Volume 78, Issue 2

The present paper investigates the history of the Kunta-Hajji (Qadiriyya) Sufi groups ( vird s) of Chechen and Ingush deportees during their enforced exile in Soviet Kazakhstan (1944–1957/1963). On the basis of anthropological fieldwork among survivors, returnees, and their offspring, the authors argue that the Ingush and Chechen deportees perceived the vird s as an important moral support network and a pillar of their identity in a foreign and inimical environment. In the absence of dominant shaykhs and formal chains of transmissions, flat hierarchies allowed for an easy admission into the vird s, and for flexibility in the adaptation of the “loud” zikr circle dances to the terrible conditions of forced exile. The article reviews the various groups and their particular practices. Of particular interest is the emergence of a new vird among Chechen believers in northern Kazakhstan, and the integration of female participants into the zikr ritual of that group.

In this article I present a systematic approach to the study of traditional Tibetan Buddhist murals painted in the second half of the 20th century. For more than 20 years there have been calls in Tibetan studies and Tibetan art history to research contemporary Tibetan Buddhist art. Although there have been a number of contributions on modern Tibetan art, where and how today traditional Tibetan Buddhist paintings are produced and received in monastic contexts is far less the subject of research. I therefore present the example of a mural in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu painted in the 1990s. The focus of my study is on the iconographical representation of the Milarepa’s hagiography in this painting. Due to its specific location, this image can be interpreted from various perspectives that include the local Tibetan Buddhism of the Himalayan region, the Tibetan diaspora in Kathmandu, as well as the global Buddhism of the international tourists in Kathmandu. In connection with the image analysis, I present a systematic approach I have developed for the study of Tibetan Buddhist murals in situ in various Buddhist monasteries in Asian and European countries. Last but not least, this article is also a contribution to the diverse and ongoing reception of the Milarepa hagiography in Tibetan Buddhist contexts.

As the deepening climate crisis shows, our greatest scientific challenge is to turn abstract understanding into doing. This means that the classic divide in research between ‘basic’, ‘applied’ and ‘outreach’ phases no longer adequately serve the need for transformative social learning. What can this kind of transformation look like in a world region such as Central Asia, with its own distinct legacies of environmental and social flourishing and suffering? What are the consequences of Central Asia’s particular forms of structural opportunity and violence around knowledge-creation? This paper discusses transdisciplinary research models in light of real collaborations on the banks of the Naryn and Syr Darya rivers. I examine the strengths and weaknesses of research with a wide range of actors in Central Asia such as irrigation specialists, artists and social scientist. Drawing on this experience, the paper analyses how broad regional trends in activism and scholarship intersect with global developments in knowledge-production methods and economies.

A manuscript entitled Ongγod qar-a sakiγus-un teüke sudur bičig orosiba , written in the Classical Mongolian script, was acquired by Henning Haslund-Christensen in the Barga area of the Chakhar province of Inner Mongolia during the Royal Danish Geographical Society’s Central Asian Expedition (1938–1939). The text is currently preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Scholars who have previously worked with the source have characterised it as a secular chronicle on the origins of shamanism among the Chakhars or a Mongolian shamanistic manuskript, dating not later than the eighteenth century. The present article offers a detailed philological-historical analysis of the chronicle’s content and language as well as the historical circumstances of its discovery. Based on this analysis, the authors reconsider the source’s dating, re-evaluate the information included in the chronicle in the context of the political and cultural history of particular ethnic groups such as the Bargas, Solons and Uriankhais, and seek to prove that the text cannot be viewed as a source on Mongolian or Central Asian shamanism considered as a homogeneous religious system.

Traditionally lacking temples, mass processions, pilgrimage traditions, full time ritual specialists, or painting traditions, religious practice among the Rai of eastern Nepal was until recently characterized by low visibility. After the ‘People’s War’ at the turn of the millennium, new political ideas understand religion as one of the core features of ethnic identity. Since this reconceptualization of the ‘New Nepal’, an increase of materiality, and hence visibility, in what is today called Kirat religion can be observed. In this article, three case studies are presented as a basis to discuss the link between materiality, religion, and ethnic activism: a newly installed pilgrimage site in eastern Nepal, a recently built temple in the capital Kathmandu, and an upcoming type of festival clothing. Pointing out that in this case materiality is employed to achieve a political end, we come to the conclusion that the effects the material objects have on people are specific to a certain moment in time and depend on pre-existing concepts and practices of religion in a given society.