Preface

Preface
The field work in Nepal upon which much of this book is based was carried out
with the support of grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the
National Science Foundation, and with the kind permission of His Majesty's
Government of Nepal. Further research support was provided by a grant from the
Emory University Research Committee. I wish to express my gratitude to these
institutions, as well as to Robert Detweiler and the Institute of Liberal Arts for
providing a congenial and productive atmosphere, and to Ellen Mickiewicz for her
generosity and confidence in my work.
Practical preparations in conducting fieldwork (122)
Among the many friends, colleagues, and mentors from whom I have received
valuable encouragement, criticism, and guidance, I would like to thank in particular
Steve Barnett, Karen Blu, Jean-Paul Dumont, T.N. Pandey, Paul Rabinow, Renato
Rosaldo, Buck Schieffelin, David Schneider, Melford Spiro, and Harriet
Whitehead. I would like to pay special tribute to the late Shelly Rosaldo, whose
superb critical intelligence was a constant source of inspiration and challenge to
me. Something of Shelly lives in the way she shaped the thinking of so many of us.
My research has been since its inception a cooperative effort with Sherry Ortner.
My debt to her exceeds my powers of expression, but I would like to acknowledge
the great influence her ethnographic understanding and theoretical insight has had
on my work. I owe a great deal, needless to say, to many Sherpas, but I particularly
want to single out for thanks Mingma Tenzing Sherpa, whose contribution to the
completion of this project has been of inestimable value. I owe an inexpressible
debt for the completion of this book to Barrie Simmons, and another to Paul
Watson. Lawrence Epstein has very graciously shared with me his profound
knowledge of all matters Tibetan, and I am deeply grateful to him for his interest in
and criticism of my work.
Organization and analysis of results of research (128)
My task in preparing this manuscript has been greatly lightened by the excellent
secretarial assistance of June Mann, Rosalyn Phillips, and Sher Castro. The [Page x]
editorial assistance of Barbara Sigman and the talents of Katharine Dahl have been
of immeasurable value. Jane Kromm, too, made greatly appreciated contributions
to my research. My thanks to all of them.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Leslee Nadelson, who has given me her support,
wisdom, and criticism in just the right measure.
Note: It has been necessary for economic reasons to eliminate all diacritical signs
from the transcription of Sanskrit words in this edition. I regret this, but I trust
that those who know Sanskrit will be able to supply them themselves, while those
who do not won't notice the difference. The transcription of Tibetan is according
to the Wylie system.
1 Introduction: The One and the Many
In A.D. 842 the anti-Buddhist king of Tibet Glang-dar-ma was assassinated by a

Buddhist monk named Dpal-gyi-rdo-rje. During his six-year reign the heretical
king had almost succeeded in wiping out Buddhism in Tibet, where it had only
recently gained a foothold. His assassination not only brought to an end the
Yarlung dynasty, which had ruled Tibet since time immemorial, but also eliminated
the last serous opponent of Buddhism. Buddhism proceeded to dominate Tibet for
the next millennium.
Traditional history (173)
This momentous deed, one of the best known incidents in Tibetan history and
legend, occurred in the following way. The pious hermit, while meditating in his
cave not far from Lhasa, was instructed by a goddess to put an end to the heretic
king's career for his own good. One version of what happened next is related by
Waddell.
This Lama, to effect his purpose, assumed the guise of a strolling black-hat devil
dancer, and hid in his ample sleeves a bow and arrow. His dancing below the king's
palace…attracted the attention of the king, who summoned the dancer to his
presence, where the disguised Lama seized an opportunity while near the king to
shoot him with an arrow, which proved almost immediately fatal. In the resulting
tumult the Lama sped away on a black horse, which was tethered near at hand, and
riding on, plunged through the Kyi river on the outskirts of Lhasa, whence his
horse emerged in its natural white colour, as it had been merely blackened by soot,
and he himself turned outside the white lining of his coat, and by this strategem
escaped his pursuers (Waddell 1972, 34–35).
My interest in this tale was greatly augmented by the discovery that one of the
dominant religious figures in the Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal (where I did
fieldwork), a refugee from the Tibetan monastery of Rong-phug called 'Khrulzhig
Rin-po-che, was considered by his followers to be a reincarnation of Dpal-gyi-rdo-
rje. Like his illustrious predecessor in a former life, 'Khrul-zhig Rin-poche [Page 2]
had been forced to confront anti-Buddhist persecution, this time in the form of the
Chinese. Unlike his earlier incarnation he had not chosen the path of violence but
had rather led his fellow monks to safety in an area where the Buddhist doctrine
could continue to flourish while it underwent an eclipse in Tibet itself.
It is not often that one has the opportunity of meeting in the flesh the hero of a
legendary tale from the ninth century, and this encounter certainly helped direct my
attention to the whole question of dying kings and their murderers, a subject once
the focus of major anthropological interest but more recently relegated to a less
glorious position. The divine king in our time has been slain not by the assassin's
knife but by apathy. “No one cares how many mother goddesses are brought to
light or how many sacred kings are killed,” notes Evans-Pritchard (1962, 42). 1
Perhaps it is easier to take an interest in the killing of kings when you are
personally acquainted with someone who has killed one (albeit in a former life).
Whatever the reasons, my own reflections starting out from this theme have led
me to some interesting conclusions regarding not only Tibetan culture and society,
but society and culture in general. This book represents an attempt to spell these
out in detail.
Theoretical orientation in research and its results (121)
One of the reasons why divine kings have gone out of fashion in anthropology is
that they represent an outmoded theoretical approach, namely, the attempt to
discover universal categories. After one has established that there is such a thing as
a divine king, the subsequent research problems involve either matching particular
examples against the model to see how well they fit, or else attempting diffusionist
trackings of distribution patterns.
A fine example of the failings of this approach may be seen in Lord Raglan's
famous study of the hero (1936), 2 a proposed universal category closely related to
that of the divine king. Raglan's method is to set up the story of Oedipus as the
ideal type of hero tale, and then to break it down into twenty-two elements—
mythemes if you will—such as “his mother is a royal virgin,” or “the circumstances
of his conception are unusual.” Any candidate for the category can then be given a
score of zero to twenty-two, depending on how well he matches the theoretical
model. Thus Heracles scores seventeen points, Apollo only eleven, and Moses an
impressive twenty-one.
But what does any of this prove? That Oedipus and Moses are practically identical?
Clearly they are not. Or that Apollo was only one-half a hero? Raglan's abstract
model is so vague and general that even for the culture area to which it is confined,
the greater Mediterranean world, it explains little.
In a survey of the notion of the dying and reviving god in various ancient Near
Eastern civilizations, Henri Frankfort concludes that merely labeling all such
figures as examples of Frazer's famous dying god obscures more than it reveals,
because in each case the symbol is used to express radically different cosmological
ideas. Frankfort argues for the careful and detailed study of ideas within their
particular cultural content.
I have emphasized the danger of comparing religious phenomena sharing common
features and warned against the emphasis on similarities, torn from the cultural
context which holds the secret of their significance…. In the case of comparisons
between cultures which are not contemporary but consecutive; not independent,
but admittedly related, the danger is even greater. The choice seems to lie between
two evils. One can draw up a whole list of similarities which ignore the essential
character of the beliefs compared…. Or one may stress the new meaning of old
cultural forms… and treat the apparent survival as a wholly original creative act
(Frankfort 1958, 151).
Aiming specifically at Frazer's dying god, Frankfort thus dismisses both the
typological and the ethnohistorical value of the “universal categories” approach.
Similar points have been made recently in what has become known as symbolic
anthropology. Thus, for example, in the field of kinship, recent works by Schneider
(1968) and others have criticized the use of kinship “categories” which are really
only symbolic constructs from our own culture. 3 In this vein, Needham (1971)
has attacked such apparently harmless concepts as incest, descent, marriage, even
kinship itself. He suggests that such categories can give us, at best, nothing but
“family resemblances” between our own concepts and those we study.
Geertz's critique (1973) of the search for an explanation of culture in terms of

some universal fact or necessity contains similar complaints that the results of such
an approach, in the light of human diversity, could only be the most vapid
generalizations.
The problem here is…not so much whether in a general way this sort of
congruence exists, but whether it is more than a loose and indeterminate one. It is
not difficult to relate some human institutions to what science…tells us are
requirements for human existence, but it is very much more difficult to state this
relationship in unequivocal form.
…Despite first appearances, there is no serious attempt here to apply the concepts and theories of
biology, psychology, or even sociology to the analysis of culture…but merely a placing of supposed
facts from the cultural and subcultural levels side by side so as to induce a vague sense that some
kind of relationship between them obtains (Geertz 1973, 42).
Having claimed that all such an approach can produce are “more or less persuasive
analogies, parallelisms, suggestions, and affinities (ibid. 43), Geertz makes the
further point that even if substantial universals and specific connections could be
produced, “the question still remains whether such universals should be taken as
the central elements in the definition of man, whether a lowest-common-
denominator view of humanity is what we want anyway” (ibid.).
If, then, the choice boils down to one between empty platitudes about universals
and detailed descriptions and analyses of particulars, anthropology must of course
choose the latter. But as Frankfort himself points out, both these options are evils,
and the latter is merely the preferable one. Either choice is ultimately unsatisfactory
because the realm of ethnographic diversity is, like other [Page 4] natural
kingdoms, equally striking in both its exuberant variety and its regular conformity
to a relatively small number of possibilities. If one looks for uniformities and
regularities, one will constantly be struck by the tremendous diversity of cultures;
but if one concentrates on the particular and the unique, then the similarities
between cultures both related and unrelated by history are too persistent to ignore.
It is, in short, just as wrong-headed to ignore the striking parallels between, say,
Oedipus and Moses, as it is to state them and be done with it.
To solve this dilemma we must find a way to talk about cultures in such a manner
that both the similarities and the differences are preserved intact in a theoretical
synthesis. The authors I have been citing in defense of particularism are often quite
aware that the attack on hollow generalizations is only a particular moment in the
dialectic, and that beyond their critique lies the possibility of a generalizing
discipline which yet preserves the richness of understanding and the sympathy for
particularity which cultural anthropology has traditionally espoused.
Thus Needham, after discarding our everyday language concepts in the study of
kinship, nonetheless concludes that “there are not only logical features to which we
can resort, but that there are psychic features as well which can be recognized
through the screen of cultural differentiation and which make comparison
possible” (1971, 71). 4 and Geertz gives the clearest indication of where the answer
must lie: “Man is to be defined neither by his innate capacities alone, as the
Enlightenment sought to do, nor by his actual behaviors alone, as much of
contemporary social science seeks to do, but rather by the link between them, by
the way in which the first is transformed into the second, his generic potentialities
focused into his specific performances” (1973, 52; my italics). The key point here is
that the observable events of real life are not simple expressions of, but rather
transformations wrought upon, whatever underlying unities may characterize the
human race as a whole. Therefore, universal or generic categories cannot be
discovered at the level of surface structure, to use a rough analogy with generative
linguistics, but must be sought at a deep structural level. 5
A synthetic theory must therefore be generative, dynamic, and structural, in that it

must propose a concrete repertory of basic elements which, by a set of specifiable
operations, can, through their combination and permutation, produce the set of
phenomena which are in fact discovered in the real historical world. It is the
promise of just such a synthesis that has been exciting, if ultimately perhaps
frustrating, about Lévi-Strauss's version of structuralism. He clearly states the need
I have identified for a theory to deal with widely diffused cultural phenomena
which have the puzzling characteristic of appearing to be the same, only different.
Writing of one such phenomenon, dual organization, he argues that if we “do not
wish to conceive it either as a universal stage in social development or as a system
devised in a single place and at one particular time, and if, on the other hand, we
are too well aware of what all dual organizations have in common to consider them
as totally unrelated products of unique and dissimilar [Page 5] historical
development, we must analyze each dual society in order to discover, behind the
chaos of rules and customs, a single structural scheme existing and operating in
different spatial and temporal contexts. This scheme will correspond neither to a
particular model of the institution nor to the arbitrary grouping of characteristics
common to several variants of the institution. It may be reduced to certain
relationships of correlation and opposition” (1967, 22).
In the structuralist program, then, it is indeed essential to reduce cultures to
Geertz's “lowest common denominator,” not as an end in itself but in order to
discover what it is upon which the transformations are being performed. In Lévi-
Strauss's view, these elementary structures are certain logical relationships.
Bracketing for the moment the question of whether these are really the
fundamental elements, the research strategy can be clarified by a broad analogy to
the field of chemistry.
To say that the world is entirely composed of combinations of one hundred or so

elements does not in any way deny the infinite multiplicity of all the things in the
world, nor does it produce a set of bloodless generalizations. This is because the
manifest, diverse phenomena of the world have been reduced to a lowest common
denominator, which then becomes the basis for a set of lawful and regular rules of
transformation that indeed are capable of generating everything in the world, and
of actually producing new things.
There are two phases or moments in the process of moving between the surface
manifestations (the things) and the deep structural units (the elements). The first is
the phase of moving from the complex things to the simple elements, by undoing,
through analysis, the “things” to discover the elements. The second is the
description of the processes of transformation through which the simple elements
may be operated upon to produce the complex things.
In themselves, lowest common denominators are, by their very nature, quite

uninformative. But, as one pole of a dynamic system, they are essential to a
powerful and elegant comprehension of the multiplicity of phenomena. If in
Geertz's formulation the study of anthropology investigates man's “generic
potentialities focused into his specific performances,” then it is essential that we do
not shrink from making statements about just what those generic potentialities
might be.
It is, then, my position that for man, as for the rest of nature, the tabula is far from
rasa, and that, on the contrary, there are nontrivial aspects of human nature which
it is essential to take into account in any discussion of either particular people or
particular groups of people. These peculiarities of human nature will inform any
cultural product in the same way the particular notes of a scale inform all the
possible melodies composed using that scale. 6
When one turns, with these considerations in mind, to the subject of divine
kingship, one realizes that several works have already been written employing the
approach I have been suggesting. Perhaps the most outstanding is Hocart's Kings
and Councillors (1970), which Needham's edition has rescued from undeserved
obscurity. Hocart proposes to study existing royal institutions and symbols, [Page
6] which exhibit remarkable cross-cultural parallels, by means of what he calls a
“comparative anatomy” (ibid. xl–xlvi). While this sometimes leads him into the
formalist trap of merely compiling and comparing trait lists, the underlying
conception of his method is profoundly dynamic. He posits a driving force which,
through a series of carefully outlined procedures, is capable of independently
generating a model of kingship which corresponds, often with great subtlety, to
real ethnographic data.
This central driving force, briefly stated, is the collective desire, which Hocart takes
to be a universal feature of humanity, to prolong and enhance life itself. “A
community wants something: it shapes its actions so as to achieve that something,
and the result of its action is to alter its organization. It is not indeed government
that man wants, for how can he conceive of a government except by experience of
it? It is life he wants, and in the effort to live he does one thing after another till he
eventually finds himself governed” (ibid. 299).
But while the kingship, as an institution, embodies and symbolizes life, the king
himself is mortal. It was this paradox which was at the heart of Frazer's theory of
the dying god; indeed, the entire Golden Bough may be understood as a vast
meditation on the mystery expressed in the phrase “The king is dead, long live the
king.” 7
Hocart recognizes that the kingship has two aspects; one of these is synchronic,
sacred, and associated with the regulation of the cosmos; while the second is
diachronic, profane, and concerned with the guiding and enforcing of public policy
in lived historical time. The former aspect, the “religious” or “ritual” side,
represents continuity, eternity, recurrence, and immortality. The second aspect, the
“political” side, emphasizes discontinuity, conflict, and mortality.
This view of the dual nature of kingship has been retained by subsequent writers.
Thus Evans-Pritchard, in his classic article “The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk of
the Nilotic Sudan,” writes: “In my view kingship everywhere and at all times has
been in some degree a sacred office. Rex est mixta persona cum sacerdote. This is
because a king symbolizes a whole society and must not be identified with any part
of it. He must be in society and yet stand outside it and this is only possible if his
office is raised to a mystical plane. It is the kingship and not the king who is
divine” (1962, 84).
In a similar vein, Kantorowicz, in The King's Two Bodies (1957), an authoritative
study of European royal institutions, distinguishes between the king's mortal body
and his immortal body.
The idea that the king is a sacred as well as a political figure has a secure place in
contemporary thought. Geertz, in a study comparing charismatic royal symbolism
in three different cultural and historical settings, takes as his subject matter what he
calls “the inherent sacredness of sovereign power” (1977, 51); while Shils, upon
whose insights Geertz is expanding, writes (with Young): “The central authority of
an orderly society whether it be secular or ecclesiastical, is acknowledged to be the
avenue of communication with the realm of sacred values” (Shils and Young 1975,
151).
These and similar concepts are based ultimately on the firm Durkheimian insight
that, as Shils plainly puts it, “society has a center.” This center is sacred in nature,
since it is what Shils calls “the center of the order of symbols, of values and beliefs,
which govern society;” and it is also political, since, as Shils continues, the “center
is also a phenomenon of the realm of action” (1975, 1). 8
Information sources listed in other works (113)
One of the most interesting anthropological approaches to the sacred kingship is

that of Luc de Heusch (1958; see also 1962 and 1972). In a short but incisive book
on royal incest, de Heusch investigates the symbolism of kingship among several
interlacustrine peoples of East Africa. Addressing the question of the source of the
king's charismatic appeal, de Heusch notes the frequency with which East African
kings ritually marry their real or symbolic mothers. This has numerous
implications: it removes the king from the normal systems of kinship, descent, and
exchange; it sacralizes him and demonstrates his superhuman power; and, as
Cohen (1977) has shown in an article criticizing de Heusch, it also reunifies the
royal lineage which, during the struggle for succession, has found brothers pitted
against each other as rivals.
Most importantly, for de Heusch (1958, 60) the royal installation and marriage with
the Queen Mother is to be interpreted as the playing out of an Oedipal drama.
Cohen's rejection of de Heusch's Oedipal analysis leads him to reinterpret the story
of Oedipus itself: “Oedipus Rex is not the story of an erotic and unconscious
sexual desire by a man for his mother in which he must kill his father to achieve his
ends. It is rather the depiction in dramatic form of succession to authority” (Cohen
1977, 28). By drawing this distinction, Cohen imagines that he has succeeded in
reinterpreting Oedipus “from the point of view of political theory rather than
psychology, eroticism, and the symbolism of sacred…power” (ibid. 16). 9
Information sources listed in other works (113)
In my view, Cohen's reanalysis, far from contradicting or invalidating either de

Heusch or the tale of Oedipus, instead augments and enriches them. What he has
shown is that kingship, as Hocart argued it must, does in fact have both a sacred
and a political aspect. As the story of Oedipus demonstrates, political power and
succession to kingship also involve “psychology, eroticism, and the symbolism of
sacred power.” Oedipus Rex is very clearly, Cohen to the contrary
notwithstanding, both “the story of an erotic and unconscious sexual desire by a
man for his mother in which he must kill his father” and “the depiction in dramatic
form of succession to authority.”
It will be the thesis of this book that political and sacred authority (which I take to
be aspects of the same thing, the “center” of society) are always accompanied by
Oedipal symbolism, which is itself concerned directly with the problem of the
succession of generations.
In order to illustrate and explain this thesis more fully, I will examine a classic case
of royal succession from ethnographic literature, namely the case of the divine
kingship of the Shilluk as described by Evans-Pritchard (1962, 66–86). 10 In that
Nilotic society, every king is in some way imbued with the immortal spirit of the
first king and culture hero, Nyikang. Evans-Pritchard perfectly states [Page 8] the
paradox at the heart of kingship: “Though kings may perish the kingship, that is
Nyikang, endures” (ibid. 75).
Leaving aside the question of whether Shilluk kings were ever really put to death
because their health was failing, 11 let me examine briefly the way in which, upon
the death of one king, the king-elect is transformed from a mortal person into an
embodiment of Nyikang, indeed becomes identical with the one king of the Shilluk
who is immortal. During the interregnum resulting from the death of a king, the
spirit of Nyikang moves to an effigy kept in a shrine in the northern half of the
kingdom. This effigy, and an effigy of Nyikang's son Dak, are carried by an army
of the north to battle an army of the south, headed by the king-elect, for
possession of the capital.
The army of the king-elect is defeated and he is captured by Nyikang and taken by
him to the capital. The kingship captures the king. There Nyikang is placed on the
royal stool. After a while he is taken off it and the king-elect sits on it in his stead
and the spirit of Nyikang enters into him, causing him to tremble, and he becomes
king, that is he becomes possessed by Nyikang. The concluding ritual acts follow.
The new king has married a girl…. After the king's enthronement Nyikang seizes
the girl and refuses to surrender her to the king on the ground that she was
married with cattle from the royal herd, which is Nyikang's herd, and is therefore
Nyikang's wife. On this issue Nyikang and the king summon their supporters to
the second mock battle, in which the king captures the girl (Evans-Pritchard 1962,
79–80).
After this, Nyikang makes peace with the new king and does not again challenge
him.
The first question which comes to mind is, or should be, why all this rigmarole?
Why not administer an oath of office and be done with it? It is clear to me that
unless one supposes that a certain archetypal scenario has to be played out in order
for succession to take place, one has no leverage for discovering what this
elaborate ritual symbolism is all about.
This archetypal scenario is, in my view, required in order to deal with the guilt
engendered by the death of the king. The chief recipient of this guilt is none other
than the king-elect, who as successor has stood to benefit most from the death of
the old king. Vicariously, he is guilty of the most heinous of crimes, regicide. The
only way to be freed of this guilt is for him to be punished; and the only
appropriate punishment for regicide is death. But, if the king-elect were really put
to death, he could not very easily become king himself. Therefore, a symbolic
means must be found for him to undergo the punishment for his crime and yet
survive to assume the vacated throne of his predecessor.
There are thus, at the heart of the succession scenario, two parallel paradoxes. One
is that the king dies, yet must remain immortal. The second is that his successor
must suffer death, yet live to succeed him. Let me stress that both these
contradictory imperatives must be resolved, yet cannot be resolved within the rules
of the real world as we understand it.
It is therefore essential that there exist a mode of thinking or experiencing in which

such contradictions can be overcome. This is the point Lévy-Bruhl was [Page 9]
aiming toward when he made his famous distinction between what he called (most
unfortunately) “pre-logical” thought and “logical” thought. The labels are very
misleading, because the distinctive feature of “pre-logical” thought has nothing to
do with logic; it is that pre-logical thought “does not have to abstain from
contradiction” (Casaneuve 1972, 44).
Strictly speaking, such thought is neither necessarily illogical nor irrational: it is,
rather, unrealistic, given our acceptance of the real world as that governed by the
Kantian categories and the Aristotelian rules of logic. Yet thought based on the
principle that contradiction is acceptable can be perfectly logical, rigorous, rational,
and systematic, given its own ground rules. Lévi-Strauss, has, it seems to me, along
with Freud, and Lévy-Bruhl, demonstrated this beyond the possibility of doubt.
It is thus quite possible to have a system of thought which accepts as its premise
that, let us say, “the king is and is not dead” and still makes perfect sense. The only
proviso is that it cannot correspond to that which we prefer to call reality.
Human symbolic thought makes possible an arena in which ideas may be
manipulated independently of reality. Such symbolism may attempt to mirror
perfectly the perceived structure of reality, as, for example, symbolic logic tries to
do; but symbolism may also operate on its own, constructing possibilities which
are not possible in reality. Successful symbolic constructs of this sort may then
become posited culturally as preferable to the unpalatable reality which they
transcend. Ritual is one such formally instituted symbolic construction, which
obeys its own logical rules and is incorporated into the reality construction of a
society.
Let me return with these considerations in mind to the Shilluk case. The king has
died, fulfilling one-half of the contradictory imperative regarding him; to fulfill the
other half he must also be declared alive, in the form of a symbolic image, that is,
his effigy, into which his immortal spirit is supposed to have moved during the
interregnum. This effigy now engages the successor in battle, and symbolically
defeats him. Theoretically, he should put him to death, but of course this cannot
really happen. Therefore the defeat of the successor is only a symbolic death, not a
real one. By losing this first battle, the successor is defeated, that is, symbolically
killed and thus punished for his “crime” of succeeding; while at the same time, in
reality, he is also allowed to survive.
Having been “killed” by his predecessor, and thus purged of his guilt, the successor
is free to unite with Nyikang, and to become possessed with his spirit or essence. It
is this that legitimates him as king, and allows him to win the second battle he must
fight.
In the second battle the Oedipal theme is made clearer, since the struggle is for the
rightful possession of the king's wife. The successor has taken the wife of the king.
This is a crime if he and the king are two different people, but it is a tautology if he
and the king are identical. Since he has now become identical with the king, that is,
succeeded to his predecessor's place, the marriage is legitimate. Therefore the
second battle allows the successor to defeat his predecessor [Page 10] and obtain
both his throne and his wife. He may do this without guilt for two reasons: (1) he
has already been punished by (symbolic) death for his usurpation, and (2) he and
his predecessor have been declared (symbolically) to be identical. (That these two
reasons are not consistent with each other does not matter in the least in symbolic
thinking of this kind.)
This brief analysis is intended to do no more than lay bare some of the structural
features of succession, its problems, and their symbolic solutions. It cannot be
convincing, at this stage of the argument, though I hope it is at least suggestive and
illustrative. Nor is it my intention to give the impression that the Shilluk case is a
privileged case, the “archetypal” or “prototypical” example of which others are
variations. It is simply one particularly clear and well-known instance of the
symbolically elaborated response which any system must develop.
My position, to be as clear as possible, is that the “generative core” is an

unresolvable conflict, a set of absolute contradictions which arise from the nature
of human existence, in which societies survive while the individuals who compose
them come into being and pass away: the king dies, the kingship endures. The
generative core, being a dilemma, cannot itself be manifested; but all social systems
must necessarily exhibit features which may be interpreted as symbolic attempts to
solve the core problematic.
My brief analysis of the Shilluk kingship shows this core problematic to have the
following features: it is concerned with the simultaneous opposition and union of
senior and junior generations of males; and the conflict between them has two
things at stake: sexual access to women, and political authority.
Since I have thus brought myself in a roundabout way to a summary statement of

the Oedipus complex, it is important to understand why I have approached this
topic from the direction of divine kingship rather than from that of individual
psychology. I am not proposing that the divine kingship, or any of the other social
and cultural phenomena which I shall examine, are projections of individual
psychological complexes, or that they can be explained in terms of individual
psychology. Quite to the contrary, I am proposing that the Oedipus complex is
primarily a theory not of individual life histories and their little dramas, but rather
of the phylogenetic basis of human social organization in general. As such, it is a
theory whose exploration may, with complete legitimacy, be undertaken at the level
of collective phenomena. It is, in short, a social and cultural theory as well as a
psychological one.
This position is the one to which Freud himself subscribed, from the writing of
Totem and Taboo until his death nearly thirty years later. It is only with a great
collective effort that subsequent psychoanalytic thinking has pushed those aspects
of Freud's theories into the background. Yet it is not even open to question that he
believed that the Oedipus complex was an aspect of man's phylogenetic
inheritance, and that individuals reexperienced it for themselves in the context of a
prior existing predisposition. Nearly all of Freud's major essays written after 1912
contain unmistakable statements of this position. 12
One of the main roadblocks to a serious consideration of this view of Freud's has
been the patent implausibility of the historicity of his proposed “primal crime,” as
well as the erroneous belief that Freud's view necessarily entails a commitment to
Lamarckian ideas about genetics. As for the latter, I have shown elsewhere (Paul
1976a) that this objection to Freud's theory has no substance. In the same article, I
also interpret the “primal crime” to make it much more consistent with present
thinking in a number of areas.
Let me briefly expand upon my argument. I will leave aside the question of the
reality of the murder of the father by the brothers in hominid prehistory. What I
believe that Freud has stumbled upon is the remains of a system of social
organization which is typical not only of most primates but of many other
mammals whose life is social in nature. This involves a division of the adult males
into junior and senior ranks, the distinction being defined not simply by age but
also by status within the group: senior males have sexual access to females for the
purpose of breeding, and they exercise leadership in the decision-making process
of the group; while junior males are excluded from these.
Figure 1
Figure 1
In the essay to which I have referred, I suggested what I called (following Lévi-
Strauss) a “precultural atom of kinship,” diagramed as in figure 1. In this figure,
“the male in the higher generation stands for the primal father, or the dominant
male[s]; the lower male symbol represents any junior male; and the female may
stand in any or all of the following relationships to the senior male: consort, sister,
daughter, but probably not mother; while she may stand in the relation of mother
or sister (or both) but not daughter or consort to the junior male” (Paul 1976a,
344–45). 13
The essential conflict built into this model is generated by the desire, and indeed
the necessity, of the junior males to become senior males. It is this struggle which
each individual experiences as the Oedipus complex. On a social level, however, it
is the problem of succession to the divine kingship, because the senior, dominant,
or alpha male (or males) is, by definition, the cybernetic government of the social
group in both a political and a “sacred” sense. He is the [Page 12] ultimate source
of decision-making authority; and he is also the repository of ancestral wisdom, in
the form of genetic material, which it is his prerogative to bestow, often to the
exclusion of others, upon the breeding females.
It is thus my contention that the individual Oedipus complex is merely the minimal
unit, in the nuclear family, of a complex which actually has its roots in the
cybernetic control of the social system as a whole.
The claims I am making are, of course, quite sweeping, and I must immediately
qualify them in two ways: first, I will not attempt to demonstrate them here; and
second, they are not essential to my argument in this book. What I do demonstrate
here, and what is absolutely essential to my argument, is that if one makes the
assumption that a model such as I have described does in fact serve as the “atomic
structure” of social systems, then much that appears random or inexplicable makes
compelling sense. I intend to demonstrate, beyond any possible doubt, that this
structure, and the energy generated by the conflicts at its core, are capable of
placing rigor, order, coherence, and necessity in an array of ethnographic materials
from the Tibetan culture area which may at first seem, as they certainly did to me
when I began to acquaint myself with them, bizarre, unorganized, whimsical, and
pointless.
What the ontological status of this structure may be it is not my purpose to

propose: whether it is in the genes, or in a Lamarckian remembrance of things
past, or in a realm of archetypes, or Platonic Ideas. Of course I have my opinions
on this subject. For me, the evidence from both primate social organization and
psychoanalysis is too compelling to be purely coincidental, and I am therefore
convinced that what Freud discovered in the Oedipus complex was a chunk of
unregenerate precultural primate in us which the development of culture,
symbolism, and reason has been able to surmount but not eradicate or replace. Let
me stress again, however, that this assumption is unnecessary for my present
analysis. All that is necessary is the demonstration that my proposed generative
model does indeed generate all that might be asked of it—that, in a word, it works.
Ideally, such a demonstration would have to be made on a wide, cross-cultural

comparative basis. This is vastly beyond the scope of my present work. What I
have attempted to do here is to take one particular culture area with which I am
familiar, that of Tibet, and show that various apparently unrelated aspects of it,
including kinship and family organization, religious beliefs and institutions, and
cultural productions such as legends, dramas, and stories, are indeed related to one
another, and with comparable aspects of other cultural systems, when analyzed
according to the model I am proposing. Before turning to the examination of the
data, however, in the course of which my rather rudimentary suppositions will
become amply fleshed out, let me state and clarify my model, and then
demonstrate, for illustrative purposes, its value in understanding some familiar
cultural materials.
The fundamental division of males into junior and senior grades implies both
conflict and continuity. Inevitably, the junior males become senior males, and the
senior males die. The succession of junior males thus involves the displacement
[Page 13] and in fact the death of senior males. Therefore senior males, from their
own self-interest, may view junior males as their rivals in a zero-sum struggle for
women and authority. On the other hand, the junior males are their successors and
indeed the guarantors of their vicarious immortality, as well as of the immortality
of the social system, the cultural symbols transmitted by learning, and the DNA
which they carry. Junior males must displace and thus “kill” their senior
predecessors; while at the same time this is the ultimate crime, which they are, by
the authority of the senior males, proscribed from committing.
From this paradoxical situation arises what Freud rightly recognized as

ambivalence, meaning not simply a tepid mixture of emotions but the simultaneous
existence in full force of mutually exclusive emotions between junior and senior
males, namely, murderous hatred, and deep love, striving, like all love, for union
with its object. Freud expressed this in terms of the Empedoclean notion that
Love and Strife are the antagonistic but complementary forces which make the
world go round.
This ambivalent conflict may be stated in formulaic terms which make clear its
fundamental contradictory and unsolvable nature. This is the key generative
paradigm upon which my whole analysis rests, and it consists of four absolute
imperatives:
1. Senior males must kill junior males.
2. Senior males must not kill junior males.
3. Junior males must kill senior males.
4. Junior males must not kill senior males.
Because of the nature of reality, this apparently symmetrical formula must have an
asymmetrical outcome: the senior males must really die, while the junior males
must not die but must survive to succeed. Thus, in the resolution of the paradox of
the senior males, the contradiction must be resolved in favor of their actual death;
while the solution to the paradox of the junior males must somehow allow them to
live.
These simple axioms, together with a few corollaries, are all that are needed to
launch into my analysis. The corollaries which I propose are the following:
1. Anyone who benefits from the death of someone else is guilty of that person's
death.
2. According to the law of the talion, anyone guilty of the death of another person,
under any circumstances whatsoever, must be punished by death himself.
3. Anyone who dies has been killed by someone.
These corollaries are by no means self evident, although anyone familiar with
psychoanalytic literature and ethnographic data will have no trouble recognizing
them as typical of certain kinds of thinking. My justification for these corollaries or
subaxioms is that they prove, upon analysis, to be empirically present. I cannot
recapitulate the means by which I have arrived at these constructs, since that would
involve going through my whole analysis of the Sherpa and Tibetan material. I
must, therefore, simply assure the reader that these suppositions are validated by
their usefulness and necessity for understanding the data with [Page 14] which I
have been working. The demonstration of this will come in the actual analyses
which form the substance of this book.
What kinds of phenomena are generated by the core problematic I have posited?
Let me turn once again to the Shilluk case. In this instance, as in all cases of
succession, there are fundamentally only two characters in the drama: a senior male
and a junior male—in this case, the dead king and his successor. (The third
character is the female who is at issue, but hers is an essentially passive role in the
unfolding drama.)
The old king has really died, the new king is really alive. But in order to fulfill the
contradictory imperatives, other symbols must be introduced. The two basic
characters are in this case decomposed into various additional characters
representing different aspects of the central characters.
In Shilluk succession we may analyze these symbolic elaborations as follows:

looking only at the senior male side, there must be a senior male who dies and one
who does not die; and there must be a senior male who kills a junior male and one
who does not. These are represented as follows:
1. The senior male who dies. This is represented twice, first in the old king, who is
actually dead; and second in the royal effigy without Nyikang, which is defeated in
the second ritual battle.
2. The senior male who does not die. This is clearly represented by Nyikang
himself, the immortal single king of the Shilluk. It is also expressed in the fact that
the effigy which loses the second battle is not obliterated, but will come alive again
during the next interregnum.
3. The senior male who kills the junior male. This is represented by the effigy, with
Nyikang in it, which wins the first battle.
4. The senior male who does not kill the junior male. This may be expressed
symbolically in various ways. For example, the senior male may simply refrain from
killing the junior male; or he may actively save his life; or he may express positive
love by uniting with him in some way. In the Shilluk case, all of these are present in
stronger or weaker form. The effigy of Nyikang has as his ally in the first ritual
battle an effigy of his son Dak. He thus unites with the junior male, Dak, by allying
with him (as opposed to his fighting with the successor); and he of course refrains
from killing Dak. He also, after defeating the new king in battle, refrains from
killing him and thus saves his life. Finally, by sitting on the throne and then
yielding it to the new king whom he then possesses, Nyikang literally unites with
his successor.
A reciprocal analysis can, obviously, be performed upon the figures on the junior
male side, which include Dak as the junior male who does not kill a senior male,
the new king as one who does; and the defeated new king in the first battle as the
one who both is killed by and is not killed by the senior male (insofar as he loses
the battle but is spared).
To illustrate another entirely different possible response to the same imperatives I

will move from a consideration of the Shilluk to a different kind of [Page 15]
material. No corpus of symbolic material deals more exhaustively with the
problems generated by succession to the throne than the plays of Shakespeare.
That Shakespeare is generally acknowledged to be the greatest of all writers, and
that his most overriding concern is royal succession, is, to my mind, far from
coincidental. Royal succession not only underlies all the histories but is at the heart
of comedies such as As You Like It, problem plays such as Winter's Tale and The
Tempest, and, most important of all, most of the great tragedies—Lear, Hamlet,
Macbeth, and Julius Caesar in particular.
With his usual perspicuity, Northrop Frye (1973) has identified Julius Caesar,
Macbeth, and Hamlet as “tragedies of order” or “social tragedies.” He points out
that tragedies of this type have action based on three main character-types: “First is
the order figure: Julius Caesar in that play; Duncan in Macbeth: Hamlet's father.
He is killed by a rebel figure or usurper: Brutus and the other conspirators;
Macbeth, Claudius. Third comes a nemesis-figure or nemesis-group: Antony and
Octavius; Malcolm and Macduff; Hamlet…. The nemesis-figure is partly a
revenger and partly an avenger. He is primarily obsessed with killing the rebel-
figure, but he has a secondary function of restoring something of the previous
order” (ibid. 17).
An examination of this typology in the light of my paradigmatic model of
succession shows that, while incisive, it is incomplete. This is because the avenger,
who kills the usurper, is still, according to my corollary 2, a murderer and hence
requires punishment by death. Being a guilty regicide (since he has killed a king, no
matter how illegitimate the usurping king is), he can hardly represent the restoring
of order. The ideal aim of a succession scenario is the installation upon the throne
of someone who is innocent of any capital offense—indeed, innocent in as many
respects as possible. Because of my corollary 1, this cannot ever be achieved; but
symbolic manoeuvers can certainly attempt to construct a situation in which it is at
least approached as an ideal.
Now if we examine these three plays, we note that in each case the avenger is not
the same person as the person who actually succeeds to the vacated throne at the
end of the drama. In Julius Caesar, Antony acts as avenger, killing Brutus; but by
the end of the story, in Antony and Cleopatra, it is Octavius who actually succeeds
to the throne. In Macbeth, Macduff is the avenger; 14 but it is young Malcolm who
succeeds to the throne; while in Hamlet, Hamlet himself is the avenger, but it is
Fortinbras who inherits the thrones of both Denmark and Norway.
My analysis, then, shows that there are really four essential roles in these tragedies.
In addition to the order figure, the usurper, and the nemesis or avenger, there is
also, finally, the innocent heir who, when the drama is all finished, walks onto the
scene and occupies his throne as legitimate and guiltless successor. It takes at least
three deaths, however, for the decks to be cleared for him to do this. Let us
examine why:
The old king dies. By corollary 3, someone has killed him; by corollary 1, the guilty
party is the successor; and by corollary 2, the successor must die. But if he [Page
16] dies, then, by corollary 2, whoever killed him must also die. The usurper thus
must die for his unjust crime, the avenger for his just crime. Only then is the guilt
of the king's death reduced enough so that the true successor, who has been
waiting in the wings, can succeed.
If, then, we return to the three tragedies in question, we may diagram their
structure as in figure 2.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Glancing at this chart, we may notice that there are four main character-types, and
that each of the first three, order figure or rightful king, usurper-assassin, and
avenger, has an entire play to himself, in which the central figure—Caesar,
Macbeth, Hamlet—corresponds to a particular role type. Might we not expect, in
the opus of a titan like Shakespeare, that, for symmetry, there should be a fourth
play, which has as its hero the innocent heir? The odds are against it, since, by
definition, the innocent heir does nothing but inherit the throne and rule
legitimately, after the murder and revenge has already been acted out. One thing is
certain, the play cannot be a tragedy.
Nonetheless, once we have been alerted to the possibility implied by the structural
analysis, the answer becomes obvious: Henry V, in the play bearing his name, is the
perfect model of an innocent heir. This play, significantly, differs from all other
Shakespearean plays in that nothing much happens: the play, which is really more
like a pageant, merely celebrates the successes and victories of an entirely legitimate
and decent king.
It is beyond the limits of this essay to examine the events which form the
background to the righteous accession of Henry V. They begin with Richard II,
and continue through the two parts of Henry IV. I will resist an untangling of this
complex scenario, but merely focus on one particular aspect: Hotspur, who in
many respects is a double of young Prince Hal, is a rebel against Hal's father,
Henry IV, himself the usurper of Richard II's throne. But taking Henry IV for the
moment as a rightful king, Hotspur becomes the usurper, and Hal, who kills him,
thus becomes an avenger. But I have just argued that the avenger must also die for
his capital offense, no matter how justified it is.
Here we have revealed to us one of the great secrets of charismatic heroes. This is
that, by some means or other, by the force of their own will or by divine grace,
they are able to metamorphose from guilty murderers into innocent heirs. The
whole transition from the wild Prince Hal of Henry IV (I & II) to Great [Page 17]
King Henry of Henry V represents Hal's miraculous, charismatic, and heroic self-
transformation from a guilty youth (who puts on his father's crown before the king
has died) into the perfect legitimate king. The symbolic solution thus need not
employ the technique of decomposition; in this case, temporal succession and
change in a single character are employed. As Prince Hal he is a guilty avenger; but
as Henry V he is transformed into a good and legitimate king. In much the same
way, the guilty Oedipus of Oedipus Rex becomes the supernatural and godlike
redeeming figure of Oedipus at Colonus.
Another good example of the same motif is to be found in the one piece of
Tibetan data I have already presented. The Buddhist monk Dpal-gyi-rdo-rje who
killed King Glang-dar-ma is both a regicide and also a saint, as demonstrated by his
reincarnation up to the present day in a holy personage. This temporal
transformation is conveyed in the story by his changing color from black to white.
As Bacot puts it in his description of the event, “Having arrived a demon, he left
an angel” (1962, 35).
* **
Figure 3
* * and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ** ** and HENRY IV, I AND II Figure
3
Figure 3 shows how the inclusion of Henry V completes the structural model. One
benefit of this illustration is that it demonstrates the genuinely generative and
indeed predictive value of a deep structural model, since it was the incompleteness
of the surface structural set implied by my analysis which allowed me to “predict”
that there would actually be such a play as Henry V, and then, in discovering it, to
thereby validate my theoretical model.
Similar analyses, using the paradigm I am employing, could be performed on such

bodies of data as, for example, the Old and New Testaments, Greek, Hindu, or
other myth cycles, and countless other such materials. From my acquaintance with
these systems, as well as with ethnographic data from other parts of the globe, I
have satisfied myself that none of them is inconsistent with my theories, and many
are illuminated by them.
In the present study, however, my entire attention is directed to the culture and
society of Tibet. I will begin my analysis in that corner of the Tibetan world with
which I have direct personal acquaintance, namely, the ethnology of the Sherpas of
the Solu-Khumbu region of eastern Nepal. I will begin with an analysis [Page 18]
of certain Sherpa social institutions, showing their relation to my theoretical model.
I will then explore numerous aspects of the Sherpa religious system from the same
point of view. From there, I will proceed to the analysis of several of the great
literary monuments of Tibetan culture proper, from various parts of Tibet and
from different eras. This will lead me finally to a study of the institution of
theocracy and its transformation through the course of Tibetan history.
At all times, my overriding concern is to demonstrate the compelling unity
underlying these diverse cultural phenomena, and to show how, in rich and
imaginative ways, each represents a symbolic response to the generative core
problematic which I have proposed in this introduction.
2 Sherpa and Tibetan Concepts of Descent

In my formulation of the core structure of social groups, I have deliberately
employed the neutral and precisely defined terms “senior male” and “junior male”
rather than, let us say, “father” and “son.” The latter words are just the kind of
terms which, as the critique by Schneider, Needham, and others has shown, are
complex and symbolically loaded constructs taken from our own cultural system
that cannot be used uncritically as tools in cross-cultural analysis because they build
into definitions precisely what needs to be empirically investigated. Thus our term
“father” implies both the biological genitor and a particular social role which need
not go together.
My purpose in this chapter is therefore to examine Tibetan ideas of descent,

kinship, and filiation—to discover, through analysis, how “fathers” and “sons,” as
well as other dyads of junior and senior males, express and deal with the more
fundamental structure I have posited. This is especially relevant among humans,
who, unlike the other social animals, possess two parallel tracks of “descent,” one
genetic, the other cultural and symbolic.
My treatment will focus on Sherpa kinship, since I cannot hope to deal

systematically with all of Tibet. Sherpa kinship reckoning is somewhat atypical in
the Tibetan region, since it is more explicitly patrilineal in organization than many
other related systems. While older authorities, such as Stein (1972, 94) and Prince
Peter (1963, 380) have described Tibetan descent as patrilineal, that description has
come into question in the more recent literature. Aziz, in one of the most extensive
and useful recent ethnographic treatments of Tibetan social organization, writes: “I
found little evidence that people were organized according to male descent.
Examples of lineal descent I found are limited to very restricted areas of social life”
(1978, 118).
Rule of descent (611)
Aziz's informants were refugees from the southern central region; lineality appears
to have been much stronger in the eastern provinces. But here lineality is not
limited to the father's side. Epstein, who studied among refugees from Khams,
tells us that although, “as in other parts of Tibet, the stem family, kindred [Page 20]
and household were the most important units of socialization, support, and
economic activity, Eastern Tibetans also put heavy emphasis on lineality, having
both named patri- and matriclans (phaì-`khor and maì-`khor)” (1977, 26).
Goldstein has even gone so far as to question whether there is any real patriliny
anywhere in Tibet at all: “There are…no patrilineal descent groups…. Clans have
been reported for parts of eastern Tibet, northern Nepal and northern Tibet…but
as yet there are no firm data on how these function, if in fact they really exist”
(1978, 326). 1 Nonetheless, there is clear agreement among the authorities on the
Sherpas that they do indeed manifest clear signs of patriliny. 2 The Sherpas are at
present divided into twenty-one named patrilineal clans, called ru (Tibetan rus)
which also means “bone.” 3 As Oppitz has shown (1968), these are descended
from an original four proto-clans, dating back to the small group which initially
settled Solu-Khumbu in the seventeenth century, having migrated from
somewhere in Khams Province, in eastern Tibet.
Among the patrilineal features of which examples may be found in the Sherpa case
are the existence of clan-owned land, forest, and pasture; the right of senior
members of the clan to collect fees for the use of clan forests or pastures; clan
gods or shrines; clan monasteries (only some informants claimed this); clan
festivals; and, in Solu though not in Khumbu, clan villages, populated exclusively
by agnates and their families. Clan exogamy is strictly observed, not only within
clans but between some “brother” clans descended from the same proto-clan.
Clans (614)
Lineages also exist among the Sherpas; they are most commonly called either kalak
or gyupa, or, in Solu, parti, a loan-word from Nepali. Lineages are assigned status
in a generally acknowledged hierarchy of prestige, determined both by descent
from senior brothers and by wealth. Various mutual aid groups are organized
around lineage lines, such as obligations for assistance in housebuilding, threshing,
and similar large-scale labor projects. Most important, perhaps, lineages from an
important marriage category. While it is not only possible but often desirable to
marry into one's mother's clan, it is regarded as incestuous to marry into the
mother's lineage.
Mutual aid (476)
Regulation of marriage (582)
Lineages (613)
Clans (614)
In addition to the lineage, the kindred plays an especially important role in the
elaborate social events which surround both weddings and funerals. 4
Kindreds and ramages (612)
Lineages (613)
According to Stein, in Tibetan descent reckoning, “each generation is treated as a

compact, homogeneous undivided group. The set comprising the father and his
brothers…is called “fathers-uncles” (pha-khu)…. The set of the son and his
brothers…includes brother, half-brothers and cousins” (1972, 95).
Lineages (613)
This division of the males into senior and junior grades is still more explicit in the
epic poetry studied by Stein, where “the expression pha-khu ‘fathers/uncles,’
denotes all the old men in the country, and phu-nu, ‘elder brothers/younger
brothers,’ all the young warriors” (ibid.). Stein further remarks: “If the terminology
underlines the collective character of a generation so very well, it also reflects the
complementary principle of hierarchy and descent. When speaking with reference
to the family's continuity in time, the idea of ancestors is expressed by [Page 21]
the term ‘fathers/grandfathers’ (yab-mes) and that of descendents by the word
‘sons/grandsons’ (bu-tsha or sras-dbon)” (ibid.).
No such explicit division of males into junior or senior collectivities exists in
Sherpa reference terminology. The same idea is expressed, however, in the use of
two different terms of address among men. Direct address is always accompanied
by the use of a kinship term, whether the addressee is considered a relative or not.
If the man is a contemporary of the speaker; or if he is a younger man; or if he is in
the general age range of up to forty years old, he is called “older brother” (ajo); if
he is over forty, or considerably older than the speaker, or of considerably greater
prestige, then he is called “father's brother” (au). Through this address usage, all
men are terminologically divided into an older and a younger generation.
The idea of the unity of a set of brothers, or of a male descent group, is expressed
in several ways. Among the Sherpas, for example, brothers may be considered as
interchangeable with regard to marriage contracts. Similarly, if a man dies, it is
expected that his younger brother should marry the widow.
Secondary marriages (587)
Family relationships (593)
The most striking expression of the principle of the unity of brothers is a practice
not widely found among the Sherpas, but so common in other parts of Tibet as to
be the norm; that is the practice of fraternal polyandry as the preferred form of
marriage. In this practice, an entire set of brothers may marry the same woman for
the explicit purpose of preventing the division of patrilineally inherited estates.
Excellent accounts of Tibetan polyandry can be found in the works of Prince Peter
(1963), Aziz (1978), Li An-Che (1947), Goldstein (1971a, 1977), and others.
Polygamy (595)
From these observations, it can be concluded that while strict patrilineal social
organization may not be typical of Tibet, there is nonetheless what may be referred
to as a patrilineal ideology which manifests itself in numerous varied institutions.
Underlying this ideology is the theory, widely distributed in Asia, that agnatic
descent is passed through and expressed in the bone (Tibetan rus), while uterine
descent is passed through and manifested in the flesh (Tibetan sha). 5 Implicit in
this formulation is the idea that partilineal inheritance, like bone, is enduring and
solid, while matrilineal relationship, like flesh, is ephemeral and obedient to the
eternal round of growth and decay which characterizes the natural world. The fact
that the words for “bone” and “clan” are the same obviously expresses the same
notion.
Clans (614)
Bone and flesh can be symbolized by the colors white and red respectively, and
may be conceived of as the solid form of substances which, in liquid form, would
be semen and blood, specifically menstrual blood. It is thought that these latter
two substances are responsible for conception. Each is filled with countless
“bodyless souls,” and when the two fluids mingle during intercourse, a struggle
ensues as to which bodyless soul will animate the new child.
The symbolism of semen and blood, bone and flesh, and white and red, is rife
throughout the religious symbolism, almost always representing the forces of male
and female in sexual and/or magical creation
We may conclude that the Tibetan conceptual system is not in any sense unilineal;
but that it does, while recognizing the necessity of both paternal and maternal
substance in conception, exhibit a preference for the patrilineal over the
matrilineal, that is, the unchanging over the mutable. The importance of these
ideas will become clearer as this study progresses.
Marriage among the Sherpas is a drawn out and complicated process. Without
going into any of the details, 6 I may simply note here that it proceeds in at least
three stages, representing increasing degrees of commitment between the two
families, and it may take up to ten years to complete. Traditionally marriages are
arranged by the families, although this is now changing, more so in Khumbu than
in Solu. The system of marriage exchange entails a sizable dowry, paid off in
movable wealth, such as stock animals, jewelry, cash, and the traditional copper
kettles which are the most important display items in Sherpa homes. The dowry
constitutes a daughter's inheritance, and ideally should be a fair share with the
other daughters. The delivery of the dowry marks the finalization of the marriage
contract.
Mode of marriage (583)
Arranging a marriage (584)
Similarly, sons upon completion of the marriage process receive their inheritance
as a sign of their completely wedded status. Sons inherit immovable property,
including fields, houses, and herds. Ideally these should be divided equally or at
least equitably among all the sons. This system presumes that a father has managed
to accumulate enough wealth during his life to allow him to give a viable estate,
including a house and fields, to each son.
Inheritance (428)
Nuptials (585)
If there is any hereditary office or other prestigious right in the family, this will
normally be passed to the oldest son. This son will also take over the role of senior
male in authority in the family and replace his father in lineage and clan prestige
rankings, functions, and offices.
Inheritance (428)
Nuptials (585)
Household (592)
Lineages (613)
Clans (614)
The Sherpas are somewhat atypical in the Tibetan area in also practicing a
modified, nonexclusive form of ultimogeniture, in the sense that the youngest son
becomes the inheritor of the actual ancestral patrimony, including his father's
house and the fields associated with it. The other sons are supposed to receive
houses which are bought or built for them by their fathers. Thus, while the oldest
son is his father's successor in terms of social status, the youngest is the inheritor
in the sense that he receives his father's own real property, property which ideally
should form a continuing ancestral estate to be handed down in perpetuity through
patrilineal inheritance.
Inheritance (428)
When a father and mother have married off their last son and daughter, they will
then have divested themselves of all their worldly property. It is then traditional for
the youngest son and his household to assume the responsibility of caring for them
as dependents until their deaths. He may either allow them to live in the main
house, no longer as masters but as guests, or, because of family tension, he may
send them to live in a grazing shed on the pasture lands, or in a small nearby house
built or acquired for the purpose. 7
Arranging a marriage (584)
Household (592)
Old age dependency (737)
It is possible for sons or daughters who do not wish to marry to take on an official,
formally designated spinster or bachelor status, and to receive their fair share of
the inheritance. This happens quite infrequently.
Sons and daughters who become monks or nuns receive their share of the
property at the time they take monastic vows, which is thus structurally equivalent
to marriage. This is very explicit in Sherpa thought: marriage and monasticism are
conceived of as two binary opposites which exhaust all the possibilities. For
example, the common way of expressing the idea that someone has become a
monk is to say, “he did not take a wife,” or “he did not have a wedding.” This
phraseology does not apply to lay bachelors, only to monks.
Inheritance (428)
Prophets and ascetics (792)
In Solu, but not in Khumbu, the birth of the first child is a status marker
recognized by the sue of a teknonym. The sex of the oldest child is immaterial, so
long as the child survives infancy. The teknonym is formed by adding the suffix -
awa (father) or -ama (mother) to the child's (modified) name. A couple whose first
child was named Yangjin would subsequently be called Yangjiawa and Yangjiama.
Personal names (551)
Social placement (851)
The use of the teknonym, like other traditions discussed here, expresses the value
placed on the continuity of households, estates, and other such kin-based
aggregates. A person truly becomes an adult in Solu when he becomes a parent.
Individuals come and go, but the estate or household, at least, if not the lineage
and clan, persists over time.
Personal names (551)
Social placement (851)
Adulthood (885)
The inviolability of the household or estate is a value throughout the Tibetan area.
Both primogeniture and polyandry, practiced in regions other than Solu-Khumbu,
are explicitly aimed at keeping the patrimony intact. 8 The effect of both these
practices is to designate one son as the principle heir, usually the oldest, and to
deny the right of inheritance to the younger sons. In polyandry, the younger sons
have the rights of junior husbands, giving them sexual access to the common wife.
The oldest son, however, remains the official social father of the children and the
head of the household.
Comparative evidence (171)
Inheritance (428)
Adoption (597)
In primogeniture, which is practiced in areas such as Lahul and Ladak, 9 especially

in the chiefly houses, the other sons are not granted this satisfaction, and must
either live as dependents of their older brother or make do with minimal plots of
land allotted to second sons. The other alternative is for younger sons to leave, and
it has therefore long been tradition for at least some younger sons to enter
monasteries, part of whose raison d'être it is to absorb junior males.
Inheritance (428)
The Sherpas, having settled in a quite fertile region, can afford to be somewhat
more liberal in their attitude toward land than those Tibetans in the bleak western
highlands. Their attitude reflects a history of recent expansion into a relatively
unpopulated domain of well-watered valleys, which, when cleared, provide good
opportunities for mixed agriculture and pastoralism. Though this expansion has
now reached its limits, excess populations of landless sons can be absorbed by
institutions not previously available, such as the mountaineering trade, wage labor
markets in urban areas, and so forth.
Real property (423)
Inheritance (428)
In many Tibetan regions, especially those with a land-based economy rather than a
system of pastoral nomadism, there has been a traditional rule that at least one son
from a family should enter the monastic life. One of the clearest statements of this
practice may be found in the following passage from a discussion of taxation by
Goldstein: [Page 24]
The last tax we shall mention here was the one called tsün-tre (btsun khral) or
sometimes tra-tre (grwa-khral) both of which however gloss as “monk tax.”
a.) for tre-ba families the norm was if there were three sons, the middle one should
become a monk (bu gsum bar ma);
b.) for the dü-jung families the norm was more oppressive in that even if there
were only two sons in a family the monastery claimed the right to make one, the
older, a monk (1971b, 20).
There is no universal rule about which of the sons should become a monk. In the
Dolpo region of western Nepal described by Jest, “in the families of clerics, it is in
general the oldest son who is destined for the religious life” (1975, 309), while
Stein writes of “the custom of making the youngest brothers enter into religion”
(1962, 110–111). There is also a custom to this effect among the Sherpas, though it
is by no means a formalized rule of any kind. The Sherpa formula is that if a man
has three sons, the middle son should become a monk. Putting this conception
into the context of my previous discussion of inheritance, it is possible to conclude
that for the Sherpas, three sons in an ideal family have clearly defined and separate
but complementary responsibilities: the oldest son succeeds to his father's social
status and authority; the middle son goes to the monastery; and the youngest son
inherits the patrimonial estate proper.
Inheritance (428)
Built into this system is a regularly occurring conflict. Since few men double or
triple their wealth during their lifetime, the youngest son, by inheriting the ancestral
home, acquires the lion's share of the property. The oldest son, for all his
theoretical social prestige, seniority, and authority among the brothers, has
nowhere to go—he is squeezed out. I observed this pattern in numerous
situations: the oldest son stood in a conflict-laden relationship both with his father
and with his younger brothers. 10
Acquisition and relinquishment of property (425)
Inheritance (428)
A common way of resolving the conflict is for the oldest son to leave home and
seek his fortune elsewhere. He can go to a city such as Darjeeling or Katmandu to
look for work; enter the tourist and mountaineering trade; educate himself in
Nepali schooling so as to join one or another bureaucracy; set off on trading
expeditions with his own or borrowed money; or enter a monastery.
Acquisition and relinquishment of property (425)
Inheritance (428)
If we examine this idealized family pattern in the light of my theoretical

framework, an interesting view emerges. I have suggested that the succession of
generations, whether in the royal house or in any ordinary family, gives rise to
inherent conflicts and contradictions which demand the enacting of certain specific
actions. According to a purely theoretical model, I have suggested one scenario
according to which at least four different roles are needed to act out the
complications engendered by the succession of one senior male by one junior
male. The first and fourth are the father and his son and heir; while the two
intermediate figures are necessary to play out and consume the animosities and
guilt inherent in this necessarily ambivalent situation.
One of these intermediate roles is that of the usurper, the other that of the
avenger. In the situation presently under consideration, there is again a cast of
[Page 25] four characters, in this instance a father and three sons. The father is to
be replaced, an act which will involve his death and thus be equivalent to his
murder. But even before he dies, when his youngest son marries, the Sherpa father
is divested of all worldly goods and authority, living a superannuated existence,
marginal in every respect, preparing for his next rebirth.
The succession requires three movements, which are assigned to the three sons by
the ideal sibling arrangement I have described. The oldest son, who is in the
position of greatest conflict with the father, initiates the rupture with the father; he
is thus, if not the usurper, then the first potential displacer. The price he pays as his
father's rival is not only tension with his relatives; he is an often outcast as well,
forced to seek his own individual success at odds with his family.
Another structural factor works against him: when the first son comes of age, the
father is usually still in his prime, and so that son's rebellion must fail; but when the
youngest son marries, the father is already an older man and a grandfather.
If the first son is a rebel, it is the second son who undergoes the punishment for
rebellion, being assigned the task of expiating filial guilt. This he accomplishes by
accepting a lifelong term as a junior male, that is, a monk who will never marry or
function in the social world, and whose life will be devoted to the accumulation of
merit, not only for himself but for his family. He thus suffers for the collective
guilt of the three sons, and purifies them not only by doing penance but by
renouncing the goal for which they rebelled: marriage, succession, worldly
authority—in short, senior male status. Like the older brother, he too is “cast out”
of the system, not to Katmandu or the tea plantations of northern India but to a
monastic retreat from worldly social life.
The two middle parties have thus performed the duties of removing the father and
paying for it, yet have also been excluded from the succession each in his own way
so the path is clear for the “innocent” youngest son to move into his father's place
as legitimate successor and lord of the paternal estate. Not only is he innocent in
that he enters the scene after the drama of rebellion and retribution has played
itself out, but, even more, he is cast in the role of his father's rescuer, since it is he
who shelters his father and assumes the burden of the father's support in his
dotage. This is simply a reversal of the earlier relationship between father and sons,
and may be interpreted as an attempt at paying back the debt accumulated by the
sons when they were dependent on their father's support.
The youngest son's apparent solicitude covers up the fact that it is he who, by
finally achieving adulthood, delivers the coup de grace to the old man. But, as I
have said, symbolic arrangements can only mask or prettify, never undo or annul,
the real conflicts inherent in patrilineal succession. 11
I have so far been describing a system of concepts and practices based upon a
belief in and positive evaluation of the prepetuation of households, lineages, and
clans through sexual reproduction. According to this view, some connection of
[Page 26] shared essence, substance, or spirit unites individuals along the lines of
real biological descent and ancestry.
Thus, for example, Sherpas often explain a certain kind of behavior in an

individual by claiming that it runs in a particular family or lineage. A man is
automatically suspect because he comes from a thieving lineage (here the
somewhat derogatory term for lineage, tsali, is used); while another may be
respected simply because he comes from a lama lineage, and it will be assumed that
he must also be a good lama.
Lineages (613)
Ethnopsychology (828)
Such explanations of behavior obviously imply a belief in hereditary behavior

patterns. This might not seem very startling, were it not for its coexistence in
Sherpa culture side by side with an ideology best understood as precisely the
negation of such a set of concepts and practices. This is the ideology associated
with the Buddhist theory of karma.
General character of religion (771)
Luck and chance (777)
According to the theory of karma (Tibetan las, “work, action”) the present status
and actions of an individual are determined neither by biological nor by social
descent, but rather by his own actions in previous lives. 12 According to this
system, the thinking, moral, or spiritual aspect of the individual personality, what
Sherpas call the sem (Tibetan sems), has an infinitely long prehistory which has
nothing whatever to do with the parents of the individual, or their clan or lineage.
Eschatology (775)
Like the kinship ideology, this set of beliefs may also be used as an explanatory
principle in daily life. Thus an informant who discovered he had artistic talents
when he took up wood carving suggested he may have been an iconographer in a
former life. A layman of whom it was said that medicinal herbs were more
effective if he administered them suggested that he had probably been a doctor in a
previous life.
Eschatology (775)
While binding the fate of the soul to a universal causal principle, the doctrine of
karma at the same time liberates the individual personality from embeddedness in
the family or line of descent. The “bodyless soul” which enters the womb after the
mingling of male and female fluids in intercourse comes neither from its “father”
nor its “mother” but has simply seized their union as an opportunity to fulfill its
karmic destiny.
Animism (774)
Conception (842)
The opposing principles of descent and karma express a more general opposition
between principles of autonomy and of dependency or embeddedness. Numerous
theorists have used this dichotomy as a major explanatory concept, none, to my
mind, more elegantly than Bakan (1966). He proposes that the underlying conflict
in life is that between the quest for isolation and independence, which he calls
“agency,” and the quest for transcendence of the self in larger wholes, which he
calls “communion.” This distinction is explicitly related to Freud's dualistic
apotheosis of Eros and Thanatos, itself an expression of Empedocles' primal pair,
Love and Strife.
Koestler's formulation (1967) of this dichotomy is also very useful. Starting from
the insights of systems theory, Koestler develops the notion of the “holon” [Page
27] or unit, which exists at every level of complexity in nature. At each
organizational level, systems may be simultaneously viewed as both holons or
unitary systems, and as parts of larger or more encompassing systems. This holds
true of everything from subatomic particles to entire galaxies.
In human life, a major conflict exists between two levels of systems, one level
comprising the totality of the individual organism, the other the larger systems of
which individuals are elements. These include social, cultural, and biological
systems, those organized systems which employ individual people as parts in the
same way an individual body employs cells as its parts. Freud made several
attempts to equate his fundamental dualism with a conflict between the “ego”
instincts and those which represented the interests of what was then called the
germ plasm. While never committing himself to this equation, he suggested that
Eros, Bakan's communion, pertains to the life of what we would call the genotype;
while the death instincts, which Bakan conceptualizes as agency, serve the
individual ego. 13
In my present focus, I would situate this opposition in the context of the needs of
social, cultural, and biological systems to compose themselves of “parts” which are
mortal, and which at their own level are themselves holons with their own systemic
integrity. Sons (speaking loosely) represent for their fathers individual mortality,
but biological, social, and cultural immortality. This immortality—“real” from the
point of view of the higher order system, but not so obviously so from the point of
view of the individual—can be culturally expressed in two ways, metaphorical and
metonymic. In the metaphoric mode, the underlying assumption is that father and
son, while separate individuals in one sense, are in some other sense identical or
equivalent to each other. The succession of the son therefore implies that the
“same” person somehow continues to live and function. The Shilluk conception of
kingship as the permanent rule of the one king Nyikang is a perfect example.
According to the metonymic way of thinking, the father and son are linked by
being equivalent partial elements in a larger overall system encompassing both of
them, and through participation in which they become identified with each other.
In this view, the patriline or some other such continuing system has its own larger
reality, and things which are part of it are by that token related to each other. The
generational conflict which I have been discussing may thus be stated in terms of
the contradictory requirements of a son to establish his own existence, as an
autonomous individual and therefore deny his relationship to his father, versus his
need to place himself in harmony with his father in a larger context and so identify
with him. 14
Genetics (143)
This division of the world into the discrete and the continuous is by no means an
esoteric or mystical doctrine, but finds expression in the heart of contemporary
science, in such concepts as the relation between the genotype and the phenotype,
or the manifestation of light as both continuous waves and discrete particles. One
of the most interesting and dynamic uses of this concept has been [Page 28] in the
study of semiology, where the conflict and reciprocity between part and whole has
become enshrined as the hermeneutic circle. Speech itself is both a continuous
meaningful flow and an aggregate of separable atomic units. Lévi-Strauss, using
linguistic analogies in his analyses of mythology, argues that the problem in
mythology, as in any other system of significance, is to strike a balance between the
breaking up of the world into units and the combination of units into totalities
(1964, 58–63). In order for meaning to be conveyed, both aspects, analysis and
synthesis, must be at work.
This formulation is dynamic in that it conceives of the mind confronting a universe

of experience which is initially undifferentiated. A first analytic movement
accomplishes the division of this totality into discrete units; while the second
movement of synthesis builds structures out of the units created by analysis. Thus,
for example, the wide repertory of sounds capable of being produced by the
human vocal apparatus is reduced in any given language to a very small set of
phonemes, which can then be combined to form meaningful discourse. Similarly,
the smooth chromatic flow of musical pitch must be divided into separate notes to
form a scale, with which music can then be composed. In myth, too, the world is
broken down into concrete symbols which are then combined by a “logic of the
concrete,” as Lévi-Strauss demonstrates (1966).
Indeed, any structural system, to follow Piaget's usage (1970), from mathematics to
culture, requires first the breaking up of unity into an alphabet or code, and then
the laws of their recombination. Not accidentally, that is also the scheme of
research I have employed in this study.
This two-directional movement between separateness and unity may be given a still
more dynamic thrust by the employment of an essentially Hegelian model,
whereby a first state consists of undifferentiated unity; a second moment entails
the movement to a state of differentiation; and the third is a final synthesis in
which the units are reconnected in a new unity which simultaneously preserves the
separateness, creating a differentiated as opposed to an undifferentiated unity.
This progressive model may be fruitfully applied to the course of the individual
human life. Developmental theory in the psychoanalytic tradition has stressed the
gradual transformation of a child's experience from an undifferentiated unity or
symbiosis, normally with the mother, through a gradual process of individuation,
or creation of separateness, to a maturity of renewed formation of mature
connections or libidinal relations with real objects who are at once themselves
individuated and at the same time encompassed by a larger social whole. 15
Using Bakan's terms, we may characterize human development as a process which

begins in a state dominated by communion, or primary erotic union with the
mother. This gradually gives way to an ascendency of agency, the drive toward
mastery, the object of which is to create an autonomous, self-regulating individual.
But once this separate ego has been established, the scaffolding of agentic isolation
and self-assertiveness which has been erected to ensure the creation of
individuality must be discarded to make way for the establishment of [Page 29]
mature erotic relations, made possible by a reemergence of the principle of
communion.
This idealized model divides the life project into two parts. The first part is
concerned with undergoing primary connectedness and establishing the individual
as a “holon”; the second consists of crossing the boundaries of this holon and
establishing connections with others as part of more inclusive wholes. This schema
provides life with a critical moment—midway through life's journey, as it were—
when there is a reversal of direction of the trajectory of the conflicting forces of
agency and communion.
In the context of the succession of generations, this midpoint of life corresponds,

in a highly idealized way, to the moment in a man's life when he displaces his
father and begets his own son. At the high point of his assertion of separateness,
the final success of his rivalry with his father, he also engenders the rival who will
do the same to him. It is at that moment, as Bakan has shown in a passage of great
insight (1966, chapter 6), that the new father (newly a father both because he has
replaced his father and because he has a son) must resist his agentic impulse, which
is to eliminate his defenseless rival and nemesis, and accept his own diminution
and ultimate demise in favor of his son's rising life.
This model is not simply an arbitrary construction of mine but is, on the contrary,
clearly embodied in the material I shall be analyzing throughout this book. For the
present it is sufficient to note that the doctrines of karma versus descent in Sherpa
culture express the contradictory view that fathers and sons both are and are not
related to each other.
Eschatology (775)
This cultural formulation is consistent with Leach's proposal, in his influential

study of complementary descent principles (1961), that in general kinship systems
are characterized by substantive descent on one side, complemented by mystical
filiation on the other side. In the Sherpa case, these two forms of descent are not
divided according to maternal versus paternal lines of descent but, rather,
according to a division between sexual and nonsexual reproduction. Nonsexual
reproduction is possible among humans precisely because information is
transmitted not only along genetic channels but along cultural, symbolic channels
as well.
Among the Sherpas, as among most Tibetan peoples, religious initiation of any
kind within the broad framework of the institutionalized religious system requires a
mystical communion between a master or guru and his disciple, in which the
master transmits to the pupil both information and spiritual energy. This spiritual
energy is embodied in a mystical force or power called ong (Tibetan dbang).
Among members of the ngawa (Tibetan sngags-pa) tradition to which the Sherpas
belong, initiation consists of the bestowing upon the disciple of a mantra or
mystical Sanskrit verbal formula, called ngak, (Tibetan sngags). Any ritual,
liturgical, or other information transmitted to the disciple without the requisite
empowerment through the bestowal of ong is considered to be worthless. As the
Sherpa saying has it, a lama who performs a ritual without ong might just as well be
singing and dancing. Similarly, a religious painting or statue must [Page 30] be
inscribed with the appropriate mantra, or else it too will be without power. In this
context, the mantra is called zung (Tibetan gzungs).
These syllables are without discursive meaning, but they must be so, since they are
generative elements, not surface structures: a seed does not display the likeness of a
stalk of wheat, nor does a drop of semen resemble a man. Ong, then, is a
nonmaterial essence, capable of being embodied in symbols, which is passed from
“senior male” gurus to “junior male” disciples, resulting in a lineage or descent
system organized around the transmission and inheritance of ong and the symbolic
information which accompanies it.
Incorporeal property (424)
Inheritance (428)
Lineages (613)
Sacred objects and places (778)
That such enduring groups really are lineages is borne out by the fact that the
Tibetan words used for them are the same words which may be used for groups
defined by biological descent. In both cases there is an apical ancestor, in one
system an original sire, in the other a founding lama, from whom a direct line of
descent across generations is traced. In the case of religious lineages, the ancestor
is a lama who originates some innovation in ritual, liturgy, or doctrine, or who rises
to great spiritual heights. While he himself is in some sense self-originating, he
passes his new doctrine intact along with the essence of his spiritual power through
disciples whose aim it is to reproduce exactly in each generation what the master
taught.
The Tibetan words for lineage include brgyud, rigs, and rabs. It will be useful at
this point to quote from the dictionary definition of each of these words.
According to Jäschke (1965) brgyud may mean, “family (gens), lineage; relations,
ancestors, descendents, offspring” (124). Some of the glosses which Jäschke gives
for rigs include “family, lineage, extraction, birth, descent…. In a special sense:
caste, class in a society, rank…. Kind, sort, species” (527–28); while for rabs,
Jäschke gives “lineage, succession of families, race, family … generation…” in
general, “succession, series, development” (523–24). In each of these cases, there is
clear evidence that the word applies both to kin-based descent and the groups
resulting from it, and to the principle of continuity or succession in general. Thus,
rabs is used to refer to the propogation of Buddhism as a doctrine; rigs refers to
the concept of species or kind in general; and brgyud, in compound phrases such
as brgyud-brgyugs means “a continuous succession” (ibid. 124).
An examination of words cognate to the word brgyud, which is the standard

Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit word for spiritual lineage, parampara, is
particularly instructive. The closely related rgyud, for example, means string or
cord, and may also be used to form phrases such as ri-rgyud, referring to a string
or chain of mountains. The word rgyud is also the translation of the Sanskrit word
tantra, and the substantive form rgyud-pa refers to a teacher. Rgyud is also glossed
as “connection, relation, reference.” All these meanings clearly suggest the
connection or relation of discrete things in chains or collectivities. The idea of
unity over time is more clearly expressed in the word rgyun, meaning “flow,
current, or stream,” or in adverbial form “continually, perpetually, always;” [Page
31] while rgyus means, in addition to “knowledge,” “annals, chronicle, history,
story, tale, narrative” (ibid. 112–13).
Clearly related to these concepts is the word rgyu, which Jäschke glosses in two
major senses, one referring to “matter, substance, material,” the other implying
“cause, reason, motive” (1965, 110–11). In the latter sense, rgyu is one of the
standard doctrinal terms for the law of cause and effect, or karma. 16 Thus
descent, brgyud, and karma as cause, rgyu, are conceptually related, in that both tie
together discrete units—individuals, actions—into larger connected wholes
enduring over time.
Vocabulary (192)
Lineages (613)
That rgyu implies cause is also interesting, since inclusion in a class or group
ultimately depends on being traced back to a common origin, which is the “cause”
of every thing or event which follows it. The relation between the concepts of
descent, membership in a class, and cause or origin is made very clear in Stein's
highly illuminating discussion of the word rabs. Noting that the word has two
principal semantic aspects, one referring to succession or elements of succession,
the other to categorization or classification, Stein points out also that the meaning
of rabs as “tradition, biography, narrative, transmission of a message” is closely
related to the first aspect (1971, 537–38).
Vocabulary (192)
He then points out, à propos the second aspect of meaning, that “this evocation of
species or of family implies the notion of origin or of filiation” (ibid. 541). The
conclusion, Stein claims, is clear: “The words chho and rabs at the same time
designate divisions into kinds or classes, the succession of events and the stories or
accounts which relate to them. Finally, they designate a literary genre consecrated
to stories of origin and to the classifications of beings and things” (ibid. 545).
Vocabulary (192)
It appears, then, that there are two parallel lineage systems at work in Sherpa
culture, one depending on the inheritance of substance or genetic information
through sexual reproduction, the other through the inheritance of nongenetic,
symbolic information through initiation and teaching. This opposition is reflected
in the binary opposition of the roles of married householder versus celibate monk.
But it now remains to be seen in greater detail how these two parallel and
contradictory systems operate together in the same overarching system.
Lineages (613)
Karma, I have suggested, is the mechanism whereby the primary embeddedness of

human individuals in a group, formed along lines of biological descent and
reproduction, can be negated, making possible a concept of the separate individual,
unrelated to his “kinsmen” in the descent system. These separate individuals are
now free to be reunited not on the basis of a “natural” grouping such as that
created by biological descent but, rather, on the basis of a culturally constructed
system according to which individuals choose to submit to a master, whom they
then seek to reproduce through cultural inheritance.
Lineages (613)
Placing this in the context of the three-stage model I have proposed, I would
suggest that unity through kinship represents a primary, undifferentiated union;
karma is the doctrine which accomplishes the separation of this unity into [Page
32] discrete units; and reassociation on the basis of the transmission of ong
represents the reunification of the discrete units into a larger whole in which the
discrete units are still preserved. At the same time, this progression embodies the
symbolic replacement of nature by culture, a project I take to be intrinsic in the
development of human civilization. 17
The three-step progression from nature to culture is very nicely expressed in

Laplanche's formulation (1975) of the psychoanalytic theory of the emergence of
human sexuality. Analyzing Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,
Laplanche characterizes the replacement of natural by cultural control over
reproduction, in the transition from animal to human, by a formula which begins
with the negation of instinct, or what he calls “the instinct lost.” In this movement,
the instinct controlling the sexual act is “disconnected,” and humans become
capable of distributing their sexual energy along symbolic lines, thus making
possible the “perversions,” or, to use a neutral term, sexual variations, which
characterize human sexual life. The second movement is what Laplanche calls the
“genesis of human sexuality,” through the complicated developmental process
proposed by Freud. Finally, with mature sexuality, culture achieves “the instinct
mimed,” a state wherein reproduction through symbolic control of behavior
mimics the instinctual means, and achieves the same results, but is now
incorporated under the broad domain of culture rather than nature (1975, 14–15).
18
Research methods (120)
The theory of ong carries the notion of patriliny a step beyond this, by negating the
need for sexual reproduction altogether, thus excluding the need for females in the
system, and allows the formation of groups based entirely on male descent without
the need for any detour through the realm of nature.
(12)
Lineages (613)
The closest approximation of the ideal asexual male society in Sherpa life is to be
found in the institution of celibate monasticism, or in lineages of ascetic hermits, a
much less common phenomenon. But monasticism is a very recent innovation
among the Sherpas, having begun to flourish only during the present century. Prior
to that, the Sherpa practice of religion rested in the hands of married lamas, a role
permitted by the unreformed rnying-ma-pa sect of Buddhism.
(12)
Lineages (613)
The word lama (Tibetan bla-ma), literally meaning “superior one,” is normally used
in Tibet to refer to reincarnated religious figures of high status; ordinary monks are
called grwa-pa, or “student.” But among the Sherpas the word lama is also used to
refer to a man who marries and participates in village life, and produces heirs, but
who is also initiated into the religious hierarchy and officiates at the rituals marking
village ceremonial life.
When the Sherpas first migrated to Solu-Khumbu from Tibet, they were
apparently under the leadership of such a married lama; his descendants form the
clan which today is called the Lama clan. Within that clan, and later within other
clans, lineages developed which specialized in religious practice and became known
as lama lineages, whose task it was to provide religious specialists for the service of
the community at large.
Within these lama lineages, it was customary for men who were actually lamas to
initiate their own sons into the religious life; in theory the initiate was the oldest
son, but in general practice it was the one who showed the greatest aptitude. In this
arrangement, then, filiation by descent and filiation by initiation were united, and
did not contradict one another: it was believed that membership in a particular
lineage, or filiation from a particular patrilineal ancestor, served to make one more
prone to benefit from teaching and the transmission of ong, which ran along
family lines.
Lineages (613)
It was the pattern in this system of succession for fathers to give their sons ong
shortly after the sons reached puberty. In order to prepare himself to receive ong,
the son had to undertake what amounted to a celibate monastic existence for a
limited period. Ideally he was supposed to immure himself in a meditation retreat
for the ritual period of three years, three months, and three days, during which
time he purified himself by his ascetic life and by the performance of one hundred
thousand repetitions of four fairly mechanical rituals. 19
Asceticism (785)
Ritual (788)
Once the son is initiated, his father can take him on as his junior partner in the
performance of his religious duties, gradually passing him more and more
responsibility until it is time for the father to marry off his last son. Having done
this, instead of moving in with his youngest son, the father himself may move into
the family meditation retreat, in the crags somewhere above the village, to devote
his time to meditation, the performance of rituals, and general preparation for
death and rebirth.
Asceticism (785)
This system was in operation in full force until quite recently. It has not been
eliminated, but it has been overshadowed by the rapid rise of celibate monasticism
as the preferred religious institution during the present century.
Sociocultural trends (178)
With the institution of monasticism, which requires religious specialists to take a

lifetime vow of celibacy and thus denies them the possibility of combining sexual
and nonsexual reproduction, has come a new and more complicated relationship
between the two modes of descent. With many Tibetan groups practicing
developed monasticism, descent via kinship usually passes from one generation to
the next from the oldest in one sibling set to the oldest in the next sibling set; while
religious succession passes through younger sons. Thus older sons succeed their
fathers in the temporal realm, while their younger brothers succeed their father's
younger brothers in the spiritual realm. In this way, both worldly and spiritual
power or office can be perpetuated within a family.
Inheritance (428)
Lineages (613)
In this system, the relationship between nephew (dbon) and paternal uncle (khu)
becomes parallel to the father/son dyad. Stein describes this classical pattern:
“With the growth in influence of the religious orders, succession to power in a
noble family took effect on two levels or in two lines. A married brother
transmitted secular power and the family estate from father to son; another
brother, a monk, passed on religious power and the property of the order from
paternal uncle to nephew” (1972, 106). After giving several examples of this
practice from the history of the great lama lineages of Tibet, Stein concludes:
“Paternal uncle to nephew (khu-dbon) succession, which is characteristic [Page 34]
of the transmission of monastic power, corresponds to the spiritual succession
from teacher to disciple expressed by the terms ‘father’ and ‘son’” (ibid. 107). We
see here how completely the relationships of father/son, guru/disciple, and
paternal uncle/nephew are thought to be equivalent to each other.
Elsewhere in his discussion of the family in Tibet, however, Stein paints a rather
different picture. While “antagonism between father and son is rare, that of
paternal uncle and nephew is common” (ibid. 100). There is of course a good
structural reason for this. With the system of primogeniture (or, mutatis mutandis,
ultimogeniture), the younger brothers are excluded from the succession. Their
thwarted ambitions may give rise to rivalry with their brother's heirs, leading to
usurpation, which, as Stein points out, was common enough in the history of
Tibet. It is also a particularly salient theme in literature, such as in the epic of
Gesar, where the principal conflict is between Gesar and his paternal uncle; and in
the life of Milarepa, where the same conflict is to be found.
Inheritance (428)
Ingroup antagonisms (578)
Avuncular and nepotic relatives (604)
Despite this structural tension, this arrangement provides a potential resolution of

the ambivalences which I have suggested are inherent in the succession of
generations. Returning to Stein's comment, I would argue that the reason why
father-son tension is rare is precisely because tension between uncle and nephew is
common; this parallel mechanism provides a device for the splitting of the
ambivalent relationship, and the projecting of the tension-filled, competitive side
of it onto the father's brother, who, in addition to being a real rival, also becomes a
convenient focus for Oedipal hostility.
Adjustment processes (154)
Inheritance (428)
Ingroup antagonisms (578)
The “good” side of the split is not simply retained in the real father-son
relationship. A further step is taken: an idealized, harmonious relationship of senior
to junior male is projected into the master-disciple dyad, which takes on the
qualities of being the structural opposite of the uncle-nephew dyad. Since the
excessive positive and negative feelings are directed toward the guru and the uncle
respectively, the son is free to enjoy a realistic, mildly ambivalent attitude toward
his own real father.
I have already showed some ways in which a cast of four characters is needed to
enact a succession scenario. In the family structure I have just described, with two
parallel lines of descent, one lay and one monastic, there are again four characters,
two brothers each in the senior and junior generations. Two of these characters,
the monks in each generation, undertake a role which entails sacrifice, atonement,
and a prohibition on sexual relations with women. If we accept that this is
symbolically equivalent to being defeated, and thus killed (or castrated) in the
intergenerational rivalry, while yet staying alive, then we arrive at a situation in
which the real father represents the senior male who is not killed; the uncle
represents the senior male who is “killed;” the older son is the junior male who is
not killed; while the younger son becomes the junior male who is “killed.” This is,
of course, quite a perfect realization of the model I have generated.
But the situation is more complex than this, for the two monastic characters,
through their punishment, atone for and expiate the guilt inherent in the system:
[Page 35] the father's guilt for having killed his son, the son's guilt for having killed
his father. Thus the two murderers are at the same time martyrs whose sacrifice
saves the real dyad of father and son. This effect is achieved through a very elegant
convolution in the system.
The uncle and nephew, as I have remarked, represent the projection of dyadic
rivalry and hostility between generations, whereas the relation between guru and
disciple in the monastic system is theoretically one of harmony and union, since a
disciple ideally will reproduce his master more exactly than a son can reproduce his
father. These two pairs thus represent idealized dyads embodying the two halves of
a split image of the ambivalent senior male/junior male dyad.
But in the case I have been describing, these two opposed dyads are both
contained in one single pair of people, since the “intermediary characters” between
the father and his son are simultaneously both the uncle and nephew, that is the
rivals; and the monastic master and disciple, that is, the symbolic figures of unity.
The same two figures, the younger brothers who are both monks and uncle and
nephew, at once commit the Oedipal crimes, in their bad aspect, and atone for
them, in their good aspect.
Once again, but in a different format, in order for one man to succeed, three must
die: his father who really dies to make way for him, and the two intermediate
characters who play out the drama of revenge which is inherent in succession.
Thus the “dual descent” system clearly shows a structure which can be understood
as responding to the requirements of my proposed core problematic. But what
about the system which prevailed in Solu-Khumbu before the ascendency of
monasticism, when religious lineages and kinship lineages followed identical paths?
In the monastic case, the problem could be solved because the various roles could
be assigned to four different characters. In the case of married lamas, where fathers
pass ong to their own sons, there are only two people to work with.
The solution must therefore be achieved not through the symbolic technique of
decomposing or splitting the characters, but through a method whereby the same
two people embody all the contradictory roles needed for the succession to
succeed. Here the father and son are also master and disciple, but there appears to
be no parallel dyad of uncle and nephew to absorb the negative side of the
equation. The answer is provided by having the father and son play different roles
alternately at different stages of life.
When the son attains puberty, becoming a viable sexual rival, the father requires
him to undertake a temporary period of ascetic hermitage, which, as I have already
argued, should be interpreted as symbolic defeat, death, or castration. Later on the
tables are turned, and while the son succeeds to maturity as a householder and fully
empowered lama, his father, in his turn, goes off to the same family meditation
retreat to undergo the same ascetic regime he imposed upon his son. Thus father
1, at time 1 “kills” son 1 by sending him into religious ascetic isolation; in
retaliation he is subsequently himself “killed,” as father 2, by son 2 at time 2. But
son 2 is not destroyed by the guilt from this because, as [Page 36] son 1, he has
already undergone and survived the symbolic death and atonement he owes for
killing his father.
While it is beyond the scope of the present discussion to embark upon a

consideration of Tantrism, 20 it is useful to note in the present context that the
esoteric content of the Tantric initiations characteristic of traditions such as the
ngawa is quite explicitly concerned with ritualized expression of Oedipal problems
and their transcendence. The central mystery involves the symbolic sexual union of
the disciple with a real or imaginary female devotee, who is expressly thought of as
a consort of the guru. While themes of this sort will recur throughout this study,
for the present I will only cite one particularly clear illustration. A passage from the
Candamaharosanatantra cited by Filliozat (1971) shows clearly how
straightforwardly Oedipal themes are expressed to the Tantras:
16
Thereupon, the master-yogin must approach,…with his thoughts absorbed in the
head of [Aksobhya], [turned] towards the organ of Mamaki.
17
Then, transformed into spermatic fluid, he must fall into her organ. Following this,
in the accomplished form of Canda, he must go out of the organ
18
and he must kill the father Aksobhya with the sword, and then cause Mamaki to
eat him and conceive that of the father which she has absorbed.
19
Then, having taken Mamaki, the mother, he must love her, he must represent
himself in meditation entwined with her under the form proper to Dvesavajri (ibid.
143).
This eloquent passage, I believe, requires no comment.
Since the sacred king occupies a privileged ritual position in any social system,
through his embodiment of the cybernetic control center of society, it follows that
the career of the ruler is not simply an individual life story but a public
paradigmatic scenario, in which the king enacts the part of metonymic
representative of all his subjects and of the society as a unitary whole. This is all the
more possible since the king is, after all, merely a man like everyone else, and
therefore subject to the same problems and conflicts. But it is precisely his task to
solve those conflicts on behalf of his subjects. Having done so, he vicariously
relieves the populace of the burden, and frees it from excessive guilt and conflict
so that it may pursue the work of society. It follows that the king, like all men, has
an Oedipal problem. Unlike all men, he is able to resolve it: this is precisely what
entitles him to be king. For this reason he may act as a mediator through whose
public actions and rituals men may have their own Oedipal conflicts alleviated.
This formulation is merely the reverse of my earlier statement that since the king is
the dominant male of the society, the Oedipal problem is really in some sense his
problem.
As I have already indicated, the case of Oedipus himself is helpful in grasping this
concept. It has often been pointed out by skeptics that Oedipus himself did not,
strictly speaking, have an Oedipus complex. But the problem dissolves when [Page
37] it is noted that he is a king, and therefore a figure whose duties include the
enactment of things forbidden to others, on behalf of the society as a whole. It is
precisely by solving the Oedipal riddle of the Sphinx that he saves the people of
Thebes: it is just this heroic deed which makes him worthy to rise above others as
their ruler.
But the same deed which makes him a hero and a king also makes him an
archcriminal. He therefore must undergo a public humiliation and punishment,
which culminates in symbolic castration—he blinds himself—and explusion from
the kingdom. This is not the end, however. In Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
makes clear that in acting as the scapegoat, Oedipus has cleansed both himself and
Thebes of the plague brought on by the negative aspects of royal heroism, and he
now becomes a semidivine source of blessing for all who honor him.
Unfortunately, the myopic people of Thebes are too foolish to appreciate this fact,
and refuse to take him back. It remains for another great Oedipal hero-king,
Theseus, to recognize Oedipus' sacred status and accept him as the protector of
Athens. But let me return to Tibet.
The history of Tibetan kingship may be broadly divided into three major eras. The
first is the earliest period, reaching from prehistoric times until A.D. 842. This was
the period dominated by the Yar-lung dynasty. After 842, the kingship
disintegrated, and Tibet was without a strong centralized government. Petty kings
and religious hierarchs rose and declined, and then the Pax Mongolica fell across
Tibet in the thirteenth century. Thanks to the conversion of some of the Mongols
to Tibetan Buddhism, a new pattern began to emerge. This involved the Mongol
patronage of Tibetan religious leaders who were set up as rulers of Tibet. The third
major period can be dated from the installation in Lhasa of the most important of
these, the Fifth Dalai Lama, in 1642. From that time until 1959, the Dalai Lamas
remained, at least nominally, the supreme rulers of Tibet.
The Yar-lung kingship may itself be separated into various periods. The first seven
kings, legendary rulers called the khri-bdun, or “seven thrones,” possessed the
remarkable quality of leaving no earthly remains when they died; instead, they were
recalled to heaven, whence they had descended, by means of a mystical rope which
connected them by the crown of the head to the celestial regions. The last of these
kings was Gri-gum-btsan-po, whose name means the “king killed by a sword.”
Under circumstances which I will explain later, Gri-gum cut his rope with a sword,
and therefore left a corpse. After that, kings were mortal and required burial.
Succession to the throne in the postlegendary era was probably patrilineal,

following the rule of primogeniture, except that physically unfit sons were passed
over. According to Tucci, 21 the leading authority in these matters, kings were
required to leave the throne in favor of their sons when the sons reached maturity,
which was defined functionally by the ability to ride a horse, and numerically by the
attainment of the age of thirteen.
There is some doubt as to what happened to the old king then; according to some
sources, he appears to have been assumed back into heaven. It is not [Page 38]
certain whether this means that he was actually killed. It may be that he retired to
his tomb, which was in fact a large and habitable structure, and lived as though
dead in his palace-tomb. In his treatise on the tombs of the ancient kings, Tucci
writes that there was a figure called the nang-blon, or “interior minister,” whose
duty it was to act as a surrogate for the king who had been succeeded by his son.
“This man had to impersonate the dead, and, as such, he was to dwell near the
tomb separated from the living world, and therefore with no intercourse whatever
with his family” (1950, 10). The nang-blon annually accepted offerings to the dead,
presumably on behalf of the “dead” king, who may indeed have been dead or may
have gone into retirement elsewhere.
Tucci appears to believe that it was likely that kings were really killed at the
accession of their sons, and raises the question of how this occurred: “It would be
very interesting to know how this killing of the father which is mentioned took
place: that is, whether it was a matter of a quiet suppression, or again of a ritual
killing…or of a killing by means of a sacrificial knife gri, indicated by the name of
that king [Gri-gum] or of burial alive in a tomb” (1955, 196).
The theory behind this radical policy of succession contains the core of the
patrilineal parodox: the son is regarded on the one hand as different from and
totally at odds with his father—the kingdom isn't big enough for both of them;
while at the same time they are identical in both being manifestations of the same
ancestral deity who is incarnate in every king. Thus Tucci writes that on the one
hand, “a clean break separated father from son” (ibid. 193). So, for example, each
new king had to build a new palace, since he could not inhabit the palace of his
father. On the other hand, “the king is the ancestor present among the living in
virtue of a perennial renovating epiphany of his very essence, undertaken on the
attainment of the thirteenth year: the sign of eternal youth” (ibid.). In this way
fathers and sons pass through their prime on the throne and then are removed,
ensuring the perpetual existence of a vigorous monarch.
Chief executive (643)
Thus the essential nature of the king is dual: separate yet identical with his father, a
hero and a regicide, innocent and guilty, good and bad, a father and a son. The
drama requires infinite time to play itself out: each king is a hero who successfully
replaces his father; but he must pay the price by being slain and succeeded in his
turn, and so on ad infinitum.
This dual nature of the king, and his ability symbolically to transcend it, is clearly
attested in the surviving records of the ancient Tibetan kingdom. For example,
Tucci cites a chronicle according to which a noble lineage is traced back to three
primordial ancestors, one black, one white, and one black and white. 22 Tucci
relates this symbolism not only to the fact that the king is lord of three realms,
underworld, earth, and sky, which may be represented as black, black and white,
and white respectively, but also to a more general cosmic dualism historically
derived from Iranian influences. According to this early cosmological scheme,
there were originally two eggs, one white and one black.
From the white egg was born the father-benefactor, p'an byed; from the black one,
the maleficient father, gnod byed: the first is in the light, the [Page 39] second in
shadow which reaches the limit of the light: the first is white and the second is
black and armed with a lance. The first, the beneficient father, is called the king of
positive existence, the second the king of negative existence…. Everything good,
the good creation derives from the former, everything bad, the evil creation, from
the latter: these produce death and malignant demons (1955, 197–98).
It would be difficult to imagine a more explicit rendering of the primal ambivalent

quality of the father, the king, or the creator of the world.
Given all this essential duality, how does the king manage to resolve it? A solution
may be found in an examination of what Oedipal success really means. According
to Freud's most complete formulation, the ultimate wish or goal of the son in the
Oedipal conflict is to be his own father. 23 But this may be interpreted or
symbolically expressed in different ways, and with different implications. For
example, it may mean that the son wishes to become identical in some way with
the man who is his father; or it may mean that he wants to assume his father's
social role, status, and prerogatives, to replace him completely and exactly. Yet
again, it may mean that he wishes to accomplish what his father did for him,
namely to beget him. Read in this sense, the wish to be one's own father would be
the wish to create or generate oneself.
But these different ways of being one's own father are mutally exclusive, since the
wish to become identical with or to replace the father implies that one does have a
father; while the wish to generate oneself denies that one has any father at all, other
than oneself. This paradoxical situation is resolved in the case of the Yar-lung
dynasty, as in the case of the Shilluk kings and many other royal houses, in an
ingenious way. The founder of the lineage, who was indeed self-generated,
represents an absolute beginning, a creation ex nihilo of the royal lineage. In the
Yar-lung case, this initial ancestor is the spirit of a mountain divinity associated
with Mount Yar-lha-sham-po. But each succeeding king, upon attaining the throne,
becomes nothing other than a living manifestation of that same spirit of Yar-lha-
sham-po. Each king thus not only replaces his own father in the real social world,
but he also becomes identical with him insofar as they are both manifestations of
the same one king, and ancestral spirit of the lineage. But since this original
ancestor was indeed self-generated, then each successive king, in becoming
identical with the ancestral spirit, also by that token becomes self-generated.
This analysis should illuminate and confirm my earlier exposition of the meaning
of the words for lineage, in which I showed how it was that the words brgyud and
rabs implied “cause,” both as causal chain and as first cause, while at the same time
also referring to a line of succession.
Lineages (613)
In the early kingship, then, the succeeding king represented both continuity and a
fresh start. He acceded at the age of thirteen (a ritually significant number in the
Bon religion), and, assuming for purely theoretical purposes that he immediately
sired his successor, he was killed some thirteen years later at the accession of his
own son. The accession of the son and the death of the father were simultaneous,
stressing the intimate connection between the two events.
When centralized rule was reestablished after a hiatus of several centuries, it

underwent a remarkable transformation. The Dalai Lamas, but not only they,
succeeded each other according to a technique which is unique to the Tibetan
culture area and is certainly one of the most remarkable solutions to the problem
of succession ever devised. This is the system of succession by reincarnation.
Eschatology (775)
According to this principle, which is an extension of the basic general Buddhist

belief in reincarnation, a person, usually an important lama, who is to be
reincarnated, dies and, after the traditional forty-nine-day intermediate period
between lives, is conceived again as a human embryo. I will not enter into the
doctrinal debates over just what it is that actually reincarnates; according to Sherpa
informants it is the sem, which may be glossed as the soul or mind; or the nam she
(Tibetan rnam-shes), the “knower” or subject of consciousness. It can also be
divided into three different elements which may reincarnate in separate individuals,
namely, the body, voice, and mind. 24
Animism (774)
Eschatology (775)
Theological systems (779)
Conception (842)
Whatever it is that reincarnates enters a newly conceived child, whose body is

produced in the usual way. After the child has been born, usually when he is about
two years old, he manifests himself by means of various signs. Often his
predecessor will have given some indication of where he intends to be reborn and
how he may be recognized.
Eschatology (775)
The child now takes over the office, duties, and prerogatives of his predecessor,
not as his successor, strictly speaking, but more precisely as the identical person in
a rebirth.
Eschatology (775)
The usual word for a reincarnated personage is sprul-sku, which means “emanation
body.” This term implies that the 'sprul-sku is really an emanation or avatar of a
divine being. According to my Sherpa informants, however, this is not always the
case. They identify three different grades of 'sprul-sku. The lowest of these occurs
in a situation where a relatively low-level lama, who is mostly good but has by no
means achieved liberation or sainthood, is rewarded for his meritorious life by a
return to his same world in human form. In Solu-Khumbu there are a number of
these reincarnationed lamas who, while worthy of honor, are by no means great
religious figures or heads of religious communities.
Eschatology (775)
A second kind of reincarnated lama is the more nearly perfected religious virtuoso,
who is thought to have been sent to earth to fulfill a particular mission or religious
task. He is allowed to reincarnate for as many lifetimes as it requires to perform his
assignment, which might be the establishing and guidance of a monastery, or the
conversion or religious organization of a particular community.
Eschatology (775)
The highest sort of reincarnate lama, the 'sprul-sku proper, is actually the
incarnated form of a bodhisattva or one of the high gods of Tibetan Buddhism,
who has chosen a human appearance in order to fulfill his commitments as
benefactor of the religion. The Dalai Lama, for example, is thought to be an
emanation of the god Spyan-ras-gzigs (Sanskrit Avalokitesvara), the patron
bodhisattva of Tibet. 25
Animism (774)
Eschatology (775)
Succession by reincarnation carries to its farthest extreme the antikinship theory of

karma. According to that theory, as I have shown, a person is not [Page 41] related
to his biological parents, but rather represents a stage in the continuous career of a
single, discrete personality over the course of countless lives. In succession through
reincarnation, the individual is not only unrelated to his biological parents, he is
quite literally the same person he was before he died.
The reincarnated lama is thus cut off in every respect from the bonds of kinship,
exchange, alliance, and obligation which characterize the rest of the society,
achieving a level of autonomy which truly differentiates him from ordinary mortals
and raises him to a sacred royal status. This “self-generating” status also has
political and social benefits on the temporal level: there is no royal house, no need
for royal marriages, and no possibility of factional squabbling among rival
pretenders from different lines of the royal family. Thus incarnation functions as
an antikinship institution which, by undercutting traditional authority patterns
based on blood, serves the interests of a centralizing, bureaucratized government.
26
Eschatology (775)
Symbolically, the reincarnate lama is always the same person; on a more mundane
level, he is, of course, successive different persons with mortal bodies, even if his
reincarnating principle remains constant. Insofar as he is one person, he has no
need to kill and displace his predecessor, since he is his own predecessor. But
insofar as he is different persons, and does require his predecessor's death for his
own succession, the symbolism of reincarnation resolves the problem of regicidal
guilt beautifully: the predecessor, as senior male, dies, but literally survives his own
death, thus remaining immortal; while the junior male, who is the same as his
predecessor only different, lives on in his stead, but, by way of atonement for his
crimes, accepts the symbolically “junior” status of a monk, that is, a role
characterized by celibacy and world renunciation.
Eschatology (775)
The system of succession by reincarnation is thus the ultimate refinement in the

condensation of succession symbolism. I have shown that in an idealized form of
the succession scenario, at least four different roles have to be played. In the
system of parallel lines of descent, one through kinship and one through religious
initiation of a monastic setting, these four parts are played by four different
individuals, namely two brothers in two generations. In the system where married
lamas succeed each other by both kinship and initiation simultaneously, only two
people take part in the drama, but each plays two different roles in alternate times.
But in the system of succession by reincarnation, the whole complicated scenario is
played out by just one person.
Inheritance (428)
Eschatology (775)
The reincarnated lama also carries to a still more elegant conclusion the logic
underlying the earlier Tibetan kingship whereby each king fulfills the Oedipal goal
of being his own father. On the one hand, the reincarnate lama is thought to be
literally identical with his “father,” that is his predecessor, the “senior” male whom
he displaces; while on the other hand, by having mastered the laws of karma so
that he can consciously manipulate the fate of his own soul after death and free
himself of the imperatives of biological descent, he is also the author of his own
creation.
Eschatology (775)
But with all these symbolic and structural strengths, the institution also has
inherent flaws and conflicts of its own. For all the power of cultural symbolism,
[Page 42] it still cannot completely annul the necessities of sexual reproduction and
mortality. These realities still determine the outer limits of the system, as long as
living humans are involved. This, surely, is one of the compelling motivations for
the invention of non- or superhuman beings—mythic heroes, fictional characters,
and gods—who are subject to no such restrictions. It is therefore to the rich world
of religious and literary symbolism which I shall now turn my attention, a realm
where the human imagination is free to express its inner concerns and its own
inherent structure without the necessity of paying homage to the reality principle at
all.
Before leaving this subject, however, I would like to mention that perhaps the
most serious structural conflict built into the institution of the reincarnate lama is
the fact that for much of his official life he is a child, and therefore in no position
to provide other than symbolic leadership for a real institution such as a monastery
or a government. Temporal power is therefore lodged in the hands of a mature
man, who acts as regent. In terms of real power, it is this regent, rather than either
his real father or his spiritual predecessor, that a reincarnate lama must displace
when he comes of age. As we shall see later, in chapter 11, the Dalai Lamas, at
least, have not fared very well in this struggle.
I have proposed a fundamental distinction between the continuous and the
discrete as modes of the word as we experience it. On one side of this division are
the drives toward communion, Eros, and, as an ideal goal, union; while on the
other side are agency, strife, separation, and the ultimate division of things into the
smallest possible independent units.
I wish to proceed by demonstrating that, on a purely theoretical plane, there is

great generative power built into this apparently very simple structure; and that,
furthermore, many aspects of Tibetan cosmology and religious symbolism have
forms and appearances best explained by the assumption that they were generated
by just this fundamental distinction.
In Buddhism, the distinction I have drawn corresponds to that between the realm
of nirvana, where there are no distinctions; and the realm of samsara, the
conditioned realm which includes everything available to us through our ordinary
faculties of sensing and thinking. This distinction parallels that of Kant, according
to which the noumenal world is, in itself, inaccessible to us; while the phenomenal
world obeys precisely those laws which our own mental capacities impose upon it,
including obedience to laws of finite space and time, cause and effect, and the
incompatibility of contradictory things.
In Buddhism, the division into two major sects very roughly parallels a distinction
between concepts of the unconditioned, noumenal realm as an absolute void or as
an absolute plenitude. Actually, from our everyday, conditioned point of view,
these two, nothing and everything, are functionally equivalent, and equally
inaccessible to our phenomenal experience. Within the bounds of sensing and
knowing, we can perceive neither nothing nor everything, but only something.
While this fundamental division of the cosmos is apparently a simple dyad, even
the briefest reflection will show that it cannot be merely dyadic, because, if one
half of the division is a realm where distinctions are made, then that side is [Page
44] necessarily not unitary, but has within it a minimum of one distinction. Staying
with minimal dyadic pairs, then, the simplest elementary unit of distinction, the
binary pair “absolute/conditioned” already has built into it whatever minimal
binary opposition characterizes the conditioned, and allows it to truly qualify as
marked by distinction.
To take a clear example, in the conditioned realm there is a fundamental distinction
between, let us say, yes and no, or one and zero, or plus and minus. But this is
opposed to an unconditioned realm in which it is possible to imagine that there is
no distinction between these, where yes and no are not distinguished.
Thus there are two simultaneous binary oppositions: one between the absolute
realm, where yes and no are not distinguished, and the conditioned realm, where
they are distinguished; and the other between yes and no, a distinction which
characterizes the conditioned aspect of the world. 1
Since, by definition, all our sensing and knowing is conditioned and phenomenal,
the unconditioned is experienced as other; and if we try to characterize it, we can
only do so in terms drawn from our conditioned mode of experience. Thus, to
express the absolute we would have to say, for example, that it is neither yes nor
no; or that it is both yes and no; or that it is not yes, not no, and not yes and no; or
some other unsatisfactory formulation. As I stressed before, such concepts are
neither irrational nor illogical; they are simply “out of bounds” in terms of our
conditioned, phenomenal mode of experiencing.
Lévi-Strauss (1967, 48) recognizes this fundamental triadic structure in his well-
known diagram of the different possible relationships available using only plus and
minus, signifying positive or negative relations between kinsmen (see figure 4). In
this diagram, the realm of the conditioned is divided into plus and
Figure 4
Figure 4
minus, while the unconditioned is expressed by what he calls mutuality, and
symbolizes by the “equals” sign. Finally, the approximation of the ideal unified
status is symbolized by the combination “plus and minus.”
Lévi-Strauss's chart implies the threefold movement I suggested earlier: an
undifferentiated unity (=) is broken up into a differentiation (plus versus minus),
which can then be recombined to form a unity which preserves the separation of
the parts (plus or minus). 2
A further serious complication in this scheme lies in a strange sort of similarity

between the negative pole of the distinction, which belongs to the conditioned
aspect, and the unconditioned or absolute realm itself. 3 Thus, if in the [Page 45]
phenomenal realm we distinguish between one and zero, that zero may seem to
resemble, and therefore even be used to symbolize, the absolute. So when
Buddhism speaks of nirvana as being a void, this can be conceptualized as
“nothing.” But nothing can also exist in the conditioned realm, as the opposite of
something. These two senses of “nothing” are, however, quite radically different:
one is “nothing as opposed to something”; the other is “nothing as opposed to the
possibility of opposition between something and nothing.”
This may seem needlessly subtle, but actually it is very illuminating, as an
illustration from the classic anthropological literature will show. Hertz, in his
treatment of the right hand (1973), posits a dualism according to which “right” is
equated with the sacred, “left” with the profane. Intuitively, we know that this
formulation does not do justice to the complexity of the issue: often enough, the
sacred embodies features usually associated with the left, including dirt,
monstrosity, etc.
This difficulty is cleared up if we realize that there are really two different
oppositions at work. According to one opposition, the pair sacred/profane
corresponds to the opposition between the absolute and the conditioned;
according to the other, within the profane, conditioned world, sacred and profane
are associated with right and left. Therefore, from the point of view of the first
opposition, the right is relatively profane; while from the point of view of the
second it is relatively sacred.
Furthermore, from the point of view of the conditioned world in which we stand,
both the unconditioned and the left share the characteristic of being “different
from the right.” But in one case the sacred abolishes the distinction between left
and right altogether, thus (from the conditioned point of view) mixing up
categories; whereas the left is just the opposite of right within the conditioned
world.
In order to diagram this structure, I shall assign neutral symbols to the various
terms. I shall call the unconditioned unity “A”; and the two halves of the
conditioned, “B” and “C.” If there is a value differentiation, “B” will represent the
positive value: “yes, plus, right, one”; while “C” will represent the negative: “no,
minus, left, zero.”
Using this scheme, we may diagram the basic structure as in figure 5. We can then
symbolize the binary opposition between the absolute and the conditioned as
A/BC, where BC symbolizes the conditioned realm and shows its division;
Figure 5
[Page 46] while the binary opposition between halves of the conditioned is
represented by the symbol B/C.
Thus, the right/left opposition is of the type B/C; whereas the sacred/profane
opposition is both B/C and A/BC. But from the point of view of B, both C (left)
and A (unconditioned) share the quality of being “other than B (right).” In this
sense, they can both appear unclear, foreign, even monstrous. This analysis
surpasses the simple dualisms which have too often been the bane of analyses in
the Durkheimian tradition, and allows us to grasp why, for example, the sacred and
the unclean often seem to go together, a fact which intrigued Durkheim,
Robertson Smith, Freud, and many others.
In Turner's distinction (1969) between structure and antistructure, too, clarification

is provided by my model. On the one hand, Turner's “communitas” corresponds
to the unconditioned, and is opposed to structure in general. But within the
conditioned realm, structure, precisely by drawing distinctions, creates a structural
half which is included as opposed to an antistructure which is excluded. Thus,
from the point of view of law-abiding structure, there is both an antistructure
which consists of that which is excluded by structure; and another antistructure
which refers to a mode of experience in which the idea of structure, made possible
by distinction, does not apply.
I have so far demonstrated that the fundamental dyad A/BC is, of necessity, really
a triad consisting of the terms A, B, and C. This is consistent with Lévi-Strauss's
contention that dyadic structures always imply triads to resolve them (1967,
chapter 8). But this point may be extended to the two major dyadic pairs I have
isolated, namely A/BC and B/C. Since dyads cry out to be mediated or
transcended, we can suppose that these two are no exceptions, and that there
should be mediating or synthesizing terms which try to resolve both these pairs of
oppositions.
I shall refer to the term which mediates the contradiction between A and BC as X.
I shall refer to the term which mediates the contradiction B/C as Y. Thus two
fundamental triadic structures generated by the fundamental dyad I have suggested
would be, on the one hand, that of the type A -X - BC; and on the other hand, B -
Y - C. The former seeks to mediate the opposition between the absolute and the
conditioned; the latter mediates the opposition between things in the conditioned
realm.
Having gone this far on the basis of purely formal structural considerations, let me
now turn to an examination of data, to show how a concrete cosmological scheme
is illuminated by the kind of models I have been suggesting.
Mahayana Buddhism, and especially the Tibetan variety, is rife with triadic
structures as well as other numerical arrangements. 4 One of the most important
triads is the well-known Three Jewels, namely, the Buddha, the Dharma, or
doctrine, and the Sangha, or community of monks. There are numerous esoteric
interpretations of this symbol in the Mahayana schools, in some of which the
absolute has been personified in a deity called the Adi-Buddha, or primordial
Buddha.
According to another such interpretation of the cosmos, there is a female
counterpart of the Adi-Buddha, the Adi-Dharma, a primordial Dharma personified
as a female deity. In a version of the origin of the cosmos related by Getty,
Adi-Dharma revealed herself from a point in the center of the triangle [the triangle
symbolizes the three jewels.] From one side of the triangle she produced Buddha;
from another side Dharma; and from a third side, Sangha. Adi-Dharma is
therefore the mother of the Buddha that issued from the first side….
The Dharma that issued from the second side is the wife of the Buddha of the first
side and the mother of the other Buddhas….
According to the esoteric doctrine, Buddha represents the spiritual essence, the
“plastic cause.” … Sangha is the compound of Buddha and Dharma, “The
immediate operative cause of creation” (1962, 197).
Cosmology (772)
Spirits and gods (776)
In this scheme, the Adi-Dharma is the uncreated absolute, the point at the center
from which the world emerges, in this case as a triangle. She gives “birth” to both
the Buddha and the Dharma. These two together then generate the Sangha, and
likewise give birth to the subsequent Buddhas. This may be diagramed as in figure
6.
Cosmology (772)
Figure 6
Cosmology (772)
The Adi-Dharma and the Dharma are, according to this system, respectively the
mother and the wife of the Buddha. The Dharma is also a mother, in that she gives
birth to the subsequent Buddhas, and her union with the Buddha generates the
Sangha. It does not seem too far-fetched to suppose, then, that the Adi-Dharma
and the Dharma are in some senses equivalent: they both represent the female
element vis-à-vis the Buddha, and they both represent maternity; and of course
their names imply partial identity. On the other hand, they are distinct in the very
critical sense that, with respect to Buddha, one is his mother, the other his consort.
This distinction is the basic one generated by the incest taboo: there are two kinds
of women, those you can mate with and those you can't. The wife is the ideal type
of the former; the mother, of the latter.
Cosmology (772)
If, then, the Oedipal injunction is, as I take it to be, a contradictory imperative—(a)
you must mate with your mother, and (b) you must not mate with your mother—
then the division of the female, motherly element into two allows the [Page 48]
Buddha to solve the problem neatly, as he must to qualify for heroic or divine
status. According to dyad A/BC, the female is relatively “higher” than he is, since
he belongs merely to the conditioned, the Adi-Dharma to the unconditioned
sphere. But in the dyad B/C, the Buddha ranks above the female. Therefore, he
can mate with the second one, but not the first one. Since I have argued that the
Adi-Dharma and the Dharma both are and are not identical, then the Buddha
fulfills the contradictory command by siring children upon a female who is,
according to one dyad, his mother, and, according to another dyad, not his mother.
This example illustrates very nicely how the same element, in this case the female,
can be both sexual and nonsexual, pure and polluting, and so on; and how, from
the point of view of B, A and C may appear both uncannily similar and yet very
different.
Creation or origin stories are particularly good places to look for structures of this
kind, since they must, by definition, account for the creation of something out of
nothing. In the Tibetan traditions that lie outside the Buddhist realm, many dating
from pre-Buddhist times, there are several accounts of the creation of the cosmos.
Mythology (773)
According to one of the simplest of these there was originally a primordial deity
called Yab-dag-rgyal-po, “Absolutely victorious king.” From him emanated two
men, one named Myal-ba-nag-po, “Black suffering,” who is colored black, carries a
spear, and is the author of all strife and evil; the other is called Od-zerldan, “Bright
one,” who is colored white, creates the sun and moon, teaches culture and religion,
and is the source of all virtue (Hoffman et al., 1973, 107). (This is the same story
mentioned by Tucci in a passage which I cited in the previous chapter.)
Mythology (773)
There is little difficulty in recognizing in this simple scheme the basic triune model
I have proposed, consisting of A, B, and C, in which the absolute is represented by
the absolutely victorious king; while the two divisions of the conditioned are
represented by a black man and a white man (see figure 7). This
Figure 7
might be
referred to as the elementary, or atomic, cosmogonic structure. But as I have
demonstrated, this core structure implies an expanded, more complex model, in
which the structural implications are played out. Corresponding to this expanded
structure is a more complex Tibetan cosmogony, also from the early Bon period.
Originally there was only Voidness, which gave rise to Being. Being in turn gives
birth to two principles, one bright and paternal, the other dark and maternal. This
pair produces an egg from which two birds hatch, one called Rich Brilliance, the
other Tormented Darkness. These then mate and produce three eggs, one white,
one black, and one speckled. The white egg gives rise to the “world gods”; the
black egg produces “Arrogant Black Man”; and the speckled egg creates
“Intercessional Prayer.” One of the world gods, who is called either Sangs-po-
bum-khri or Ye-smon-rgyal-po, then creates the actual world. To his right he
creates the Phya spirits, representing humans; to his left he creates the Dmu spirits,
representing heavenly spirits; and in front of him he creates the Gtsugs,
representing animals (ibid. 167–68). This complicated creation scheme is illustrated
in figure 8.
Cosmology (772)
Mythology (773)
Figure 8
Cosmology (772)
Mythology (773)
The Void in the beginning represents the absolutely unconditioned state, before
the rise of the conditioned world. Since the Void itself cannot be divided, it must
produce something capable of being divided so as to create the world; this is
Being, which represents the totality of the conditioned world in opposition to the
unconditioned realm of the Void. Being, now, can be divided into two halves, one
of which is light and male, the other dark and female. So far, this is only a slightly
more elaborate version of the previous cosmogony, the only variations being the
introduction of the term Being mediating between the Void and the two halves of
the conditioned world; and the further emphasis on [Page 50] duality by making
the primordial pair opposite not only in color, but in sex as well.
Now, however, the primal pair unite to produce their resolution or mediation, an
egg. It is very significant that two modes of reproduction are introduced here, one
by means of sexual union, and one by means of an egg. Lévi-Strauss has argued
that the essential problem which origin myths must answer is whether man is born
from one or from two (1967, 212). This, in turn, is merely another way of stating
the primal opposition between the continuous and the discrete, symbolized as
unity versus duality. Reproduction by sexual intercourse implies a fundamental
duality, which unites to produce unity; while an egg is an ideal symbol of a unitary
origin, which can then produce multiplicity, as it does in this case. Thus this
cosmogony resolves the paradox by having it both ways: the pair Rich Brilliance
and Tormented Darkness are born from one, that is, from an egg. But the egg
itself is born from a sexual union between an even more primordial pair, the bright
and the dark—which in turn is derived from a primal unity.
Cosmology (772)
Next, the pair Rich Brilliance and Tormented Darkness, who are born both from
one and from two, produce equally paradoxical offspring— three eggs. The egg in
itself would seem to symbolize unitary origin; so three eggs would convey the
meaning of both multiplicity and unity. The triad produced from these eggs is
clearly a mediated dyad. This is obvious from at least two different points of view.
One is that the first and third terms are white and black, respectively, while the
middle one is speckled, thus combining and so mediating between black and white.
The other is that the first term is a god, the third an arrogant man, and the middle
term is called “intercessional prayer,” which is a means of communication or
mediation between god and man.
Cosmology (772)
The triad produced by the World God, with the aid of Intercessional Prayer and
other ingredients, seems somewhat problematic. If man is on the right and
heavenly spirits are on the left, this would imply that animals mediate between
them—a seemingly implausible conclusion. If anything, one at first would assume
that man ought to be the middle term between animal and spirit. But this
expectation merely reflects a bias on our part created by the Judeo-Christian
system, according to which man is half beast and half angel. The solution appears
as soon as we recall that the Bon religion was based on a cult of animal sacrifice,
and that mediation between man and the gods was achieved precisely through
animal mediators. Animals are thus exactly analogous to “intercessional prayers,”
and play the same structural role, as mediators between the opposed pair man/god,
and the more abstract pair right/left.
Cosmology (772)
This cosmogony is quite a remarkable construction, in which all the elementary
dyads and triads suggested by the fundamental structure have been combined into
a rich totality. We may isolate the various substructures as in figure 9.
Cosmology (772)
a. The fundamental triad A/BC. This is represented twice; first, as the Void/the
Bright Paternal - the Dark Maternal (united as Being); and second as Egg/Rich
Brilliance - Tormented Darkness.
[Page 51]
Figure 9
b. The dyad B/C, without mediation. This is represented in the two pairs of
opposites, Bright Paternal/Dark Maternal; and Rich Brilliance/Tormented
Darkness.
c. The mediating triad B - Y - C. This is most clearly present in the triad White
World God - Speckled Intercessional Prayer - Arrogant Black Man. It is also
suggested in the triad of spirits produced by the World God, whose spatial
arrangement is right - center - left, corresponding to man - animal - heavenly
spirits.
d. The mediating triad A - X - BC. This is most clearly present in the opposition
between the Void and the dyad Bright Paternal/Dark Maternal, which is mediated
by the intermediate term of Being, which partakes of aspects of both the
conditioned and the unconditioned. Like the unconditioned it is unitary, but like
the conditioned it may be divided.
This form of mediated opposition is also partially present in the triads World God
- Intercessional Prayer - and Man, and man - animal - heavenly spirits, insofar as
the opposition between man and god or heavenly spirit partakes at least partially of
the character of conditioned/unconditioned.
Here is still another Bon creation scheme. In this instance, the Great Mother of
Infinite Space, Sa-trig-er-sags, gives forth an emanation, the God of Wisdom
named Gshen-lha-od-dkar. From this figure there emanates the world-ruling god
or Demiurge, Sangs-po-bum-khri, and he, in turn, gives forth an emanation in
human form, namely, the religious teacher Gshen-rab-mi-bo, who brought the Bon
religion to the world (see figure 10) (Hoffman et al. 1973, 105–6).
Cosmology (772)
Figure 10
Cosmology (772)
In this Bon scheme, the God of Wisdom represents the unconditioned; the
Demiurge represents the mediator between the unconditioned and the
conditioned; and the human emanation represents the conditioned. Thus, this triad
may be interpreted as belonging to the type A - X - BC.
Cosmology (772)
But mystical speculation has always had a penchant for proposing higher and more
refined realms of the absolute; this impulse led to the Buddhist theory of the Adi-
Buddha, or Adi-Dharma, a primordial unity which stands in contrast to the entire
system of Buddhas and their lineages. Similarly, we may suppose that the Great
Mother is such a figure, representing the absolute, to whom is contrasted the entire
created world, even including the God of Wisdom and the rest of his triad. Thus,
while according to one scheme, A - X - BC are represented by the God of
Wisdom, the Demiurge, and the human founder of Bon, according to another
scheme this whole triad itself would represent BC, while the Great Mother would
represent A, as in figure 11. In this latter structure, we might guess, on the basis of
our model, that there ought to be a mediating term X between the Great Mother
and the united triad God of Wisdom/Demiurge/Gshen-rab-mi-bo.
Cosmology (772)
Here our expectations are met, since authorities on Tibetan antiquity agree that
there is another personage in this scheme, called the Body of Heavenly Pleasure;
but they do not know exactly how he fits in (ibid. 105). My model suggests that he
might be the mediating figure between the Great Mother and the conditioned
realm represented by the three levels of gods. While I cannot in any way prove or
demonstrate this suggestion, I can indicate that it is rather plausible: since the God
of Wisdom and his emanations are male, while the Great Mother is female, it is not
unlikely that their mediation might be represented by an act of sexual intercourse.
Thus the mediating figure might be the form the male deity assumes in order to
copulate, and thus unite, with the female absolute. [Page 53]
Figure 11
This would explain why the mysterious figure in the tradition would be called the
“Body of Heavenly Pleasure.”
So far I have been discussing traditions relating to the origin of the cosmos, which
involves the creation of something out of nothing (or everything). Now I want to
look briefly at some of the ways in which the system set in motion by the creation
can continue its existence, and perhaps come to an end. The simplest imaginable
resolution of the duality which emerges out of unity is for it to be reabsorbed into
the unity from which it sprang. If this process is repeated, there is an oscillation
between creation and reabsorption, such as is found in Indian cosmology (see
figure 12). On the other hand, if the resolution of the opposition
Figure 12
on the conditioned plane is not identical with the original

unconditioned state, but represents some other synthesis, then the process is a
linear historical dialectical development of the kind made famous by Hegel and
Marx (see figure 13). These two systems, the oscillation model and the dialectical
model, can be reconciled by apocalyptic models, in which the dialectical and linear
evolution in
Figure 13
fact follows a curved trajectory, and ends with a new and
permanent achievement of the unconditioned state. Both the Christian and the
various Hegelian traditions can be interpreted to produce some such models (see
figure 14).
Figure 14
A model frequently found in cultural institutions of various kinds is the attempt to

have historical movement and atemporal stasis preserved simultaneously, so that
contact with both the flow of real life and the primordial, uncreated mythical world
is maintained. As I have indicated, this is reflected in the dual nature of the king as
sacred and temporal; and in institutions such as descent, where the lineage
represents both a historical sequence and an undivided unity. We saw in chapter 2
some ways in which Sherpa and Tibetan descent systems solve the riddle of
allowing descendents to be both different from and identical to their ancestors.
In structural models of this kind, the form of continuity between undivided and
divided states progresses by having each successive synthesis of duality be both
identical to, and different from, the unity out of which the duality sprang (see
figure 15). Thus, while the apocalyptic model mediates the opposition
Figure 15
between circular and linear history by giving the straight line a

circular direction, many other systems overcome the contradiction by maintaining
that the new synthesis in each case is both A and - A.
Here is another example from a Bon creation story which illustrates how this can
be expressed. The founder of the Bon religion, Gshen-rab-mi-bo, was originally a
divinity, who wished, however, to appear on earth to reveal the true religion to
men. In order to assume human form, he needed to be born to a human couple.
Therefore, he assumed the form of two rays of light, one in the shape of an arrow,
the other in the form of a distaff or spindle. These two shafts of light then entered
the heads of a human couple, the arrow penetrating the skull of the prospective
father, the spindle that of the mother. These two conceived a child, who was born
as the earthly personage Gshen-rab-mi-bo (Stein 1972, 242).
In this example, the Gshen-rab-mi-bo who is born to human parents both is and is
not identical with the divinity who exists in the unconditioned realm. That divinity,
in order to enter the world of duality, had to divide himself in two, a male and a
female half, using the medium of light. (The arrow and the spindle are traditional
symbols for male and female throughout Tibetan culture.) This duality is now
reunited through sexual union to produce the synthesis, the earthly Gshen-rab-mi-
bo. This human is now simultaneously a conditioned human being of flesh and
blood, and a manifestation of an unconditioned deity.
Mythology (773)
Another related Bon creation tale illustrates and elaborates this principle. Here the
primordial realm is represented in two apparently contradictory ways. On the one
hand, the primordial beings are described as a king and a grandmother; while on
the other hand, they are also spoken of as nine brothers and nine sisters. In a
manner not entirely clear, this primordial being, in order to incarnate as Gshen-
rab-mi-bo, descends from the celestial Akanistha Palace in the form of five rays of
light, i.e., a rainbow. “He comes down near a tree…on top of which is perched a
blue cuckoo; this apparently is himself in another form. The bird alights on the top
of the Queen of the Sky's head. Flapping its wings thrice, two rays come from its
sexual organ, one white and one red, and penetrate the mother's body through the
top of her head. As soon as he is born he speaks with the same melodious voice as
did the cuckoo” (ibid.).
Mythology (773)
In the Bon cosmology, the absolute realm may be symbolized as pure light, which
is neither black nor white, but transparent. Thus, in the Bon text called Gzer-mig,
the God of Wisdom, highest of the triadic lineage which also contains the
Demiurge and the earthly Gshen-rab-mi-bo, is described thus: The God of
Wisdom gShen-lha od-dkar Is like in color to essence of crystal (Hoffman et al.,
1973, 105). For this pure light to enter the conditioned world would be like passing
through a prism, in which the undivided plentitude of colors in a clear crystal
becomes transformed into an array of colors as in a rainbow. In this way, the
rainbow is the ideal symbol for the transitional form a deity of light must take
upon entering the created world.
Cosmology (772)
The rainbow now is transformed somehow into a blue cuckoo on top of a tree.
Blue, in Bon as well as in many other Central Asian traditions, is the sacred color
of the high god associated with the dome of the sky. In the same traditions, the
world is often likened to a tree, whose roots are in water and the underworld, and
which reaches through the world and touches the sky. Finally, of course, a cuckoo
is a bird, and birds are associated with the sky. In all three ways, then, the blue
cuckoo on a treetop symbolizes a sky god, who is now in appropriate form to mate
with the Queen of the Sky. From this union is born the earthly Gshen-rab-mi-bo,
who is thus in some sense identical both with the blue cuckoo, and with the
crystalline light. Not only is he his own father, then, but—to paraphrase the
delightful Appalachian song—“He's his own grandpa!”
If we turn now to the primordial being itself, we see that it is not merely pure light
but has quite concrete though paradoxical form. Let me look first at the king and
the grandmother. If the king is interpreted as a paternal image, i.e., as a father, then
the symbolic pair king and grandmother, transformed into father and grandmother,
could be further reduced to a king and his mother, giving us an ancestral pair
which would certainly be consistent both with the theoretical view that a king
should be an Oedipal hero, and with what we know empirically about the
symbolism of royal estate.
Cosmology (772)
If, on the other hand, we read the king as a grandfather, in that he is the highest
member of a triad of which Gshen-rab is the lowest, then the primordial couple
are simply a grandfather and grandmother. 5 In either case, the result is the same,
since all the generations of males are identical anyway.
Cosmology (772)
Organized ceremonial (796)
Turning to the other form, the nine brothers and nine sisters, it is helpful to point
out that according to Hoffman (1973, 106), the most terrifying of the Bon deities
was the Angry King, who had nine heads. He had a sister named Sridrgyal-ma,
which means “queen of the created world.” 6 Thus, I assume that the nine
brothers and nine sisters are either identical to or at least closely related to this
latter pair. I would suggest, then, that the king and grandmother represents a
peaceful image of the divinity who may also appear in a terrifying aspect, as is the
case throughout Tibetan iconography. The peaceful dyad, by making the female a
grandmother, would stress asexuality and thus depict the king as a benign father
who is not a sexual rival; while the terrifying aspect would stress the incestuous and
sexual nature of the primordial couple, and the wrath of the bad father as punitive
sexual rival. This is supported by the fact that, throughout the iconography, anger
is closely associated with male sexual arousal.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the imagery in this creation tale is the fact
that the cuckoo emits two rays of light from his phallus, one red and one white, to
impregnate the Queen who is to become his mother. Since white and red normally
symbolize the male and female dyad, it is very significant that in this case both the
white and the red light beams come from the phallus of the male of the copulating
pair. In this way, the claim is being made that the father actually contributes
everything, both male and female halves, to sexual creation, while the mother is a
mere receptacle. This represents the ideal goal of patrilineal ideology, which tries to
exclude women from the descent process altogether.
Gender status (562)
Conception (842)
The motive for doing so is clear, especially in this case. The earthly Gshen-rab
must be wholly identical (as well as wholly not identical) with his own progenitor.
But in sexual reproduction this can only be the case if the female contributes
nothing, neither substance nor genetic information, to the offspring. Otherwise,
the son could only be at best half-identical with his father. So Gshen-rab, when he
is apparently born from two, is really at the same time only born from one, his
father.
I propose now to shift from creation traditions to a consideration of the present-

day Sherpa pantheon. Although the subject matter is quite different, the underlying
concerns remain the same.
The Sherpa pantheon, like that of most Tibetan groups, is remarkably complicated.
My intention for the present is to focus on the triad of deities who are the central
figures of the organized “high” religion. This triad consists of the three gods who
make up the fourth of the five “Buddha lineages” which are known to Mahayana
Buddhism. Each of these five lineages consists of three tiers: the highest is that of
the Dhyani-Buddha or Meditation Buddha; the second is that of the Dhyani-
Bodhisattva; and the third is that of the human Buddha. Transcending all of these
is the Adi-Buddha, who represents the ultimate Buddha-ground out of which all
the others emanate.
In the fourth of these five lineages, the relevant one for our present world and era,
the Dhyani-Buddha is Ongpame (Sanskrit Amitabha; Tibetan ‘Od-dpag-med;
“Boundless Light”); The Dhyani-Bodhisattva is Pawa Cherenzi (Sanskrit
Avalokitesvara, Tibetan ‘Phags-pa spyan-ras-gzigs; “Glorious Eye Looking
Down”); and the human Buddha is not Gautama, as would be the case in most
other orthodox representations, but rather the figure whom the Sherpas, like all
adherents of the rnying-ma-pa sect, revere as the founder of Tibetan Buddhism
and second earthly Buddha, Pema Sambawa (Sanskrit Padmasambhava, “Lotus
self-born one”) or, as he is commonly called, Guru Rimpoche, “Precious teacher.”
This triad can be represented iconographically in two different arrangements. In

many Sherpa temples, the three gods are depicted in statues, often life-size or
larger, which sit looking out from behind the alter toward the entrance (see figure
16). Ongpame is larger than the other two, and is placed in the center,
Figure 16
[Page 58] slightly higher than and to
the rear of the others. Pawa Cherenzi is seated in front of and below him, to his
right; and Guru Rimpoche is seated in front of and lower than him on his left, as in
figure 17.
In religious painting, on the other hand, the three gods are depicted in a vertical
line, with Ongpame at the top, Pawa Cherenzi in the middle, and Guru
Figure 17
Rimpoche at the
bottom. Thus, for example, in a painted scroll depicting Guru Rimpoche, a much
smaller image of Pawa Cherenzi appears over his head, and a still smaller image of
Ongpame is found above Pawa Cherenzi's head. This arrangement expresses the
fact that Guru Rimpoche is an emanation of Pawa Cherenzi, who is in turn an
emanation of Ongpame (see figure 18).
Representative art (532)
Figure 18

The doctrinal underpinning of this “lineage” structure is the Mahayana doctrine of

the “three bodies,” according to which each Buddha is manifested simultaneously
on three planes of existence. The highest of these is the body of religion (Sanskrit
dharmakaya, Tibetan chos-kyi-sku); the second is the body of enjoyment (Sanskrit
sambhogakaya, Tibetan longs-spyod-kyi-sku); and the lowest is the transformation
body (Sanskrit nirmanakaya, Tibetan sprul-pa'i-sku).
It should be apparent that the first arrangement I have described corresponds to

the basic triadic model I have proposed consisting of A/BC; while the second
corresponds to the model A - X - BC. I want to show how a dynamic
understanding of the Sherpa pantheon incorporates both of these models. Before
turning to the pantheon, however, it will be useful to investigate other variations
on these two triadic structures, manifestations of which are quite common in
Sherpa and Tibetan culture.
The form A/BC, consisting of a central figure flanked by two smaller ones, has
various levels of meaning. For example, I am convinced that it has distinct phallic
significance, since the male genitals also consist of a central organ flanked by two
smaller ones. This idea is clearly present in terms for male genitals such as “a
banana and two oranges” and similar imagery, which crop up in obscene banter
among Sherpa boys and men.
Sexuality (831)
For my present purposes, however, I wish to concentrate on the importance of

this scheme as a representation of the structural opposition between unity and
duality or multiplicity (duality being the minimal case of multiplicity).
The Buddha and his disciples. In Tibetan and Sherpa temple paintings and
woodblock prints, the Buddha is often depicted in one of his standard
iconographic forms, such as turning the wheel of the law, flanked by two disciples.
Although these disciples have identities, for most informants they are anonymous
and more or less indistinguishable (figure 19). 7
Figure 19

Not only are they nearly identical to each other, they are not all that different from
the Buddha either, for obvious reasons: as his disciples, they have taken him as
their model. The “distinction” which marks off the world of distinction from the
unitary realm is thus minimal; disciple 1 differs from disciple 2 neither in color, in
sex, nor in any other distinctive feature, but only in his position on the left rather
than the right, and in being in the simplest sense a different person.
This is a completely benign and positive symbol, in which no tension or conflict is

present. It is an idealized image in which the reality of the conditioned world
comes as close as possible to realizing the unconditioned state. This maximization
of unity or communion and minimization of conflict is achieved by denying the
role of sexual reproduction between generations and stressing instead the
transmission of a cultural code for conduct—namely, Buddhism itself. This has the
effect, in the first place, of removing one of the main sources of generational
rivalry—competition over sexual access to women. Since the Buddha and his
disciples are portrayed as asexual, this problem does not arise. Furthermore, since
they are not dependent on sexual reproduction for the transmission of the
doctrine, sexuality in general as an issue is irrelevant.
Sexuality (831)
Even more important, perhaps, reproduction by the transmission of a symbolically

encoded doctrine can achieve a perfect identity between the prototype and the
copy, which is impossible in sexual reproduction. In the latter, the son can at least
only represent half of his father, while the other half comes from the [Page 60]
mother. But one, two, three, or a million individuals who have all realized a single
pattern of conduct can be identical, without any implication of division or conflict.
This is because, while women are a limited resource, cultural symbols allow of
infinite replication. Thus, if two men want the same woman, they are necessarily in
conflict. But if two or more men want to emulate the same master, they thereby
augment, unite with, and harmonize with one another. In this instance,
furthermore, the doctrine which is being transmitted is one whose content teaches
the negation of individuality, self-assertion, and desire. The pursuit of the absolute
thus involves nothing other than the undoing of the creation of the conditioned
state, and the consequent reabsorption into the unconditioned. The Buddha
himself is enlightened precisely by virtue of having become identical with the
absolute. The goal of his disciples is to simply follow in his path and thereby
become identical with him by merging with the absolute themselves.
There is an interesting parallel between this model and that proposed by Freud as
the model for the basic structure of groups in general, in his essay Group
Psychology. Freud argues that the cohesion of any group depends upon the
identification of the members with each other, on the basis of their each having
internalized the same ego-ideal as their model. This ego-ideal, the prototype of the
group members, is the leader of the group; through the residual sublimated libido
left over from their attachment to the leader, the group members are able to form
fraternal bonds. These are partly object-directed, since the other members are
different individuals; and partly narcissistic, since, ideally, the other group member
is identical to oneself. On the basis of these and other considerations, Freud
concludes that the force holding together social groups is primarily sublimated
homosexual libido. 8
But while Freud seems to be describing a powerful and sexual sire as the prototype
of the leader, in the case I have been describing the leader is an asexual and passive
figure. Freud has, indeed, been criticized for giving the group leader the
authoritarian and independent qualities of the Primal Father, when in fact he may
have a very different character indeed. 9
I believe, however, that this problem can be resolved as follows. Since my analysis
has shown that the ideal of the senior male contains both a competitive, sexual
component, and an asexual, identity component; that, indeed, the totality of the
figure of the group leader is so complex and contradictory that it is scarcely
possible for it to be actually realized in a single human; then it follows that any
individual group and its leader may exhibit widely diverging characteristics based
on partial components of the totality of the ideal model. Thus, the image of the
Buddha and his disciples merely expresses one part of the ideal senior male/junior
male relationship, and can only adequately be understood in conjunction with
other models which provide other, complementary aspects of the relationship.
Thus, my analysis does not contradict but, rather, clarifies and makes more precise
Freud's insight into the nature of human social organization. Examples [Page 61]
of other kinds of relationship besides this benign, sublimated one are plentiful in
Sherpa culture, as we shall see.
Guru Rimpoche and his wives. Guru Rimpoche, one of the two most important
deities in the Sherpa pantheon, is traditionally depicted in the iconography flanked
by his two “wives,” or spiritual consorts. These “wives” have identities and are
interesting figures; 10 but for purposes of the iconography, in terms of how it is
understood by the majority of Sherpa informants, they are simply the two wives of
Guru Rimpoche (see figure 20).
Figure 20

Again, as in the previous case, the two halves of the plane of duality are not
particularly distinguished from each other; but they are distinguished from the
representative of unity by being of the opposite sex. As my analysis of the story of
Guru Rimpoche's life will show, it is not clear that he ever consummated his
“marriages”; but in the present context it is fair to say that the two consorts are
represented as the guru's true wives.
Thus, whereas in the previous case the disciples overcome their difference from
the Buddha by means of symbolic identification, in this case the union is achieved
through the symbolic means of sexual intercourse. Similarly, while in the previous
instance the group ties were sublimated homosexual ones, in this case they are
relatively nonsublimated heterosexual ones. In a discussion of the previous
example I demonstrated why sublimated homosexual libido is ideal for the
structure of groups: it does not create rivalries, since it is not a “limited good” for
which competition must be of the “zero sum” type. (Indeed, I would suggest that a
good working definition of sublimation is the translation of a “limited good”
situation in the real world to a symbolic level where coexistence is possible.)
Sexuality (831)
Sexual union also has the capacity to overcome duality. It is a rare instance in the
real world in which the complete satisfaction of the instinctive aims of one party
not only does not require the curtailment of the analogous desires in another
person but, on the contrary, actually serves the other person's own interests as well.
Other drives, such as hunger or aggression, involve either the distribution of
limited resources, or else direct competition; but sexuality is truly able to unite the
interests of two different people.
Sexuality (831)
But only two people may benefit from this system; that is why Freud argued that
sexual love is actually contrary to the interests of group formation, since it only
creates self-sufficient autonomous pairs rather than broader groupings. 11
Furthermore, when a third party enters the scene, the tenor of the encounter may
be reversed completely, and there is strong competition until the triad is reduced
again to a sexual dyad.
Sexual union is thus a poor basis for the establishment of a group, unless the
conflict it can generate is somehow reduced. Thus, fraternal polyandry is a social
institution in Tibetan culture which seeks to mitigate potential rivalry among
brothers by awarding them all equal access to the common wife. (Of course, in
practice it engenders as much rivalry as it reduces.)
Adoption (597)
Sexuality (831)
A division of society into junior and senior males has the effect of institutionalizing
the roles of “victor” and “defeated” in the competition for women. The ideal type
of this arrangement is that in which one male alone controls the women, or at least
the breeding, while all other males are relegated to junior status: this is the
archetype of Freud's “primal horde.” With respect to reproduction, the male
contribution is a much more plentiful commodity than the female, and hence there
is more structural competition for women than for men: a woman can only have
so many pregnancies, regardless of the number of her husbands. But one man can
theoretically keep quite a large population of females constantly either pregnant or
nursing an infant.
Status, role, and prestige (554)
Gender status (562)
Sexuality (831)
Conception (842)
Thus, Guru Rimpoche represents the opposite of the Buddha and his disciples: he
is a sexual male who is the source of fertility of several wives; while, by implication,
other males are relegated to junior, i.e., bachelor, status. In the iconography, his
harem is represented by two women, duality being the minimum case of
multiplicity, and therefore a metonymic symbol of it.
This interpretation is supported by the fact that while the Buddha is shown in a
benign and meditative pose, Guru Rimpoche is depicted as actively wielding the
rdo-rje, or thunderbolt weapon, with his right hand. In his left he holds in his lap a
vase, easily recognized as a symbolic erect phallus, called a tshe-bum, “life vase,”
from which he is said to bestow a life-giving elixir. He is, thus, represented as the
master of semen. The rdo-rje, too, is an explicitly phallic symbol in Tibetan
thought, and is in fact a common colloquial word for the male organ in everyday
speech.
Sexuality (831)
The life vase which Guru Rimpoche holds in his lap is, furthermore, red and white
in color; so that, on the model of my earlier interpretation of the cuckoo whose
phallus impregnated the Queen of the Sky with two rays of light, one red and one
white, it is possible to surmise that the “life elixir” dispensed by Guru Rimpoche's
phallus is symbolically bisexual, thus placing descent entirely on the male side and
attempting to minimize not only women's role but the duality that female
participation in reproduction introduces.
Gender status (562)
Lineages (613)
Sexuality (831)
Conception (842)
Guru Rimpoche may thus be said to represent the active, victorious, sexual, and
legitimate “father,” in contrast both to the asexual Buddha, and to the wrathful
gods of sadistic sexuality and extreme jealousy who also populate Tibetan
iconography.
Sexuality (831)
Pawa Cherenzi and the two Taras. A more benign depiction of heterosexuality,
using the same underlying structural format, is that in which the deity Pawa
Cherenzi is flanked by two avatars of the goddess Tara (Tibetan Sgrol-ma,
“Savioress”). 12
These two are the White and the Green Tara, the story of whose origin is the
following: 13 Pawa Cherenzi, whose distinctive trait is his compassion for the
sufferings of all living beings and his wish to save them, is so moved by looking
down at the sufferings of earth that two tears fall, one from each eye. The tear
from his left eye becomes a lake, in which a lotus grows, whose blossom is the
Green Tara. From the right tear, another lake is formed, which gives forth a lotus
whose blossom is the White Tara (figure 21). Whether the Taras are to be
Figure 21
thought of as
manifestations of Pawa Cherenzi, or as his consorts, is not entirely clear. Even if
they are consorts, however, the relationship is a very asexual one.
Mythology (773)
Sexuality (831)
This triad may be thought of as mediating between the previous two. As in the
second, the contrast between the absolute and the conditioned is represented by
sexual opposition; but as in the first, the nature of the relationship is asexual or
sublimated, rather than active and explicit. Iconographically, duality is
simultaneously expressed and denied, by making the sexes different, but then
erasing that difference by homogenizing them in a pure and sublimated
relationship, which is ambiguously either identity or duality.
Sexuality (831)
Another factor introduced in this scheme is the clearer difference between the two
Taras themselves, expressed through the opposition white/ green. Thus while the
difference between A and BC is relatively underemphasized, the distinction
between B and C is stressed by means of this color opposition.
Ethnophysics (822)
A very interesting point emerges from a comparison of the heterosexual nature of

Pawa Cherenzi and Guru Rimpoche in the iconography in the light of certain other
facts about them. I have already shown that Guru Rimpoche is active and phallic in
nature, and that there is an implied sexual relationship in the identification of his
two flanking female consorts as wives. But, as I have also indicated, they are
technically not exactly wives, and he is not thought of as ever having had any
children.
Sexuality (831)
But Pawa Cherenzi, who is portrayed in an asexual and ambiguous light in his
relationship with Tara, is actually thought to have been the progenitor of all
humans, or at least of all Tibetans, according to an origin myth which is perhaps
the best known in the Tibetan tradition. This is the story according to which the
original ancestors of humanity were a pious monkey, who was an avatar of Pawa
Cherenzi, and a rock demoness, who was an avatar of Tara (see chapter 6).
Mythology (773)
Since Guru Rimpoche and Pawa Cherenzi are the two most important gods on the
Sherpa horizon, it seems that an ingenious splitting of the father has been
accomplished. Assuming that the goal is to simultaneously assert and deny the
[Page 64] actual paternity of the ancestor, and to express both his competitive and
his harmonious aspects, then it might seem that this could be accomplished by the
creation of two opposed paternal figures, one active, sexual, and a biological
genitor; the other passive, asexual, and not a biological ancestor. Such an
arrangement is, however, rather too bald, and so a further symbolic step has been
taken. Each half of the paternal figure has been subdivided so as to contain a still
more subtle paradox: Guru Rimpoche is stern, active, phallic, sexual, and the
source of life-giving elixir, but he is not a father; while Pawa Cherenzi, who is
indeed a father, is mild, asexual, effeminate, and other-worldly.
The Three Lineage Protectors. I have already intimated that Pawa Cherenzi has
hidden sides to his personality, such as that of a monkey who mated with a
demoness to create mankind. Another triad revealing his complexity is a very
familiar image in Sherpa iconography called rigs-gsum-mgon-po, “three lineage
protectors.” The image of this trio of deities is widely found carved on rocks along
the roads of Solu-Khumbu to protect travellers. It consists of Pawa Cherenzi in his
benign, white form as the central figure: with, to his right, the bodhisattva ‘Jam-
dpal-dbyangs (Sanskrit Manjusri, “gentle melody”), called Zhembiyang by the
Sherpas; and to his left the ferocious protector divinity Phyag-na-rdo-rje (Sanskrit
Vajra-dhara, Thunderbolt weapon in hand) (see figure 22).
Figure 22
Representative art
(532)
Phyag-na-rdo-rje is a fierce manifestation of Pawa Cherenzi, and has all the usual
trappings of a wrathful deity in the Tibetan iconography—he is dark blue, ringed
with flames, baring his fangs, threatening with weapons, etc.
Zhembiyang is, along with Pawa Cherenzi, one of the two great protective
bodhisattvas of Northern Buddhism. In Tibetan iconography, he is depicted in
such a way as to make clear his resemblance to Pawa Cherenzi. He is white in color
and is shown seated on a snow lion, the mythic animal that often acts as a symbol
for the Tibetan nation. While Pawa Cherenzi is noted mainly for his compassion,
Zhembiyang is associated primarily with wisdom. In his right hand he wields a
flaming sword, which disperses the clouds of ignorance; and in his left hand he
holds a lotus from which grows a book, representing the doctrine of Buddhism.
According to many informants, the trio of rigs-gsum-mgon-po is in its totality an
emanation of Zhembiyang.
In this image, the less benign aspects are allowed expression. I have shown how
Pawa Cherenzi solves the impossible task of being both a father and asexual,
reconciling the opposed images of the father in a reconciliation only possible in the
realm of symbolism. Thus, as the occupant of the A position in this triad, he
exemplifies unity by merging opposite paternal characteristics in a single
harmonious [Page 65] whole. But on the level of duality, he reveals the other side
of his personality. While he, the god or ideal primal father figure, is able to
reconcile the contradictions of succession, his followers, the humans, cannot and
must not attempt to do so. Therefore, duality is expressed by images of conflict,
aggression, and punishment.
On the negative side of the duality, Phyag-na-rdo-rje (pronounced Chakna Dorje)
represents the punitive wrath that a father exhibits toward his upstart usurper or
successor; while on the positive side, Zhembiyang represents the righteousness of
those who accept their junior status and follow the path to enlightenment. I would
propose that the flaming sword in Zhembiyang's right hand suggests the threat of
castration, while the book proposes the suggestion to accept a voluntary self-
“castration” through a life of self-denial and celibacy, and to sublimate from the
genitals to the head, from biological to symbolic reproduction, from nature to
culture.
Religious beliefs (770)
Lama, yidam, dakini. In his more esoteric form, Guru Rimpoche is depicted
flanked by two deities called Guru-drag-po, “Fierce guru” and Seng-ge-gdong-ma,
“Goddess with the face of a lion.” The triad is thought to be equivalent to the
Tantric initiatory trio of lama, yi-dam, and mkha-'gro-ma (Sanskrit dakini), who
represent for the intiate respectively his initiator and guru, his tutelary deity, and
the female divinity through whose mediation he can gain access to the absolute.
According to Tantric teachings, this triad is an esoteric form of the more orthodox
triad of Buddha, dharma, and sangha (see figure 23).
Figure 23
Religious beliefs
(770)
Once again, Guru Rimpoche is associated with sexual potency; but here, for the
first time, duality is expressed through sexual opposition between the dyad of yi-
dam and mkha-'gro-ma. The form of resolution which this duality will seek is
sexual intercourse, which is in fact what occurs, at least symbolically, in Tantric
ritual.
Sexuality (831)
I have now described some of the variations of detail which even such a relatively
simple structure as the A-B-C triad can undergo. The range of meaning it can
express, from the peace and harmony of the Buddha through the ambiguities of
Pawa Cherenzi to the active sexuality of Guru Rimpoche, is reflected in subtleties
of opposition and similarity which yield an endless range of possibilities. The
variations I have described hardly form a systematic and exhaustive set of these
possibilities. Thus, for example, in all the cases I have discussed, the A [Page 66]
position, that of the unconditioned, is symbolized by a male or paternal figure. But
there is no intrinsic reason why it could not just as well be symbolized by a female
image, as, for instance, in the example I cited earlier according to which the
absolute is conceptualized as a feminine Adi-Dharma.
I will not go into the various possible transformations of this theme, but only
mention the most important one, which is found not in the iconography but in the
social structure. While polygyny of the kind expressed in the image of Guru
Rimpoche and his two wives is almost never practiced by the Sherpas, there does
continue to be fraternal polyandry, usually with two brothers sharing a single wife.
It would be far from misleading to assimilate this structure—a woman and two
husbands—to the general structure I have been exploring. But in this case, unity is
female and duality is male.
Adoption (597)
I must, however, leave this topic for the present to pursue some of the structural
implications of the other triadic form which I wish to analyze in this chapter,
namely the type I have called A - X - BC, in which the three terms are the
unconditioned, the conditioned, and the mediator between them.
The most useful way to understand this triadic system in Sherpa culture is to
understand the absolute as corresponding to pure subjectivity, to an “inside”
essence; and to conceive of the conditioned as the “outside” realm, the public,
objective world available to everyone through the senses. The former is
unconditioned and without qualities, while the latter is determined in its nature by
the structure of reality according to the categories of the mind and senses.
The mediating category between absolute inner subjectivity and the external,
objective real world is what we refer to as the domain of symbolism, with language
serving as the typical example. Language, or symbolism in general, is the means by
which the subject externalizes himself and makes himself available to others in the
public realm; and it is also the means by which he takes in and grasps that which is
outside him in the world. Thus the general triune form A - X - BC in Tibetan
culture may be specifically expressed as Subject - Symbol - Object. Some examples
from Sherpa thought will clarify this general observation. 14
The Three Worlds. In Tibetan Buddhist cosmology, as elsewhere, the universe is

said to consist of three worlds. These are the `dod-paì khams, “region of desire”;
the gzugs-kyi khams, “region of form”; and the gzugs-med-paì khams, region of
formlessness. The region of desire is our ordinary conditioned world, marked by
our attachment to things in the realm of the senses. The formless world
corresponds very well to the unconditioned region. The mediating realm is that in
which there is form but not attachment, that is, a realm in which things have shape
and content, but are not granted “hard” objective status because they are not the
objects of desire; they are not, as we might say, cathected with any libido.
Cosmology (772)
In the unconditioned realm, there are no limits, and thus that form of existence
cannot desire anything because nothing is separate from anything else. [Page 67]
Only in the separated, conditioned world can one limited “object” desire another
object. The realm of form is that in which the theoretical limits of objects are
there, but these limits do not imply frustration, because the forms are merely the
subject of pure disinterested contemplation or cognition, not of willful striving.
They are, in short, symbols.
Three modes of knowing. Another triad shaped by the same formal structure is
that according to which there are three kinds of knowledge. The lowest, according
to my Sherpa informant on this subject, is mngon-sum, which means simple direct
sense perception, the knowledge of what is in front of you. The second is go-'gyur,
which implies understanding through reason, inference, or imagination. Thus, if
one sees smoke rising from behind a hill, one can surmise that there is fire there,
even though one cannot see it. The third kind of knowledge, shin-tu go-'gyur, is
deep understanding of the inner nature of the world, a kind of knowledge available
only to enlightened beings. We mortals have access to this only by reading the
words of the Buddha and other saints in religious texts, and believing what they
report.
Logic (811)
Philosophy (812)
Scientific method (813)
Thus, absolute knowledge of the world from the inside, as it were, comes from the
merging of the self with the absolute, as occurs in enlightenment. Ordinary
knowledge, by contrast, is dependent on sense perception. The intermediate
category involves the manipulation of symbols, through which we can exercise our
faculty of reason. Thus, we can know things which we cannot directly experience
by making logical inferences based on symbolic models of the world which we
carry in our head; and similarly, while we cannot experience the enlightened
wisdom of Buddha, we can profit from it by means of the words through which he
externalized his thoughts.
Logic (811)
Philosophy (812)
Scientific method (813)
The three offerings. On a Sherpa altar there are three levels of offering. The lowest
is the phyin-mchod, “outside offering”; the second is the nang-mchod, “inside
offering”; and the third is the gsang-mchod, “secret offering.” 15 The outside
offerings consist of food, incense, butterlamps, and other worldly things which are
thought to be pleasing to the gods. The secret, or innermost, offering is
represented by a gtor-ma, or dough sacrificial offering cake embodying the
presiding deity of the ceremony. He is flanked, in an A - B - C triad, by two
containers, one filled with beer, the other with tea. The beer, to his right,
symbolizes semen, while the tea, to his left, symbolizes menstrual blood. Through
their magical sexual union, the deity will be generated so as to be present at the
ritual. 16
Prayers and sacrifices (782)
Sexuality (831)
The intervening level, the inner offerings, are specifically thought of as offerings of
the six senses, offered by six goddesses who represent these senses. 17 Since
human beings belong to the conditioned world, and gods to the absolute world,
the mediation between them must take place through some medium of
communication. They become embodied through the union of a sexual duality on
the level of the secret offerings; having done so, they may communicate with men
through the symbolic media available to the senses.
It should be noted that in this triad the senses play a mediating role, whereas in the
previous one they represented the brute perception of the conditioned world. In
this case, the senses are to be understood not as the raw receptors of external
objects, but as those faculties which allow the inner subjectivity to receive the outer
world, and also to “speak” to it: the mediators of inner and outer experience.
Body-voice-mind. This last point is made even more clearly in the triadic
conceptualization of the personality of having three aspects, namely the body, lus;
the voice or speech, ngag; and mind or spirit, yid. 18 Thus, for example, a
reincarnating lama may actually appear in three separate individuals, one being a
reincarnation of his body, another of his voice or speech, and the third of his
mind.
Eschatology (775)
Ethnoanatomy (826)
In this case, the mediation of inner subjectivity and outer objective reality by
means of symbolism—in this case, speech—is most obvious. The mind is the
subjective aspect of the personality, the body that aspect publicly available to
ordinary knowledge, and characterized by desire. The voice is that which brings the
inner thought into the public arena, and allows the mind to communicate with
other “embodied minds.”
Ethnoanatomy (826)
Dbang-lung-'khrid. The transmission of knowledge from master to disciple is

accomplished in a three-stage process. These three stages are called dbang,
“power”; lung, “repetition,” or orders, and khrid, “instruction.” First the guru,
through a ritual initiation and the bestowing on a secret mantra, transmits mystical
power, or ong (dbang) to his pupil. Only when he has received this will the pupil
be capable of absorbing the instruction which is to be transmitted to him. Then the
teacher recites the text which is to be studied, as a sort of ideal model which the
student is to emulate; this is called lung. Finally, he gives the actual instruction in
the meaning of the text, and assigns the pupil a certain course of study involving a
certain number of readings, a prescribed duration of meditation, etc. (According to
some informants, this last stage is not 'khrid but rather 'dri. According to this
reading, the meaning of this stage of instruction is that the pupil studies the text
until he is ready to be examined on it. The test which qualifies him is thus the 'dri,
which means “asking.”)
Transmission of beliefs (869)
In this triad, dbang implies an inner, spiritual essence, capable of being transmitted
from a master to a disciple. This corresponds to the formless unconditioned
essence of the cosmos, of which the pupil now partakes. The second stage is a
pure recitation of the text, in other words, a symbolic template which defines the
mold into which the pupil is to form his own thinking and capacity. Finally, the
stage of 'khrid (or 'dri) represents the actualization in real activity of the ideal
model presented in the lung and made possible by the mystic energy of the dbang.
Transmission of beliefs (869)
The three fields of study. Corresponding closely to this conceptual scheme is that
according to which the religious career is divided into three fields of study. These
are the areas of monastic discipline, or 'dul-ba (Sanskrit vinaya); the exegesis of the
canonical writings, or mdo (Sanskrit sutra); and the mastery of [Page 69] the
esoteric mysteries, or rgyud (Sanskrit tantra). The discipline refers to the proper
behavior of the body in the ordinary world. The study of the sutras corresponds to
the intellectual comprehension of the words of the Buddha and the sages through
a symbolic medium. And the mastery of tantra implies the actual inner
achievement of mystical power through a union with the energy sources pervading
the cosmos and identified with the realm of the absolute.
While these various triads do not correspond in a perfectly parallel manner, they
do exhibit a consistent conceptual structure which is at least present, if not
dominant, in all of them. We may, in turn, classify these all under the general
headings suggested by the most important triad in Buddhism, the three jewels; so
that the Buddha represents the absolute; the dharma is his teaching, or symbolic
communication; and the sangha is the realization in the conditioned human
community of his ideals.
In the light of this discussion, it should pose no problem to claim that the doctrine
of the three bodies which is central to the organization of the Sherpa pantheon is
also an example of this A - X - BC type, indeed, that it is an exemplary case. The
religion body represents the absolute, and is represented by a Dhyani-Buddha, that
is a fully enlightened being in deep meditation, communing with his own eternal
essence. The body of transformation is the earthly body, having at least the
appearance, and perhaps the reality, of human existence in this conditioned and
mortal world.
The mediating realm is that of the body of enjoyment, represented by a deity in the
form of a Dhyani-Bodhisattva. A bodhisattva (Tibetan byang-chub-semsdpa') is an
enlightened being who has foregone absorption into the void in order to return to
earth to work for the salvation of all sentient beings. As such, he is the deity made
manifest to humans through the assumption of form; while, at the same time, he
exists not in the real world but in an idealized realm of pure contemplation. Thus,
by being form without desire, he achieves what might be called an aesthetic or
Apollonian ecstasy, which accounts for why he is called the enjoyment body. It
should also be pointed out in this connection that the second of the three monastic
paths, the study of the sutras, is called the “vow of the bodhisattva,” thus
indicating the close conceptual connection between the idea of the disinterested
contemplation of symbols with the middle “body” of the divinity. 19
In addition to the obviously Buddhist-inspired connotations of the triads I have

been discussing, there is also a pre-Buddhist level of meaning. This derives from a
set of cosmological ideas which originated long before the advent of Buddhism in
Tibetan culture and continue to be expressed, often quite explicitly, in the everyday
practice of religion.
Cosmology (772)
According to this system, the “three worlds” refer not to abstract modes of more
or less spiritual being, but to a stratified cosmos consisting of the three regions of
the sky, the surface of the earth, and the underworld. This triad, in turn, rests on a
still more fundamental dualism of which the poles are the sky [Page 70] and the
earth, with the surface of the earth, the realm of life, being a middle term. The
dyad of sky and earth also implies an opposition of spiritual/material, male/female,
light/dark, etc.
Life in a spiritual, nonmaterial form, as absolute substance, has its origins in the
sky. The earth itself is impure, subject to decay, and associated with death. To
transform this static polarity into the actual process of living, the male sky must
fertilize the earth, infusing it with its living essence. Living then consists of the
gradual shedding of the decaying earthly cloak, and the reabsorption of life into its
original reservoir in the sky. 20
Cosmology (772)
This view is essentially a sound enough ecological conception, according to which

the sky's fertilization occurs by means of the rain and the sun. The general
association of the high gods with light emphasizes the solar aspect of the fertilizing
sky. The association of angry aspects of the gods with thunder is related to the rain
as an expression of the “male potency” of the celestial realm. 21
Cosmology (772)
Ethnometeorology (821)
The further metaphorical connection of this process with human sexuality is

emphasized by the identification of the earth, or more specifically the land of
Tibet, with a woman. It was one of the duties of the early kings to control this
woman, and to fertilize her, through their own association with rain. “The lake in
the Plain of Milk where the first Buddhist king built his temple represented the
heart of a she-demon lying on her back. The she-demon is Tibet itself, which had
to be tamed before it could be inhabited and civilized. Her body already covered
the whole extent of Tibet in its periods of military greatness (eighth and ninth
centuries). Her outspread limbs reached to the present boundaries of Tibetan
settlement…. ‘To keep the limbs of the prostrate she-demon under control, twelve
nails of immobility were driven into her’ says a chronicle of 1508, before listing the
thrice four temples that were built” (Stein 1972, 38–39).
Cosmology (772)
Ethnogeography (823)
Paralleling this association of the land itself with a female is the belief in
underworld spirits called klu. Associated with serpents, primordial waters, and the
chthonian regions, these deities are sometimes thought of as predominantly female,
or matriarchal. Thus according to one tradition, the world originated from a
“primordial female water spirit, a kLu-mo [female klu], who is given the indicative
name of ‘the kLu Queen who put the world in order’” (Hoffman et al. 1973, 108).
The myth associated with her describes how the world was formed from the
various parts of her body.
Cosmology (772)
Mythology (773)
Ethnogeography (823)
This sexualized cosmos I have described implies that between the two polar
opposites of sky and earth, male and female, life and death, there are two
directions of dynamic movement, constituting the process of the world which we
actually observe and participate in. One of these directions is that of descent from
sky to earth, the fertilizing motion of the falling of the rain, whereby life takes on a
material wrapping. The second, complementary motion is the ascent from earth to
sky, in which fertilized matter, through the process of living [Page 71] (which is
simply a process of the gradual burning of energy) casts off its terrestrial cloak and
frees itself from its imprisonment in dead matter.
Since the ideal symbol for the latter movement is fire, which transforms material
things into ascending smoke, and the falling rain is easily equated with water, I
have suggested (Paul 1971) that the Sherpa and Tibetan concept of the four
elements be understood as an expression of this cyclical process of the universe. If
we understand air as symbolizing the sky and the spiritual realm, and earth as
representing earth, then the cosmological scheme of the four elements could be
diagramed as in figure 24.
Cosmology (772)
Figure 24
Cosmology (772)
This circular process arises from my analysis of the Sherpa conception of the four
elements, not from explicit statements by Sherpas themselves. According to my
informants, indeed, another arrangement is operative, according to which the four
elements are ranked along a continuum from more to less material, with earth
representing the material pole, followed by water, then fire, and finally air as the
most immaterial, spiritual of the elements. I will cite two examples of schemata
organized according to this view. It is said that the earth rests on a subterranean
ocean; beneath this is a layer of fire, and below that a region of wind or air (rlung).
This image slows the emergence of the material world out of an immaterial
ground. Seasonal change is attributed to recurrent activity in the windy region. This
stirs up the fire, which heats the ocean waters, which produces the warm season.
Cosmology (772)
In another use of the same conception, a lama sought to demonstrate to me the

ultimate unreality of all things. If you take a handful of earth and put it in water, it
dissolves; if you heat up water with fire, it vaporizes; if you blow excessive wind on
the fire, the fire goes out; and when the wind is still, then there is nothing. Hence,
the process of experiencing the nonreality of the material world is likened to a
process of undoing the order of creation presented in the previous image. 22
Cosmology (772)
Logic (811)
Both this system and the one I have suggested are similar in representing a polar
opposition (earth and air) mediated by two terms instead of one. The difference is
that in the linear Sherpa scheme, the division of the mediator into [Page 72]
Figure 25
two simply
subdivides them into more and less material. In my scheme, on the other hand, the
two mediators actually represent two different aspects of the mediating element
depending on which direction it is moving in. This difference may be diagramed as
in figure 25.
Since there are various symbolic contexts in which fire and water are treated as
opposites, I believe that, while the linear arrangement is certainly present, my
alternate reading is also conceptually important for a full understanding of the
system as a whole. I have, by this refinement, turned a triadic scheme into a
quaternary one, which may be seen either as a linear arrangement or, according to
my hypothesis, as a circle. To investigate this further, it may be useful to look at a
few other fourfold groupings in Sherpa symbolism. It is well known that the deities
and the pantheon are divided into two different sorts, peaceful or benign (zhi-ba)
and angry or wrathful (khro-bo). Obviously related to this polarity, but also clearly
different, is the system of aspects, according to which rituals can be performed in
any of four modes. These are peaceful (zhi-ba); prospering (rgyaspa); powerful
(dbang-po); and fierce (drag-po). While fierce (drag-po) is not identical with angry
(khro-bo), they are close enough in meaning for us to argue that the fourfold
arrangement is a mediation of the duality of peaceful and wrathful.
According to one informant, at least, this arrangement is a linear progression from

less to more forceful: one petitions the gods in the same way one deals with other
people. If you want something, first you ask very nicely; if this doesn't work, you
may try flattery, gifts, bribery, wining and dining, etc.; if these fail, then you call
upon legitimate authority, summoning the law or high-ranking allies. Finally, if you
still haven't gotten what you want, then you can resort to brute force.
Prayers and sacrifices (782)
The four kinds of activity are also symbolically linked with several other symbolic
groupings, such as different circles in the yogic system of mystical anatomy,
different mantras, different shapes, and so on. Here I will mention only one, the
association of aspects with colors. Peaceful activity is symbolized by the color
white, prospering by yellow, powerful by red, and fierce by dark blue or black,
which for these purposes are more or less equivalent.
Ethnophysics (822)
This scheme invites comparison with the triadic one, according to which, for
example, the “three worlds” of the (pre-Buddhist) cosmos are associated with a
triad of colors, usually black (for the underworld), red (for the middle world), [Page
73] and white (for the realm of gods). In this system, the sky is inhabited by white
lha (gods), the middle realm by red btsan, and the chthonic zone by black klu. 23
But in some cosmologies, another term is added, the yellow deities called gnyen,
thus yielding a fourfold categorization. In this instance, it may be argued either that
the middle realm has been subdivided “horizontally” with the yellow gnyen
occupying the atmosphere and the red btsan remaining on the surface of the earth,
or vice versa; or that the middle sphere has two equivalent inhabitants, one group
yellow and one red. In short, this cosmology may be pictured in the two forms
illustrated in figure 26. 24
Cosmology (772)
Ethnophysics (822)
Figure 26
Theoretical
orientation in research and its results (121)
Cosmology (772)
Ethnophysics (822)
I would like to suggest, in the light of this inconclusive discussion, that the
fourfold category is inherently ambiguous, and can suggest a number of possible
generating principles: it may be circular, it may represent a linear progression, or it
may take other forms. Thus, for example, the linear arrangement may be joined
into a circle, as in some mandalas, where one quadrant is colored white, the next
one to it (clockwise) yellow, the next red, and the last green, blue, or black (all
having the same symbolic significance), so that the two ends of the “line,” white
and black, are also right next to each other.
Cosmology (772)
Ethnophysics (822)
Given this ambiguity, I want to suggest that it is at least plausible that, for example,
the four aspects might be arranged in a circular as well as a linear progression. The
reason I want to make this argument is that it opens up the possibility of a dynamic
interpretation of the central structural features of the entire Sherpa pantheon, to
which I now turn my attention.
Cosmology (772)
Ethnophysics (822)
I have already showed that the three main deities regularly displayed in the Sherpa
iconography correspond to the “three bodies” in the doctrine of the trikaya, or
sku-gsum. But I will argue that the essential conception is really a fourfold
classification, according to which these three gods are best understood as
representatives of types or aspects of the divinity, to whom must be added a fourth
type.

Preface

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Preface

1 Introduction: The One and the Many

In A.D. 842 the anti-Buddhist king of Tibet Glang-dar-ma was assassinated by a

Geertz's critique (1973) of the search for an explanation of culture in terms of

A synthetic theory must therefore be generative, dynamic, and structural, in that it

To say that the world is entirely composed of combinations of one hundred or so

In themselves, lowest common denominators are, by their very nature, quite

One of the most interesting anthropological approaches to the sacred kingship is

In my view, Cohen's reanalysis, far from contradicting or invalidating either de

It is therefore essential that there exist a mode of thinking or experiencing in which

My position, to be as clear as possible, is that the “generative core” is an

Since I have thus brought myself in a roundabout way to a summary statement of

What the ontological status of this structure may be it is not my purpose to

Ideally, such a demonstration would have to be made on a wide, cross-cultural

From this paradoxical situation arises what Freud rightly recognized as

In Shilluk succession we may analyze these symbolic elaborations as follows:

To illustrate another entirely different possible response to the same imperatives I

Theoretical orientation in research and its results (121)

Similar analyses, using the paradigm I am employing, could be performed on such

2 Sherpa and Tibetan Concepts of Descent

My purpose in this chapter is therefore to examine Tibetan ideas of descent,

My treatment will focus on Sherpa kinship, since I cannot hope to deal

According to Stein, in Tibetan descent reckoning, “each generation is treated as a

In primogeniture, which is practiced in areas such as Lahul and Ladak, 9 especially

If we examine this idealized family pattern in the light of my theoretical

Thus, for example, Sherpas often explain a certain kind of behavior in an

Such explanations of behavior obviously imply a belief in hereditary behavior

This formulation is dynamic in that it conceives of the mind confronting a universe

Using Bakan's terms, we may characterize human development as a process which

In the context of the succession of generations, this midpoint of life corresponds,

This cultural formulation is consistent with Leach's proposal, in his influential

An examination of words cognate to the word brgyud, which is the standard

Karma, I have suggested, is the mechanism whereby the primary embeddedness of

The three-step progression from nature to culture is very nicely expressed in

With the institution of monasticism, which requires religious specialists to take a

Despite this structural tension, this arrangement provides a potential resolution of

While it is beyond the scope of the present discussion to embark upon a

Succession to the throne in the postlegendary era was probably patrilineal,

It would be difficult to imagine a more explicit rendering of the primal ambivalent

When centralized rule was reestablished after a hiatus of several centuries, it

According to this principle, which is an extension of the basic general Buddhist

Whatever it is that reincarnates enters a newly conceived child, whose body is

Succession by reincarnation carries to its farthest extreme the antikinship theory of

The system of succession by reincarnation is thus the ultimate refinement in the

I wish to proceed by demonstrating that, on a purely theoretical plane, there is

A further serious complication in this scheme lies in a strange sort of similarity

In Turner's distinction (1969) between structure and antistructure, too, clarification

on the conditioned plane is not identical with the original

Theoretical orientation in research and its results (121)

A model frequently found in cultural institutions of various kinds is the attempt to

between circular and linear history by giving the straight line a

I propose now to shift from creation traditions to a consideration of the present-

This triad can be represented iconographically in two different arrangements. In

Representative art (532)

The doctrinal underpinning of this “lineage” structure is the Mahayana doctrine of

It should be apparent that the first arrangement I have described corresponds to

For my present purposes, however, I wish to concentrate on the importance of

Representative art (532)

This is a completely benign and positive symbol, in which no tension or conflict is

Even more important, perhaps, reproduction by the transmission of a symbolically

Representative art (532)

A very interesting point emerges from a comparison of the heterosexual nature of

The Three Worlds. In Tibetan Buddhist cosmology, as elsewhere, the universe is