An eminent anthropologist examines the foundings of the first celibate
Buddhist monasteries among the Sherpas of Nepal in the early twentieth
century--a religious development that was a major departure from "folk"
or "popular" Buddhism. Sherry Ortner is the first to integrate social
scientific and historical modes of analysis in a study of the Sherpa
monasteries and one of the very few to attempt such an account for
Buddhist monasteries anywhere. Combining ethnographic and
oral-historical methods, she scrutinizes the interplay of political and
cultural factors in the events culminating in the foundings. Her work
constitutes a major advance both in our knowledge of Sherpa Buddhism and
in the integration of anthropological and historical modes of analysis.
At the theoretical level, the book contributes to an emerging theory of
"practice," an explanation of the relationship between human intentions
and actions on the one hand, and the structures of society and culture
that emerge from and feed back upon those intentions and actions on the
other. It will appeal not only to the increasing number of
anthropologists working on similar problems but also to historians
anxious to discover what anthropology has to offer to historical
analysis. In addition, it will be essential reading for those interested
in Nepal, Tibet, the Sherpa, or Buddhism in general.