The Arrow and the Spindle

About the Book The first part of this book contains studies of historical documents such as royal decrees of the 10th and 11th centuries A.D. The second part deals with the history of Bon monastic establishment, the question of codification of the Bon Canonical texts as well as recent discoveries of ancient manuscripts of the Bon tradition that focus on the early Tibetan concepts of ritual practices. The third part is devoted to a short presentation of a personal letter of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, founder of the modern state of Bhutan and the question of tulku institution in Tibet that had marred Tibetan political unity. About the Author Born in Amdo, northeastern Tibet, and educated in a Bonpo monastery, Samten G. Karmay studied Buddhist philosophy in Drepung, a Gelug monastery in Central Tibet, till 1959. He also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London where he obtained the M.Phil and PhD degrees. He was a research fellow at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris and a visiting scholar in a number of academic institutions: Toyo Bunko, Tokyo; University of Tokyo; The National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Kyoto University and International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden. In 1981, he became a Chargé de Recherche in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris and a member of Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, Université de Paris-X. From 1989, he became a Director of Research in CNRS and was awarded the 1990 Silver Medal of CNRS for “Originality and Quality” in his research. In 1996 he was elected President of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) at its 7th Seminar in Graz, Austria.