.ChapterⅦ:the Tibetan amulet and contemporary cultural connotations. Tibetan amulet implied in the religious connotations, such as the Buddhist connotation and Bon religion connotation was analyzed from the Tibetan culture and Tibetan way of thinking.ChapterⅧ:the Tibetan amulet and contemporary culture. Tibetan amulet does exist in the Tibetan community had its antiquity, but with the strong wave of globalization today and the secularization of religion, it must face the contemporary with Tibetan culture. Therefore, the paper linked Tibetan amulet and contemporary culture to discuss cross-cultural, market and cultural values implicated in contemporary.