Abstract:
Literary narratives of Yeshe Tsogyel, the foremost Buddhist woman in Tibet, offer us a rich discourse on womanhood and motherhood in the Tibetan Treasure tradition. In this lecture, I consider three of her paradoxical identities – as the female embodiment of the land of Tibet, she readily cooperates with a Indian Buddhist teacher, instead of resisting conversion; she called herself as a nun despite not being a celibate practitioner; additionally, without any children of her own, Yeshe Tsogyel was constantly referred to by her disciples as a mother, or even “the mother of Tibet.” These multifaceted identities, understood as mythical accounts that mediate the impossible, reveal a dialectic that shifts between Tibetan women’s social and cultural marginalization and a Buddhist discourse of soteriological inclusivity. They also allow Nyingma Buddhist theorists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to create a space for a flexible treatment of gender that bridges theological terms and embodied reality.
Bio:
Jue Liang is a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism whose research and teaching engage with questions about continuities and innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular. Her first book, Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel, presents new insight into the literary tradition of Yeshe Tsogyel, Tibet’s foremost Buddhist woman, and suggests new ways of understanding gender in Buddhist as well as other religious communities.
Cara Snajczuk
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