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medieval worlds • no. 15 special issue • 2022
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 15 special issue • 2022, pp. 75-94, 2022/06/08
This article details how the Tibetan ruling house of Phag-mo-gru employed biography within a 14th-century genealogical work as well as how its later representatives would reflect on and adapt the work in its reading tradition. Addressing the genealogy’s dating, structure and the various influences at play within its pages, the author argues that the work’s initial composition involved a mash-up of contemporary political and cultural sensibilities, archaic material and also traditions drawn from the ruling house’s ancestral homelands in the eastern region of Khams. A critical look at individual biographies within the work illustrates how these life stories provided a canvas on which respectable ancestry could be painted, with the creator(s) not shying away from including anachronistic and fantastic content. The article concludes with a broader theoretical look at how this work’s biographical collection, and similar compilations in general, may serve to affirm social hierarchies by rephrasing them in a language of long-standing moral relations.
Keywords: biography, genealogy, hagiography, clans, ancestry, bKa'-brgyud Buddhism, gter-ma