1 00:00:05,580 --> 00:00:13,410 A little bit framing to talk not just briefly about the entire book project as a whole that I have on Nichel, 2 00:00:13,410 --> 00:00:21,330 but about the process of it, which in my experience has always been, and I think in a lot of people's experience, very obscure. 3 00:00:21,330 --> 00:00:27,570 It's not something that you really know about until you're in it and you can kind of feel like a deer in the headlights when that happens. 4 00:00:27,570 --> 00:00:36,780 There's just something about me and a lot of cases where this information is sort of esoteric until the time comes. 5 00:00:36,780 --> 00:00:46,590 And so I wanted to talk first a little bit about how I even came upon this project, which was my dissertation back in 2013, almost 10 years ago. 6 00:00:46,590 --> 00:00:52,050 And then now I'm in the thick of converting it into a manuscript for Oxford University Press. 7 00:00:52,050 --> 00:01:00,600 I'm in the final stages of that. So it's really on the top of my head right now for doing this. 8 00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:05,000 It was a little bit inspired, actually, I should say, by Rachel and Anna's work. 9 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,650 I'm kind of the oral history of Tibetan studies. Right. 10 00:01:07,650 --> 00:01:14,070 This is something that hasn't let a lot of people have peeked behind the curtain of until recently. 11 00:01:14,070 --> 00:01:18,930 So I'm hoping that this sort of impromptu conversation, 12 00:01:18,930 --> 00:01:28,740 a little bit of vulnerability will show through of kind of the failures that we all have experienced to some point, as well as the successes. 13 00:01:28,740 --> 00:01:34,980 And even though mine are particular to me, hopefully many of you will be able to relate to some degree. 14 00:01:34,980 --> 00:01:42,120 So I should first off, start saying that the title is maybe a little bit of a misnomer writing about the nature of Oracle. 15 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:46,620 Maybe I should have just simplified it instead of writing about nature as a whole, 16 00:01:46,620 --> 00:01:54,180 because most of the book project is really about nature as an institution. 17 00:01:54,180 --> 00:02:01,170 And I split it up between three major lenses that I felt were fairly helpful and trying to make sense of all that. 18 00:02:01,170 --> 00:02:08,340 By the way, this mural and most of the images in these slides are gonna be from Natu Monastery outside of Lhasa, 19 00:02:08,340 --> 00:02:18,300 unless otherwise, said this one in particular, as of the Natu Oracle at the end of the 17th century named named looks on your. 20 00:02:18,300 --> 00:02:23,870 Any way to kind of start this framing with the background for how we even got on this? 21 00:02:23,870 --> 00:02:26,480 When I was going into my dissertation, 22 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:35,750 the original focus of it was on the cults of pay ha as a whole DEEDI pay ha across Tibet, CNN chronically and die chronically. 23 00:02:35,750 --> 00:02:40,970 I wanted to visit all these monasteries and it's long and calm and amdo. 24 00:02:40,970 --> 00:02:46,190 And if any of you are bulking at that, it's for very good reason. It's way too hot. 25 00:02:46,190 --> 00:02:55,040 The biggest criticism I got finally when I started trimming it down was that this is like a 10 volume project or at least a 10 year project. 26 00:02:55,040 --> 00:03:00,950 There's no way that a year or so of dissertation work is going to be able to encompass that. 27 00:03:00,950 --> 00:03:06,590 So I applied for the Fulbright Scholarship and I was declined. And that was hard. 28 00:03:06,590 --> 00:03:14,150 That was tough. It's a very competitive thing, as we all know. But it doesn't take away that feeling of like, well, now what am I going to do? 29 00:03:14,150 --> 00:03:24,000 I have this huge project in mind. How am I going to get. All right. 30 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:36,490 After some really good advice from my mentors, especially Curtis Schaffer and David David Ramano, they advised me to contract my focus to just nature. 31 00:03:36,490 --> 00:03:43,170 If nature was kind of this linchpin for the cult of pay ha sort of across Tibetan history, 32 00:03:43,170 --> 00:03:46,980 it would be a great thing to maybe just contract my focus to that. 33 00:03:46,980 --> 00:03:50,550 Just give that attention. And believe me, it was more than enough. 34 00:03:50,550 --> 00:03:58,830 As we'll see, trying to even condense all that just for, you know, a 30 minute talk or so, there's gonna be a bit tough. 35 00:03:58,830 --> 00:04:04,050 So they advised me to contract my focus to just natuman, try to look at all the strands of that. 36 00:04:04,050 --> 00:04:10,470 And really, thanks to David Germano. I was offered a teaching opportunity in Hong Kong for that next year. 37 00:04:10,470 --> 00:04:16,110 And that allowed me because of the both the funds that it produced and the location. 38 00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:21,510 A lot of very fruitful trips to Foster and Dharamsala between 2010 and 2012. 39 00:04:21,510 --> 00:04:32,430 That was when my fieldwork really took place. And it was it was a lot easier back then than it was several years later. 40 00:04:32,430 --> 00:04:42,840 By contrast, when I went back after my dissertation in 2014 to assess specifically, I could only go for two weeks instead of six months. 41 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:49,320 And a lot of the sites that I wanted to visit or photograph were no longer open for that photo. 42 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:52,470 Photography was very, very limited. 43 00:04:52,470 --> 00:05:01,230 So as we're all very well aware, when it comes to going into Tibet, it's it's unpredictable and you just have to work with what you have. 44 00:05:01,230 --> 00:05:05,430 So I was very fortunate for the time that I did have there from 2010 to 2012. 45 00:05:05,430 --> 00:05:15,180 I was really able to get the bulk of the research I needed done and even was able to collect material I wasn't anticipating at all. 46 00:05:15,180 --> 00:05:24,730 Some material I'm still going through. In fact, I hope to kind of look into in greater depth for future work so that plenty of friends. 47 00:05:24,730 --> 00:05:32,520 Not going to name names who have had very unfortunate experiences trying to do fieldwork over there and just something not working out, 48 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:37,980 a crucial meeting not happening. So I felt incredibly fortunate for that. 49 00:05:37,980 --> 00:05:46,470 And again, I really do want to highlight just the number of advisors and other researchers that are just so crucial in this process. 50 00:05:46,470 --> 00:05:53,670 I mean, you just you can't predict what help you might need or really rely on. 51 00:05:53,670 --> 00:06:00,570 So, of course, Curtis and David, I already mentioned my first mentor, Brian Kavis was a huge help. 52 00:06:00,570 --> 00:06:05,220 Major scholars in Tibet like permanent get out Saryan Global Pugil and that the 53 00:06:05,220 --> 00:06:10,190 Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences and Hossa were just incredibly helpful. 54 00:06:10,190 --> 00:06:14,430 And it really wouldn't have been able to get the material that I needed without their help. 55 00:06:14,430 --> 00:06:19,440 So I think we're acknowledgements and books are where you kind of put this stuff. 56 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:26,390 But I think it deserves more attention because the work wouldn't even happen without a lot of these individuals. 57 00:06:26,390 --> 00:06:32,830 Corey. So what was the end result of the process of deserting? 58 00:06:32,830 --> 00:06:36,610 Well, my methodology was predominantly historical and textual. 59 00:06:36,610 --> 00:06:43,960 I was looking through textual texts, obviously through biographies, the ritual text, the various histories. 60 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:52,600 And then because I was over there a fair amount and was able to interview some important individuals at these various institutions and monasteries, 61 00:06:52,600 --> 00:07:02,590 ethnographic elements. I was able to kind of seep in here and there, which I felt really kind of cohered my observations. 62 00:07:02,590 --> 00:07:06,310 The basic structure, like anything, is introduction, conclusion, 63 00:07:06,310 --> 00:07:15,220 and then these three really big chapters that ended up being divided through those three lenses that I explored, nation with mythology. 64 00:07:15,220 --> 00:07:17,920 Looking at papers kind of mythos. 65 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:27,010 And I don't mean to use that word to mean falsehood or fiction, but rather these very powerful narratives of identity. 66 00:07:27,010 --> 00:07:34,510 Second chapter was on the ritual corporates looking at the nature of so and all these central rights pertaining to that. 67 00:07:34,510 --> 00:07:43,940 And then the third and final chapter was on nature's institutional developments and other institutions associated with it, which I'll get into. 68 00:07:43,940 --> 00:07:50,450 And then the other half of the dissertation as a whole were for appendices, 69 00:07:50,450 --> 00:07:54,860 outline of the major liturgical corpus of nature in the three central rites, 70 00:07:54,860 --> 00:08:01,000 which I'll talk briefly about the nature and record, which I'll also talk about that nature. 71 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:05,930 KARKOC And then the hagiography of this figure took a chunk dependent. 72 00:08:05,930 --> 00:08:09,020 I had an incomplete translation at that point. 73 00:08:09,020 --> 00:08:16,190 So after all was said and done and I was kind of ready to move on to the next professional side of things at Stetson. 74 00:08:16,190 --> 00:08:20,720 I didn't want to look at it for a while. I think we can all relate to that feeling. 75 00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:25,240 I kind of wanted to just put it away for a couple of years. 76 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:31,100 And because where I am is a liberal arts university that I couldn't almost help 77 00:08:31,100 --> 00:08:36,710 but do that with my three classes to teach a semester department colloquium, 78 00:08:36,710 --> 00:08:40,160 student advisees and thesis advisees there. 79 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:45,410 For the first couple of years of curriculum development and service work at the university, 80 00:08:45,410 --> 00:08:53,330 you almost don't have any time to look at your research or to expand on it for a good two, three years. 81 00:08:53,330 --> 00:09:01,430 And that service side of things in the academy was always a mystery to me until I got out of grad schools. 82 00:09:01,430 --> 00:09:10,340 The research aspect, the teaching aspect, I built on those during grad school, but it really was the service work, the expectations and committees. 83 00:09:10,340 --> 00:09:18,220 That was a big surprise. Not always pleasant. When it came to actually getting into the professor at. 84 00:09:18,220 --> 00:09:25,780 All right. So the nature warrigal that's in the title of this talk. 85 00:09:25,780 --> 00:09:35,320 Again, it is kind of just a point of focus. I see him as almost the office of an ancient oracle is almost this embodiment of 86 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:39,540 those major elements of the mythic of the ritual of the institutional right. 87 00:09:39,540 --> 00:09:49,400 And and together, they all proceed and define nature in these really fascinating networks that even extend beyond it. 88 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:56,260 And I'll have a couple of examples of that. So in looking at all this, I don't think it's a big surprise to anyone, 89 00:09:56,260 --> 00:10:03,580 but the history of the Natuman Oracle is intimately linked with the Dalai Lama's and especially in all these three ways. 90 00:10:03,580 --> 00:10:07,750 And I'll have some examples because I'm basically summarising the entire project. 91 00:10:07,750 --> 00:10:10,990 I can't go into too much depth and we can save that for discussion. 92 00:10:10,990 --> 00:10:19,540 But I can give you kind of the overarching outline in terms of my inspiration for sort of theoretical framing of this material. 93 00:10:19,540 --> 00:10:23,800 I was really inspired by a lot of the work that came out of Chinese religious studies. 94 00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:28,270 There's some really good stuff in Indian and Japanese religious studies as well. 95 00:10:28,270 --> 00:10:37,450 But some of these major works like Richard von Golon, sinister way, Robert Hymes way and by way, Paul Katsas, demon horns and burning boats. 96 00:10:37,450 --> 00:10:46,360 I just reread that. In fact, all really were great inspirations for trying to make sense of Tibetan DTD cults, right. 97 00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:52,270 In Dedi cults in the Tibetan you, because there's not a lot of works really. 98 00:10:52,270 --> 00:11:00,610 You can point to that, do what they do. But in the Tibetan context, there's a lot in Chinese religious studies. 99 00:11:00,610 --> 00:11:08,980 So there's a lot of good inspiration there. The growth of Wooten's cults, the growth of the three lords and Marshall wins, 100 00:11:08,980 --> 00:11:17,740 it's really Hymes is question of why these deities and not others that kind of became the foundation for this project. 101 00:11:17,740 --> 00:11:22,810 Why pay ha. There are a lot of other Didi's. Obviously, we're all very aware of that. 102 00:11:22,810 --> 00:11:28,270 Amy Hellers work on Beck say was a credible inspiration in the Tibetan context. 103 00:11:28,270 --> 00:11:34,360 And of course, Nebeski boycott's before. But this this question of why more pay. 104 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:41,590 Ha. I mean is he independent lama. So Gummow are the two big protectors of the dial on linae Dalai Lama's lineage. 105 00:11:41,590 --> 00:11:48,880 So why wasn't that. I just wanted to try to understand this kind of growth in importance and. 106 00:11:48,880 --> 00:11:58,270 And Robert Hymes question there, Paul Katz's work on cogeneration and reverberation were really inspirational in that he in turn was 107 00:11:58,270 --> 00:12:06,730 actually drawing off of print for Sangeet to Ordos work on Guan Gyi and his notion of super ascription. 108 00:12:06,730 --> 00:12:11,190 So all of that was really, really, I thought, powerful for inspiration, by the way. 109 00:12:11,190 --> 00:12:17,740 This is another mural of an ancient oracle. This time a figure from the late 19th century named Shuka ya pal. 110 00:12:17,740 --> 00:12:24,310 It was a very impactful virtual figure. All right. 111 00:12:24,310 --> 00:12:31,420 So what about sources? Well, there's a lot obviously these are just the major sources, the ones that I kept turning to. 112 00:12:31,420 --> 00:12:37,000 Again and again and again for various reasons. And I have them just listed out here. 113 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:38,700 Obviously, the Pennicott Tong, 114 00:12:38,700 --> 00:12:46,510 there are two specific chapters in that sixty three and one of four that are particularly about some of us encounter with pay. 115 00:12:46,510 --> 00:12:50,950 Ha. And the assigning him to Sam Yang. 116 00:12:50,950 --> 00:12:54,500 There's this text. I'm using very short names just to save time. 117 00:12:54,500 --> 00:12:58,240 So I just call it simply the symphony of the captivating gods. 118 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:04,930 This is a Somnia history composed by my shop in the early 17th century, incredibly useful. 119 00:13:04,930 --> 00:13:08,890 He quotes quite extensively from some very valuable texts. 120 00:13:08,890 --> 00:13:19,390 So I return to that again and again and even wrote up a very kind of basic index for that history as a whole, almost complete. 121 00:13:19,390 --> 00:13:27,610 The nature record. The nature, Karkoc. This is this is the work if anyone's really familiar with Nature Monastery outside of LOSSA. 122 00:13:27,610 --> 00:13:36,070 This is actually the car cheque that's inscribed on the southern wall of the courtyard there in nature. 123 00:13:36,070 --> 00:13:45,070 And so there are even transcribe once before by this really incredible Tibetan scholar in the 80s named linguist Pamela Carson. 124 00:13:45,070 --> 00:13:51,160 But this this work has a lot of great material. It's half the fifth Dalai Lama's own writings. 125 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:58,420 It's half some good. Gatsas it's been there presumably since sixteen eighty two or a little bit thereafter. 126 00:13:58,420 --> 00:14:05,450 And then there's other really incredible but very difficult work and pear their songs. 127 00:14:05,450 --> 00:14:10,600 And I've talked about this, the hagiography of Jhumpa Chung's dependent. 128 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:21,850 It was really thanks to Seren Global, you know, irreplaceable Saryan global hat tests and lossa that provided me a copy of this works. 129 00:14:21,850 --> 00:14:32,290 I was very grateful to him for that. And then also these really great murals, murals on a song for a chapel at metter supper monastery in Lhasa. 130 00:14:32,290 --> 00:14:40,060 That was also thanks to fellow scholar there named Moema Meet my tatting who pointed those out to me when I was doing my research. 131 00:14:40,060 --> 00:14:45,100 And they were just a wealth of information. The image in the top right is an example of that. 132 00:14:45,100 --> 00:14:53,710 In the top bottom is the nation record at Meecham. And I was just floored by the material that these sources had. 133 00:14:53,710 --> 00:15:04,510 And just to kind of help round things out, even if it is a bit. But 50 years later, lay loom, shaping Georges Washington some katsas unparalleled. 134 00:15:04,510 --> 00:15:10,900 And he does a really good job generally of citing his sources, great people, the graphic references there. 135 00:15:10,900 --> 00:15:20,620 And then this very modern source. But I think a very powerful reference for oral information and some good textual citations as well. 136 00:15:20,620 --> 00:15:31,430 Is the history of nature in this nation. We need you to assume that was composed by Venerable, took them to look at the natuman in Dharamsala. 137 00:15:31,430 --> 00:15:33,280 And it was published in 2007. 138 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:39,630 Now, you might notice on top there I have this sort of title that's kind of shadow over the other text and that is this right? 139 00:15:39,630 --> 00:15:48,700 Like Crystal Rosary, the Shuddering Karpel. A lot of the texts that I just listed either cite fairly extensively or at least 140 00:15:48,700 --> 00:15:53,410 note this source clearly a very foundational source for understanding pay. 141 00:15:53,410 --> 00:15:59,550 Ha. And it exists. It still extents, unlike a lot of the other ones listed in these works. 142 00:15:59,550 --> 00:16:04,900 But the thing is, it's not available to the uninitiated, which I am not initiated. 143 00:16:04,900 --> 00:16:14,950 So I was very graciously given a viewing of the introduction and the California of this work by monks at both nations. 144 00:16:14,950 --> 00:16:20,260 The Nature Hossa. And in Gaza. But I wasn't able to see the whole thing. 145 00:16:20,260 --> 00:16:29,510 So I had to kind of. Pick what I could of fragments from other sources. 146 00:16:29,510 --> 00:16:39,620 So getting kind of that, that's all very introductory, getting to the three major aspects of sort of teasing out nature's significance. 147 00:16:39,620 --> 00:16:47,720 The first, of course, is Pager's mythos. And again, I mean this in this broader sense of these powerful narratives that are used 148 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:51,110 by different communities that are that are promoted by different communities. 149 00:16:51,110 --> 00:16:55,790 And that will, of course, include the fifth Dalai Lama in his administration as well. 150 00:16:55,790 --> 00:17:02,210 The term that I use to translate the common label for the group of Didi's that pay ha heads is. 151 00:17:02,210 --> 00:17:06,680 Which is the global. I called in my dissertation to five sovereign spirits. 152 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:13,490 I was really trying to figure out better ways of naming the different kinds of really 153 00:17:13,490 --> 00:17:20,000 the dizzying array of spirit types that you find in Tibetan belief and practise. 154 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:24,160 Right. All the tan and the Guilfoile and the moon and then Nejat. 155 00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:31,140 And how do we label those can always use the Sanskrit. There's not really good English alternative. 156 00:17:31,140 --> 00:17:39,310 So I did my best and tried for that. And that was my example for cableway translator sovereign spirits given their history. 157 00:17:39,310 --> 00:17:43,880 Some of the mythic accounts really, though, most of them actually only focus on paper. 158 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:52,160 So that's fascinating. You see in the original context, the five sovereign spirits all the time, you see them crop up in the major ritual text. 159 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:55,640 But in the mythic accounts, it's really only pay hard. Now, 160 00:17:55,640 --> 00:18:06,320 the caveat to that is that some of the names of the sovereign spirits and their ministers crop up as alternatives or variant names for pay higher, 161 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:12,320 especially Shingletown 10, which I find very fascinating. But for the most part, it's only really pay ha. 162 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,950 That's that's the main central figure in a lot of these mythic variations. 163 00:18:16,950 --> 00:18:22,190 And one thing I also found, and it's something that my good friends who was also at Oxford, 164 00:18:22,190 --> 00:18:27,900 Cameron Bailey, has really been teasing out in his work, which is that certainly pay ha. 165 00:18:27,900 --> 00:18:35,300 But he sees in a lot of the Tibetan protected DEEDI narratives that that mythic kernel of Rouda. 166 00:18:35,300 --> 00:18:45,320 Right. The great the great demon rugrat in the gathering of attention suturing that Jacob Doulton worked on that that narrative narrative strand, 167 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:51,800 rather, is really found permeating through a lot of the mythos of different protector deities. 168 00:18:51,800 --> 00:19:01,880 Definitely the case for pay ha potential even more so. It's definitely in the narratives associated with pay ha before his arrival in Tibet. 169 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:07,880 But beyond that, even in terms of his appearance, he's got the three heads of the three different colours. 170 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:09,530 You've got the six arms. 171 00:19:09,530 --> 00:19:19,100 There's this lifetime after lifetime of getting meaner and meaner and getting just more angry and ruthless and destructive and dangerous, 172 00:19:19,100 --> 00:19:28,250 powerful and Raffel all over time. So Pay Harz mythos is really drawing from clearly Rudaw as a kernel, 173 00:19:28,250 --> 00:19:34,970 including that very fundamental moment of two devotees learning and their teacher. 174 00:19:34,970 --> 00:19:43,240 And one understands the teacher and the other one doesn't. And you see that kind of that kind of story going all the way back to the Shindou 175 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:48,100 go open shot right when in trying to watch and try to learn other jeopardy. 176 00:19:48,100 --> 00:19:55,820 So so seeing these reverberating strands of of mythology through the aeons is really fascinating when it 177 00:19:55,820 --> 00:20:01,640 comes to the Dalai Lama's sort of master narrative of what you might call the nation's charter myth. 178 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:04,370 He really lays it out fairly cleanly. 179 00:20:04,370 --> 00:20:13,750 I would say that if you have this moment before Tibet where pay ha in his previous form was this very devout king, 180 00:20:13,750 --> 00:20:18,530 he has a minister left and not Bo that names already significant. 181 00:20:18,530 --> 00:20:24,230 And they both go under the same master. But of course, like not, Bo understands things. 182 00:20:24,230 --> 00:20:30,920 He understands the meat of the material and pay ha in this form former form as a as a king does not. 183 00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:35,240 And his vows degenerates. He ends up sleeping with a Brahmin woman. 184 00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:45,800 At one point he gets chastised for it. And over numerous lifetimes he keeps attacking, letting Noteboom, who's whose ordination name is daunting. 185 00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,160 And that's, that's what's happening in the upper right picture. 186 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:57,200 You have this very lovely compression of events where you have pay ha in this previous form, attacking, attacking, letting knuckle as a scorpion, 187 00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:03,650 as giant scorpion and then on the right, vowing to him when he gets subdued in these stories, especially, it's a vulture. 188 00:21:03,650 --> 00:21:08,240 Ponti who keeps coming back again and again and again and just knocking, knocking, 189 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:13,750 pay her down a peg as he keeps taking on these different forms to try to attack them. 190 00:21:13,750 --> 00:21:23,450 Not only takes the form of a lion of a moment of a bore and all these different ways of trying to get at his former friends now enemy. 191 00:21:23,450 --> 00:21:27,830 And eventually he gets especially with much upon himself. At what point lectern? 192 00:21:27,830 --> 00:21:32,220 Not himself. Subdue them by embodying diva. 193 00:21:32,220 --> 00:21:34,590 That's important, obviously. 194 00:21:34,590 --> 00:21:41,150 And then he arrives in Tibet and he gets subdued by putting some of a lot of this material is found in the Chronicle of Patmos, 195 00:21:41,150 --> 00:21:44,550 some of it in the pen, Scott Tong. 196 00:21:44,550 --> 00:21:52,800 And involves especially from the fifth Dalai Lama's material in his autobiography and his other writings, like the Song of the Spring Queen. 197 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:57,510 It involves this other kind of mysterious figure named Dharma Paula. 198 00:21:57,510 --> 00:22:01,910 Now, this name gets confused in some sources as just a reference to pay. 199 00:22:01,910 --> 00:22:09,870 But that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to have been this person with close ties to pay ha who was Fromm's a 200 00:22:09,870 --> 00:22:16,050 [INAUDIBLE] and has this relationship with the show gay lineage of the Tibetan Lama. 201 00:22:16,050 --> 00:22:20,960 And I think that's going to be very significant later down the line. So Pasar comes in. 202 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:28,830 He's assigned a protector of something and then eventually she moves on to Natrium. 203 00:22:28,830 --> 00:22:32,700 There's a lot of different mythology surrounding that, a lot of variant stories. 204 00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:37,260 Nebeski void of it's especially really talks about that in his chapter on pay ha. 205 00:22:37,260 --> 00:22:47,700 But the one that I note the most is what's found in the hagiography of chomper challenge pinned that pay ha angered the cell miraki. 206 00:22:47,700 --> 00:22:55,230 He's thrown into the kitchen river and then eventually picked up by the assistance of a protector pendant. 207 00:22:55,230 --> 00:23:01,200 Now the very popular oral account is that the assistant brings the box up to draw upon. 208 00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:06,270 It gets heavier and heavier and the curiosity of assistant overwhelms so many opens. 209 00:23:06,270 --> 00:23:13,370 It part comes out in the form of a white bird and absorbs into the nearby tree. 210 00:23:13,370 --> 00:23:19,080 And that's the tree at the centre or was historically at the centre of Nature Monastery in the hagiography. 211 00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:28,750 But after pendent, you don't see any of that. It's rather this very prolonged dialogue between what appears to be a possessed figure, 212 00:23:28,750 --> 00:23:37,590 what appears to be sort of the prote protean or really the earlier from the Natu Oracle having these 213 00:23:37,590 --> 00:23:44,310 conversations with the assistance which of potential opinium and agreeing to protect Dré pool. 214 00:23:44,310 --> 00:23:50,490 As long as he's giving a given a small place. Right. Natuman where his possessions can be helped. 215 00:23:50,490 --> 00:23:54,600 So that whole narrative is really, really quite fascinating. 216 00:23:54,600 --> 00:24:04,170 The rest of that chapter is just all the dizzying variations on his name's, on the different characters and the stories on the different plots. 217 00:24:04,170 --> 00:24:10,120 And each one of them, the examples I used, because you can use so many, it could take up its own book. 218 00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:16,140 Examples I used are actually from the same sources that the fifth Dalai Lama was clearly familiar with. 219 00:24:16,140 --> 00:24:25,110 And each one of them maybe emphasises Harz Buddhists character or his Mongolian character or his Tibetan mythic pedigree. 220 00:24:25,110 --> 00:24:28,260 But the fifth other Lamas narrative, or at least the natural narrative, 221 00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:37,350 seems to my mind if cites all three quite equally in order to create two attempts to create this coherent narrative in his own writings. 222 00:24:37,350 --> 00:24:48,210 The Dalai Lama clearly struggles with trying to understand some of the contradictions in these accounts and has tried to make something more singular, 223 00:24:48,210 --> 00:24:53,700 more standard. And then there's even an interesting part of the nature record, specifically, 224 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:59,160 Sanjay Gateaux part explains the five sovereign spirits as emanations of the five Buddha families. 225 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:03,300 So that divide between you, can they pay someone? You can pay so much. 226 00:25:03,300 --> 00:25:13,950 There's a little bit blurry there. Well, which I find fascinating. All right, so getting into the ritual accretion. 227 00:25:13,950 --> 00:25:20,370 Really? And I'll try to kind of zoom through this a little bit more. I wanted to go through with a concentric approach. 228 00:25:20,370 --> 00:25:26,670 I wanted to look at ancient ritual calendar as a whole and then specifically the natural. 229 00:25:26,670 --> 00:25:28,920 So that whole collection of works. 230 00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:37,320 And then finally, the three texts that are really the two texts, I should say, that are at the heart of the nature console. 231 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:47,160 So we're looking at the ritual calendar. It's admittedly a very dry part of that chapter, really just translating from them insults, history. 232 00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,510 It shows nature's involvements with festivals like Lozar, 233 00:25:51,510 --> 00:25:59,290 like the One Line Chima and something she song with major institutions like Somnia, Triple Mido Mnemba, Ségolène Tongue. 234 00:25:59,290 --> 00:26:04,380 So it's still still this relationship with, say, that area south east of LOSSA. 235 00:26:04,380 --> 00:26:12,300 And with these various creative elements that get added on this Major Turchin lit up link, 236 00:26:12,300 --> 00:26:17,850 but at the end of the 19th century, has some major involvement with nature through the 13th Dalai Lama. 237 00:26:17,850 --> 00:26:25,020 So these are materials that could added to that Natuzzi ritual corpus and activities over the centuries. 238 00:26:25,020 --> 00:26:30,750 And then looking at an ancient console itself, first of all, there there's two additions. 239 00:26:30,750 --> 00:26:36,870 There's a three volume addition, actually, that has even more text going all the way up to modern times. 240 00:26:36,870 --> 00:26:41,460 But I think the core addition is this forty two text compilation from eighteen 241 00:26:41,460 --> 00:26:47,610 forty five that was even compiled at the request of the Natu Oracle at the time. 242 00:26:47,610 --> 00:26:58,110 Twenty two of those texts are by a Dalai Lama, usually the 5th of the 7th and then 17 were either composed or requested by Natu Oracle. 243 00:26:58,110 --> 00:27:05,500 So that's the vast majority of them right there. The handful of other texts are either by Sunday gets or pension. 244 00:27:05,500 --> 00:27:11,340 Pension. You have the fourth pension Lama, Tadek Linfa and Lei Long having a text in there. 245 00:27:11,340 --> 00:27:17,550 And of course one text by now. Oh sorry. But that's in some ways the most important one in the collection. 246 00:27:17,550 --> 00:27:21,510 Or at least one of the two, because what you have. 247 00:27:21,510 --> 00:27:27,960 And this was a struggle to try to visually represent this, because I find it so cool, 248 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:36,970 frankly, is in transcribing these three rituals, seeing over time this evolution, 249 00:27:36,970 --> 00:27:44,820 or I should stick with accretion or even reverberation of this ritual material going all the way back to this text 250 00:27:44,820 --> 00:27:53,130 by Nungarrayi Mozer are rediscovered rather treasure text for discovered by him called the Ten Chapter Sardina. 251 00:27:53,130 --> 00:28:00,540 And then that text being used first actually by the second Dalai Lama and some of his offerings. 252 00:28:00,540 --> 00:28:04,650 He has that collection of offerings and praises, dedicated multiple duties. 253 00:28:04,650 --> 00:28:16,950 And in the six or so texts in that collection dedicated to the gospel crooner, you have these excerpts from the 10 Chapter seven. 254 00:28:16,950 --> 00:28:24,570 And then this very important central right in the nature of liturgy, the adamantium melody Torday Diana, 255 00:28:24,570 --> 00:28:30,210 composed by the Fethiye Lama around sixteen fifty, give or take a decade. 256 00:28:30,210 --> 00:28:32,850 And that has all of those elements. 257 00:28:32,850 --> 00:28:41,170 In fact, I suspect that the name that nature takes on under its renovation and sixteen eighty two by the Dalai Lama on Sunday, 258 00:28:41,170 --> 00:28:45,960 Gattu is drawn from this right or J. Diane Lane. 259 00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:50,640 So this image on the right, you're not supposed to be able to read it. It's just too, too, too much. 260 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:57,870 But hopefully the colours stand out because what you really find is that that little kernel of blue texts actually 261 00:28:57,870 --> 00:29:04,830 describe the five sovereign spirits that is in all three texts that originates in the 10 chapter Southern. 262 00:29:04,830 --> 00:29:07,240 You see it permeating the offerings and praises, 263 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:17,580 then eventually finding its way into the adamantium melody and then the it builds on that by adding even more material from the 10 chapter shortener. 264 00:29:17,580 --> 00:29:20,490 And that's what the red text is in this excerpt. 265 00:29:20,490 --> 00:29:27,570 And then there's also orange text that is from the offerings and praises of the Dalai Lama was clearly drawing from that as well. 266 00:29:27,570 --> 00:29:32,190 And then finally, the black text is all this expansive addition by the fifth lama. 267 00:29:32,190 --> 00:29:35,800 So we have the dialogue over lifetimes, right. 268 00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:43,800 He's certainly the incarnation of the second is believed and touted by Tsonga Kotzer to be an incarnation of Mozer. 269 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:51,870 You have this this accretion, this composing or this rediscovery of a text over centuries of lifetimes, 270 00:29:51,870 --> 00:29:58,020 which I find so fascinating in this this history of ritual development. 271 00:29:58,020 --> 00:30:02,940 And then the nature of Oracle, as we see, has also been very actively promoting the growth of his own cult. 272 00:30:02,940 --> 00:30:07,320 The growth of the nation cult at that site. 273 00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:16,290 So the monastery itself, the institution itself, kind of finish up with these and then move on to turning it into a book somehow. 274 00:30:16,290 --> 00:30:22,680 The gist is this is a great picture, by the way, that Tasha commit was kind enough to send to me. 275 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:29,340 You could see the tree there that supposedly flew into right there in the middle of the courtyard. 276 00:30:29,340 --> 00:30:32,490 You have two major elements. You have the history of the monastery itself. 277 00:30:32,490 --> 00:30:37,620 And you have the architecture, which I find just as if not even more compelling. 278 00:30:37,620 --> 00:30:41,580 There are three major elements in nature in its history. 279 00:30:41,580 --> 00:30:48,420 You have these this kind of mythos surrounding this shrine called you Loka that was established 280 00:30:48,420 --> 00:30:53,960 by Munitz simple at putting some of us prophetic requests from some of us supposedly said, 281 00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:59,580 oh, this is where Pasar Sultry and Soul Lake are at. 282 00:30:59,580 --> 00:31:08,250 So make sure to put a shrine here. And then a statue of Taro was brought from Somnia, which was the name Chinh to this natuman. 283 00:31:08,250 --> 00:31:10,920 So that's one sort of aetiology for the name. 284 00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:17,670 And then we have the newsroom chapel established into potential pendants time possibly 15, 20, nine, maybe fourteen sixty nine. 285 00:31:17,670 --> 00:31:20,730 There's a little bit of issues with the dates there. 286 00:31:20,730 --> 00:31:31,840 And then finally, this renovation and expansion under the fertile lama and his regents' not just sung a ghetto, but mostly in the late 17th century. 287 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:33,630 But the architecture. 288 00:31:33,630 --> 00:31:41,370 When I was there, I couldn't help but go to nature as often as I could, even if it meant paying the 10 CLY for the ticket every single time. 289 00:31:41,370 --> 00:31:50,550 But I found Martin Mills's work on these axes of spiritual power to be very fruitful in understanding the architecture because it is. 290 00:31:50,550 --> 00:31:55,620 And the murals, the imagery, the iconography is just so impactful. 291 00:31:55,620 --> 00:32:01,830 You go into the courtyard and the walls are covered in these amazing murals of hundreds of papers, retinue. 292 00:32:01,830 --> 00:32:06,680 It's kind of like you're walking into a military encampment to see the leader. 293 00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:11,580 You go into the assembly hall and you see this so axis of movement from the 294 00:32:11,580 --> 00:32:19,170 impure worldly entrance to the pure transcendent back and up of that space. 295 00:32:19,170 --> 00:32:27,180 So you have Oracle's representative murals on both sides of the door, the five sovereign spirits kind of in tandem with each other. 296 00:32:27,180 --> 00:32:31,590 You have the sodden TBD, as I call him, the drip a further in. 297 00:32:31,590 --> 00:32:36,090 And then finally, you have right at the end of those murals on both sides, putting a symbol on one side. 298 00:32:36,090 --> 00:32:41,160 I agree. The on the other. And then you get into the central chapel. 299 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:49,170 You have statues now of the five sovereign spirits, again, goddesses like Dorji and Douma during Chang'e. 300 00:32:49,170 --> 00:32:56,730 And then high griever at the very back centre. And then right in the middle of that room is a statue of an ancient oracle. 301 00:32:56,730 --> 00:33:02,250 And then what has been built since then behind even that space, you to go to the second floor to see it. 302 00:33:02,250 --> 00:33:13,350 Is this two storey statue of putting assembly? So he's sort of overlooking everything right now at this grand second Buddha, Wood and Thamer. 303 00:33:13,350 --> 00:33:18,570 And from there, you have been each monasteries that have been established. Past that. 304 00:33:18,570 --> 00:33:23,340 So what I found very fascinating is it seems from the late 7th century onward 305 00:33:23,340 --> 00:33:28,980 and there's some nuanced discussion about what the extent of the influence was. 306 00:33:28,980 --> 00:33:34,650 Was it hegemonic? Was it something more organic or local? I think it's a case by case basis. 307 00:33:34,650 --> 00:33:40,830 But you have nations influence one way or the other spreading to these institutions in Alaska. 308 00:33:40,830 --> 00:33:45,380 And certainly from from there on out into Tibet, from the 17th century onward, 309 00:33:45,380 --> 00:33:52,770 Yonglin Southeast still has this major cult to five sovereign states and five sovereign spirits. 310 00:33:52,770 --> 00:33:56,340 They have the same ritual manuals, more or less, that are used, 311 00:33:56,340 --> 00:34:04,130 including one really fascinating one that I still haven't been able to dig into day on college at draping major murals dedicated to them. 312 00:34:04,130 --> 00:34:12,810 Major rituals still. And a lovely chapel, the Pesach choke on the ceiling of day on college to this day made owning the monastery 313 00:34:12,810 --> 00:34:18,450 right behind the Cho Kong is where nature monks stay and recite rituals from the dungeon. 314 00:34:18,450 --> 00:34:22,980 From Chapter seven in other nature liturgies on a regular basis. 315 00:34:22,980 --> 00:34:31,750 I observe a number of those when I was there. And obviously, the mural's as well and the history there of the nature Oracle staying there, 316 00:34:31,750 --> 00:34:38,820 got the monastery right around the mountain from Drei boom, that DEEDI is Shuja Chen. 317 00:34:38,820 --> 00:34:42,370 And it's it's one of the five sovereign spirits. And of course, that's who the Oracle. 318 00:34:42,370 --> 00:34:51,220 The goddamn oracle is possessed by Kaarma Shot Chapel. There's maybe some discussion here because Karma Shah's associate Sara writes under Sarah. 319 00:34:51,220 --> 00:34:57,790 But the main DEEDI of Karma Shah is. Sehring, I'm sorry. 320 00:34:57,790 --> 00:35:06,370 It's a tangible and tangible who is the minister of Mumba Putra, one of five sovereign spirits, 321 00:35:06,370 --> 00:35:13,660 and then a monk told me at Sara Mae College that talc choky all of me college that protect her. 322 00:35:13,660 --> 00:35:17,830 There is actually a form of Ginji. 323 00:35:17,830 --> 00:35:25,840 So you have these really fascinating networks of Didi's related to the five sovereign spirits even going all the way through their actual chapel. 324 00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:31,510 It's right there in the park. Or also Chan seems to be tied to a monastery. 325 00:35:31,510 --> 00:35:38,470 And then even outside of the plateau, you have Nature Monastery being re-established, as this picture shows. 326 00:35:38,470 --> 00:35:42,100 And Dr. Michala, it's really just a walk down from the Library of Tibet. 327 00:35:42,100 --> 00:35:47,440 Works in archives. Right. Right past the Natuman Cafe, wonderfully named. 328 00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:55,760 And that was completed in the mid 1980s. There was actually a Hawaii centre built first, established first in 1973. 329 00:35:55,760 --> 00:36:02,020 And that's still there on the big island of Hawaii. And what these institutions first. 330 00:36:02,020 --> 00:36:08,200 The ones in Tibet really do show this further reverberation or kind of emanation, 331 00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:14,980 radiation of this influence, both ritually and I can graphically in Lhasa and beyond. 332 00:36:14,980 --> 00:36:20,680 But because of current history, you also see this splitting happening between the institutions. 333 00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,640 Process still has these amazing sacred sites. It has the tree. 334 00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:34,600 Even if it's now cut up and in one of the shrine rooms, it has the stone that the box was supposedly put on where Paha flew out of. 335 00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,550 But you don't have that in exile. But you do have the sacred person's right. 336 00:36:38,550 --> 00:36:42,910 That's what the Dalai Lama on the nature oracle are now residing there. 337 00:36:42,910 --> 00:36:49,180 And Dharamsala in exile in performing these various ritual practises. 338 00:36:49,180 --> 00:36:54,940 And that brings us brings us back to the nation. Oracle to Dimpling spoke. 339 00:36:54,940 --> 00:37:00,310 His history really provides a good detail of this. I'm going to kind of breeze through this because I know I'm running out of time. 340 00:37:00,310 --> 00:37:01,270 We have 17 known. 341 00:37:01,270 --> 00:37:10,390 Oracle's earliest date of reference I could find specifically to an ancient oracle was at the death of the second Dalai Lama in forty two. 342 00:37:10,390 --> 00:37:17,530 You have the third Dalai Lama being encouraged by the Natu Oracle to accept the invitation by Alten Khan. 343 00:37:17,530 --> 00:37:22,990 That's actually in the jewel translucence sugiura that Johann Elver Skog translated. 344 00:37:22,990 --> 00:37:29,560 And then past that, you have the fifth Dalai Lama in his biographies of previous Dalai Lama is like the third and the fourth. 345 00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:37,770 And in his writings that you see this noticeable increase in pay Harz presence in the nature of Oracle's presence. 346 00:37:37,770 --> 00:37:41,850 There's even this fun story of pay are being assigned. 347 00:37:41,850 --> 00:37:46,790 Really, that the black in the red DEEDI that Amy Hiller's went about being assigned to protect the dialogue, 348 00:37:46,790 --> 00:37:55,500 the lineage in the intermediate state between the second and the third reincarnations birth, the second death in the third rebirth. 349 00:37:55,500 --> 00:38:01,500 So we had this activity really dramatically increasing in the fifth dilemmas, time and writings. 350 00:38:01,500 --> 00:38:05,580 And I don't think I'll talk about the selection too much or the Tibetan Monkey Festival. 351 00:38:05,580 --> 00:38:11,070 Unfortunately, if you have questions about it, I'll talk about it. Discussion. I know I need to move forward. 352 00:38:11,070 --> 00:38:15,570 Final observations. What was basically my conclusion before I can talk about the book process for a couple of 353 00:38:15,570 --> 00:38:23,010 slides is to me it seems that Pay Ha was chosen above others in these certain contexts, 354 00:38:23,010 --> 00:38:27,360 in part because of these numerous connexions that he shared with the fifth Dalai Lama. 355 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:32,760 You had an ancestral connexion because it the a horror line and on Rapallo you had a transmission connexion 356 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:40,200 because of all these texts that fit dilemmas initiated in these new treasure texts like Nung Romney, 357 00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:47,630 especially incarnational connexions over a lifetime. Second, I lama not really mozer even going back to putting on some of entree. 358 00:38:47,630 --> 00:38:53,850 Some get some institutional connexions, especially with the close ties to draping and Mongolian connexions, 359 00:38:53,850 --> 00:39:00,210 which were especially pertinent at that time given this burgeoning relationship with Gucci. 360 00:39:00,210 --> 00:39:01,140 So it seems to me in nature, 361 00:39:01,140 --> 00:39:10,600 monastery and nation Oracle were part of this larger activity on the Food Dilemmas Administration's part to consolidate at this time. 362 00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:15,800 It was part of this ritual consolidation effort that was that was really ramping up. 363 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,580 And you see that also in pay. 364 00:39:17,580 --> 00:39:26,600 Harz strengthening links to Tibet's imperial past with the Bedi Dai Lama being perceived as this reincarnation of these imperial figures. 365 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:34,260 Sanjay Guzzo as well. Tagaq Hlinka Menninga to talk too much about him, but he's considered a reincarnation of the low tower. 366 00:39:34,260 --> 00:39:42,880 But China, all these other institutional figures are almost embodying the imperial age in the 17th century. 367 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,170 And all these extensive networks are just reinforcing that NAVCENT government because 368 00:39:47,170 --> 00:39:52,540 its power was not a foregone conclusion as work already on the 17th century as shown. 369 00:39:52,540 --> 00:40:01,870 And I feel like this activity was part of that larger, larger effort to aid in and maintain the government's legitimation. 370 00:40:01,870 --> 00:40:08,110 So that was the dissertation. And you can maybe understand why I wanted to leave it alone for a while. 371 00:40:08,110 --> 00:40:15,640 And that was just a long winded summary, to say the least, in terms of seeking a publisher when I was reading. 372 00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:22,470 The advice I was given was look for publishers, university publishers, university presses. 373 00:40:22,470 --> 00:40:28,000 That's really what you want to go for. I can only speak from the email merican context, 374 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:35,170 but you want to look for publishers whose catalogue contains books that accord with your own thematically and topically. 375 00:40:35,170 --> 00:40:39,610 And if you have friends who have worked with as publishers, give them give him a call. 376 00:40:39,610 --> 00:40:43,690 Contact them. E-mail them. Ask them for any advice on how they made their first contact. 377 00:40:43,690 --> 00:40:48,890 They might even put in a good word for you. I have a couple of good friends and colleagues do that. 378 00:40:48,890 --> 00:40:58,020 I was very grateful when I tried. Columbia University Press first, Sarah Jacoby and. 379 00:40:58,020 --> 00:41:05,880 And I'm sorry, I'm kind of blanking on the names on this and Sarah Jacoby and David de Valerio. 380 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:10,830 We're very kind. I'm sorry. Jeff Barstow. We're very kind to offer me advice. 381 00:41:10,830 --> 00:41:16,050 Serge Coby and Jeff are still very kind to offer me advice and even put in a good word for me. 382 00:41:16,050 --> 00:41:20,130 You want to try to make the claim that your book kind of accords with what they've published. 383 00:41:20,130 --> 00:41:26,800 So I make I made arguments for Sara's book on Living Liberacion, Justin MacDaniels book on Thai Buddhism, 384 00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:32,190 Love, and goes to the magical monk Peter Swagger's book on the dilemma, the Emperor of China. 385 00:41:32,190 --> 00:41:36,120 All of this. I made it a case, unfortunately, was right. 386 00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:44,130 That time was about a about a year and a half ago. This was in the summer of twenty eighteen when I first did this. 387 00:41:44,130 --> 00:41:52,520 It's a long process, but unfortunately their series that did the funding ran out and the only option they gave me was subvention. 388 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:59,820 This was a word I had not heard before, but apparently it means seeking outside funding and I wasn't able to get any. 389 00:41:59,820 --> 00:42:04,260 And so I had data declining. I tried Yale University next. 390 00:42:04,260 --> 00:42:11,520 Also declined. I thought I made a fairly good case for Jacob Dolgov for connecting with taming of the demons, dealing with a lot of the same things. 391 00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:15,990 But got to. You just never know. And then finally, I'm very grateful. 392 00:42:15,990 --> 00:42:20,490 Oxford University Press accepted. But this is not immediate. 393 00:42:20,490 --> 00:42:29,010 They will want to ask for very specific information through a book proposal or a prospectus and a cover letter. 394 00:42:29,010 --> 00:42:37,980 And that will include information like a book title, a brief description, a fuller description chapter, outline author, info the markets. 395 00:42:37,980 --> 00:42:45,780 And this is the sticking point when it comes to trying to make this information accessible, especially in the American market. 396 00:42:45,780 --> 00:42:51,750 The whole point of these books is try to put them on the shelves and Barnes and Noble or on Amazon and try to sell them. 397 00:42:51,750 --> 00:42:58,270 So there's a real push to try to make them accessible to the general reader as well as valuable to the specialists. 398 00:42:58,270 --> 00:43:03,390 That can be very hard line to balance. And I'm still struggling with it. 399 00:43:03,390 --> 00:43:09,390 Who also your competition might be? They don't want to publish a book that might already kind of already be out there. 400 00:43:09,390 --> 00:43:10,620 Something along those lines. 401 00:43:10,620 --> 00:43:19,290 So you want to be mindful of your competition and any additional information or specs, the length of it, stage of completion, number of illustrations. 402 00:43:19,290 --> 00:43:25,440 If the manuscript is complete, that's really preferred because you might have got something, but it's not always necessary. 403 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:31,050 Some friends sample chapters. So that can take a semester or more. 404 00:43:31,050 --> 00:43:34,650 It took a semester before Columbia got back to me to tell me that. 405 00:43:34,650 --> 00:43:36,930 Unfortunately, you might want to look for other publishers. 406 00:43:36,930 --> 00:43:45,060 Yale took about a month on that and it took about a year to get through this process with with Oxford for good reason. 407 00:43:45,060 --> 00:43:46,470 I'm not saying any of this critically. 408 00:43:46,470 --> 00:43:57,150 I'm just telling you my experience that they would express interest, they might ask for changes first, and that could take some time. 409 00:43:57,150 --> 00:44:01,500 Initially, the draught that I had for them was one hundred and fifty seven thousand words. 410 00:44:01,500 --> 00:44:08,070 Didn't know it at the time. And apparently that's like 500 pages. So that's not something I want to spend a lot of money publishing paper for. 411 00:44:08,070 --> 00:44:11,070 So they want to cut it down to around one 10. 412 00:44:11,070 --> 00:44:18,120 I got it to 112 by cutting out all my appendices and the two big ones, my translations of the nation record. 413 00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:20,070 And so pretty much opinions hagiography. 414 00:44:20,070 --> 00:44:28,820 I've already published or were in the works to be published so I could at least just cite those inter textually and then they're sent off to two, 415 00:44:28,820 --> 00:44:35,670 two to three reviewers and given their schedules. They're busy with their own research goals and work. 416 00:44:35,670 --> 00:44:41,460 They could take half a year or more to get back to you on what the reviewers say if the reviewers liked it enough to agree. 417 00:44:41,460 --> 00:44:48,240 Yes. Write these anonymously or say you should publish, but with major or minor revisions. 418 00:44:48,240 --> 00:44:57,900 Then you write a response to the reviewers responding in response to the reviewers, to the publisher agreeing that you're going to make those changes. 419 00:44:57,900 --> 00:45:00,000 And if they accept that, then you get the contract. 420 00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:08,610 So it took me about a year from December of twenty eighteen to just this past December to get that contract signed. 421 00:45:08,610 --> 00:45:14,700 And with that sign is an understanding that the revision has a certain date in which it needs to be done. 422 00:45:14,700 --> 00:45:24,720 And the date for me is June 1st. So less than a month. But I've already incorporated most of the revisions, some of them in the last stages of that. 423 00:45:24,720 --> 00:45:28,620 So finally, I mean, this is where I met and I'm revising. 424 00:45:28,620 --> 00:45:31,620 I spent the first I've been on sabbatical this last semester. 425 00:45:31,620 --> 00:45:41,820 Gratefully, I just gotten tenure last spring at my university and now had this past semester on sabbatical to just focus on making those revisions, 426 00:45:41,820 --> 00:45:48,120 which were very encouraging. They were constructive, but they were encouraging mostly small changes like changed my language. 427 00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:54,780 I changed sovereign's spirit, which I understand now is a bit Kaki King spirit, ten point sodomised, maybe a bit more accurate. 428 00:45:54,780 --> 00:46:00,000 Translation of Gerima. They are generally Benjamina than 10. 429 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,370 Chapter seven. All these little things. 430 00:46:02,370 --> 00:46:10,710 Walking back some of my bolder claims, the biggest one was really splitting up my chapters a bit more to seven full ones, 431 00:46:10,710 --> 00:46:16,350 which I'd already done and rearranging them. I just literally I was talking with Guzin about this. 432 00:46:16,350 --> 00:46:26,160 I, I flipped my first in my second chapter to talk first about the variant mythos show reverberation and then a second 433 00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:33,330 one now focuses on the fifth Dalai Lama's narrative to kind of show how that came about as the Meecham charter myth. 434 00:46:33,330 --> 00:46:43,590 So I'm still building on better reflecting and expanding my analysis through through the book and then and then incorporating crucial penances. 435 00:46:43,590 --> 00:46:48,630 I thought it was so easy to just cut out the appendices and then realised, oh, wait, 436 00:46:48,630 --> 00:46:53,850 there's a lot of material I cited in those appendices that now no one can look at because they're not in the book anymore. 437 00:46:53,850 --> 00:46:55,920 So you can take that for granted. 438 00:46:55,920 --> 00:47:03,120 So now I have to bring in some of that material that was so pertinent from my appendices kind of copy and paste them in. 439 00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:09,600 And then the last thing I'll say is this field work that I did in 2016 in Rio, Assar and Dharamsala was incredibly fruitful. 440 00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,500 That was the monkey festival that I just don't have too much. I don't have any time to talk about. 441 00:47:13,500 --> 00:47:20,460 But that ended up being a good chunk of my conclusion now, and I felt like it really rounded out the project as a whole. 442 00:47:20,460 --> 00:47:30,330 So your book, at the end of the day is not your dissertation. It's a heads ideally a better version, a more consolidated and condensed version. 443 00:47:30,330 --> 00:47:35,370 You really have to ask yourself, what is the most important thing to say and what can you just kind of put on the sidelines? 444 00:47:35,370 --> 00:47:43,410 And that can be a hard decision that makes sometimes. But but compiling all of that into something coherent and solid. 445 00:47:43,410 --> 00:47:48,810 It takes time. It can take up to two years as this is the last thing I'm on. 446 00:47:48,810 --> 00:47:55,800 I'm still trying to figure out a title. Any suggestions are welcome. One of the reviewers said that they like the second option. 447 00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:59,190 The body stuff and the God I still love. 448 00:47:59,190 --> 00:48:03,120 Brian Quave is bringing in my head saying that a title without a colon is better. 449 00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,640 So I try to do that with the first option. 450 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:10,610 And then there's a part of me that wants to just go big or go home and just have it called simply the dialogue with the nature of Oracle. 451 00:48:10,610 --> 00:48:15,810 So I'm I'm still kind of going back and forth, but. 452 00:48:15,810 --> 00:48:19,226 That's my process.