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Religious History of the Gaṇḍī Beam: Testimonies of Texts, Images and Ritual Practices

  • Ekaterina Sobkovyak EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: August 29, 2015
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Abstract

The gaṇḍī beam is a monastic tool which was already known to have been used in Buddhist monasteries in ancient India for the purpose of calling the monks to gather for a joint activity. With the spread of Buddhism the instrument was transmitted to the Tibetan and later Mongolian Buddhist cultures. It has been in use in the Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist monastic traditions till the present day. One of the most prominent cases of the gaṇḍī beam application in modern Mongolia relates to the poṣadha ritual. In this article I attempt to present the history of the gaṇḍī beam within the framework of material culture studies. The analysis aims at the investigation of the mutual relations between the artefact and the societies that have made use of it as well as of the ways in which these relations could have changed. In order to accomplish this task I study the testimonies of the original Sanskrit and Tibetan texts, religious images and accounts of ritual practices.

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Published Online: 2015-8-29
Published in Print: 2015-9-18

©2015 by De Gruyter

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