Jue Liang

This article documents the history and social effects of the khenmo (mkhan mo) program at Larung Gar (Bla rung sgar), the first institution in Tibet to systematically grant nuns advanced Buddhist degrees. We argue that Jigme Phuntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs, 1933-2004), Larung’s 1 The authors wish to thank the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, the American Academy of Religion, the Double Hoo Award at the University of Virginia, the Jefferson Scholars Foundation at the University of Virginia, and the Ellen Bayard Weedon Travel Grant at the University of Virginia, each of whom helped to fund this research. The authors also wish to thank Holly Gayley for her insightful feedback and encouragement, JBE’s anonymous reviewer for the thoroughness of their read and the constructive nature of their comments, David Germano, Shoko Metata, and the indomitable Tsering Say. 2 Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia. Email: jl4nf@virginia.edu (Jue Liang); ast9qs@virginia.edu (Andrew...

Liang, Jue. "Branching from the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the Extensive Life of Ye shes mtsho rgyal." In About Padmasambhava: Historical Narratives and Later Transformations of Guru Rinpoche, edited by Geoffrey Samuel and Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie, 169-185. Schongau: Garuda Verlag, 2020.

This article documents the history and social effects of the khenmo (mkhan mo) program at Larung Gar (Bla rung sgar), the first institution in Tibet to systematically grant nuns advanced Buddhist degrees. We argue that Jigme Phuntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs, 1933-2004), Larung’s founder, started the program in hopes of challenging the public perception of women as incapable of advanced learning. Legitimating nuns as a field of merit for donors represented an important step in his larger project of changing the status of nuns and women in Tibetan society more generally. We begin with a brief history of Larung, demonstrating how Jigme Phuntsok’s singular vision of gender equality in Buddhist education and practice led to the arrival of thousands of nuns to his small encampment. We proceed to give an overview of the khenmo program, including its curriculum and degree requirements. We conclude with an examination of the social effects of the khenmo movement, exploring how the presence of educated nuns is changing both women’s self-understandings of their own practice and lay attitudes toward women’s religious capacities.

Within the diverse traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, the power of books—both printed and hand-written—lies not only in their contents, but also in their materiality as objects. While these texts primarily transmit the words of the Buddha(s), the teachings of Buddhist masters, and the commands of Buddhist leaders, they can also function as ritual objects, protective talismans, and instruments of political authority. The three scholars on this panel shared bibliographical studies of Tibetan texts that highlight how text production, circulation, and replication within architectural spaces has been utilized by Tibetan religious and political leaders to assert and solidify their power.

Rebecca Bloom discussed an illustrated commentary on the Buddhist monastic code and the series of murals inspired by it, which were initially composed and commissioned by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in the 1920s in order to purify the monastic community and protect the state he led.

Jue Liang queried the notion of a stable, unchanging “text” by introducing a series of emanations of the same life story of Yeshe Tsogyel, the preeminent female saint of Tibet. In this case, the life story appears as individual texts as well as a part of an extensive hagiography of her teacher, Padmasambhava. It is discovered independently by two Buddhist teachers almost a century apart. It is also copied, abridged, edited, and attached to other life accounts in the course of migration through different parts of the Tibetan Buddhist world.

On a search for the true location of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s 17th-century printing house, Ben Nourse examined evidence from the autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the continuation of that biography by his last regent, and from colophons and stylistic elements of editions produced at this location, where the largest catalog of printing blocks in Tibet up to that time were created.

Panelists:
Rebecca Bloom, Assistant Director of Curatorial Affairs and Interpretation at the Southern Utah Museum of Art at Southern Utah University

Jue Liang, Assistant Professor of Religion, Denison University

Benjamin Nourse, Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies, University of Denver

"Comparative Buddhist Sexual Ethics"

Kali Nyima Cape, Jue Liang, Sarah Jacoby, Sharon Suh, James Robson, and Amy Langenberg

Willa Blyth Baker (moderator)

September 19 2021

This conversation is part of "Abuse, Sex and the Sangha: A Series of Healing Conversations," which brings together practitioners and scholars to examine multiple dimensions of abuse in Buddhist contexts and articulate best practices for building safe and inclusive sanghas.

Sponsored by the Religion & Sexual Abuse Project, funded in part by The Henry Luce Foundation

Presented by David Germano
Discussants: Jue Liang and Janet Gyatso
Facilitator: Elena Pakhoutova

Padmasambhava’s teachings are primarily preserved in texts classified as treasures (terma). This unique tradition asserts that he concealed his teachings, both in the physical landscape and in the minds of his disciples in 8th-century Tibet, and prophesied their future revelation. Padmasambhava’s Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal is said to have been instrumental in the gathering and continuation of his teachings. This session will explore the treasure tradition’s historical development by focusing on the complex issue of the discoverer’s identity and the process of revelation, as evidenced in the Heart Essence of the Ḍākinīs (mkha’ ’gro snying thig) and the Innermost Essence of the Ḍākinīs (mkha’ ’gro yang thig), two collections of terma teachings from the 14th century. The presentation will be followed by responses from the two discussants, paying special attention to the important role of consorts in the concealment and revelation of treasures.

The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of Leonard van der Kuijp, whose groundbreaking research in Tibetan intellectual and cultural history imbued his students with an abiding sense of curiosity and discovery.

As part of Leonard van der Kuijp’s research in Tibetan history, he patiently and expertly revealed treasures of the Tibetan intellectual tradition in fourteenth-century Tsang, seventeenth-century Lhasa, or eighteenth-century Amdo. The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of the honoree and express the comprehensive research that his international cohort has engaged in alongside his generous tutelage over the course of forty years. His inquisitiveness can be experienced through every one of his writings and can be found as well in these new essays in intellectual, cultural, and institutional history by Christopher Beckwith, Yael Bentor, the late Hubert Decleer, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Jörg Heimbel and David Jackson, Nathan Hill, Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, Matthew Kapstein, Todd Lewis, Kurtis Schaeffer, Peter Schwieger, Gray Tuttle, Pieter Verhagen, Michael Witzel, and others.