Buddhist Hermits in Eastern Tibet

Saint-Making and Ascetic Performance

Magdalena Maria Turek

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Routledge
20 June 2025

Buddhist life & practice; Tibetan Buddhism

Series: Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism

Buddhist Hermits in Eastern Tibet explores the ritual and social empowerment of Buddhist monastics devoted to meditation under a charismatic master.

Based on ethnographic research at a remote hermitage in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province in China, this book examines contemplative practices and ascetic regimes as performances of renunciation, self-formation, and devotion, arguing that the master performs the ideal of Buddhist asceticism via his body and in front of a participant audience. Paralleling Tibet’s famed hermit Milarepa (eleventh/twelfth century), the ascetic master Tsultrim Tarchin is believed to have achieved liberation “in this body and life,” demonstrating that renunciation can be empowering and that elite practices and local tradition can be relatable to untrained laity and transnational practitioners alike. Providing new insights and capturing a vital aspect of the ethno-religious revival among Tibetans in China, this book enhances our understanding of Buddhist meditation in retreat and of the social and embodied dimensions of spiritual liberation.

This book will be of interest to academic researchers and students of Buddhism, Religion, Anthropology, and Asian Studies.

By: Magdalena Maria Turek
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032802954
ISBN 10: 1032802952
Series: Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism
Pages: 214
Publication Date: 20 June 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

1. Introduction 2. The Living Saint 3. From Householder to Saint 4. Performing Sainthood 5. The Meditation School of Lapchi 6. Veneration and Emulation at Lapchi 7. The Empowerment of Renunciation 8. Community of Liberation

Magdalena Maria Turek is an independent research scholar. She received her PhD from Humboldt University, Germany, and was a Research Fellow with the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies at the American Council of Learned Societies, USA. Her research examines how contemporary reiterations of Tibetan Buddhist orthopraxy, local narratives, and religious historiography shape Buddhist identities among Tibetans in China and the diaspora. More broadly, her work engages with the intersections of tradition and contemporary belonging.