1 00:00:03,030 --> 00:00:21,270 For. So welcome everyone to this, our third talk of the full series. 2 00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:25,349 And I'm really delighted to present Valeria Garcia's over, 3 00:00:25,350 --> 00:00:32,790 who is a postdoctoral fellow at the South Asian Institute in the Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia at Heidelberg University, 4 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,870 and she's also affiliated to the GSR l in Paris. 5 00:00:37,860 --> 00:00:44,220 Valeria has a master's degree in Tibetan studies and a Ph.D. in the history of religion from the University of Oslo, 6 00:00:44,490 --> 00:00:50,730 from the Department of Culture, Studies and Oriental Languages. Prior to her appointment at Heidelberg University, 7 00:00:51,030 --> 00:00:59,040 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Social Anthropology as part of the Mongolian Asian Studies Unit. 8 00:00:59,790 --> 00:01:03,119 So, Valeria, thank you so much for talking to us today. 9 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:06,940 And who would you. Thank you. 10 00:01:06,970 --> 00:01:14,530 Can I begin? Yes. Oh, wonderful. Thank you very much for inviting me to share some of my work at the Treasures Seminar. 11 00:01:15,820 --> 00:01:25,330 My talk today is based on a series of field research trips to commit between 2011 and 2019, 12 00:01:25,810 --> 00:01:35,890 and it is integral to my larger research project, which is devoted to underground secret religious activities and influential figures. 13 00:01:36,190 --> 00:01:40,560 During the Soviet era, religious suppression in the Buddhist of conflict. 14 00:01:41,590 --> 00:01:48,130 I'm looking at different forms of secrecy in relation to ritual and healing practices 15 00:01:48,460 --> 00:01:54,550 that were generated and performed in this condition of exclusion and state suppression. 16 00:01:54,850 --> 00:02:02,350 And in this respect, treasure recoveries being predicated first and foremost on concealment and memory 17 00:02:02,650 --> 00:02:08,860 constituted important parts and important variety of what I see as practices of secrecy. 18 00:02:09,610 --> 00:02:17,229 The comics are a group of Mongolian descent who migrated to the present day location 19 00:02:17,230 --> 00:02:23,230 from Moscow in the in the 17th century from approximately St John in Western Mongolia, 20 00:02:23,530 --> 00:02:28,300 and establish the point of Kanaks that became subjected to the church structure. 21 00:02:28,630 --> 00:02:38,200 Tibetan Buddhism, primarily in this group of Aryans, was the dominant religion, at least from the time of the collapse of the Stalinists. 22 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:46,960 And so religious reprisals, it raised the Buddhist establishment from the public scene in the thirties. 23 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:56,620 Organic monasteries, numbering approximately 100 by the late twenties, had been destroyed, had ceased to work by the Second World War. 24 00:02:57,250 --> 00:02:58,720 During the Second World War, 25 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:08,650 the entire comic population was accused of treason against the Soviet Union and exiled en masse to Siberia and Central Asia, 26 00:03:09,370 --> 00:03:16,780 even though comic book content 13 years later and comic was restored within the Soviet states. 27 00:03:17,110 --> 00:03:28,780 But Buddhism, as well as popular forms of popular forms of popular worship and folk healing, continued to be prohibited. 28 00:03:28,990 --> 00:03:36,520 And the Buddhist establishment never regained the official statues at least until at least the late eighties. 29 00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:42,280 But nevertheless, even though it was suppressed and prohibited it, 30 00:03:42,310 --> 00:03:49,450 religion was not eradicated altogether, but acquired new specific forms in this situation. 31 00:03:49,810 --> 00:03:58,390 So it was functioning basically in the form of underground centres and temples focussed around the rich and the ex monks. 32 00:03:58,780 --> 00:04:07,959 That is, those so-called monks who received the Buddhist training in or abroad have been through prison camps, deportation. 33 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:14,050 And then they came back to army and continued conducting the rituals in secret and 34 00:04:14,170 --> 00:04:20,050 transmitting knowledge to the students and even going on secret pilgrimage trips, 35 00:04:20,890 --> 00:04:25,720 even though some of them continued to be under surveillance with the local KGB. 36 00:04:25,990 --> 00:04:28,180 So basically my larger in my larger project, 37 00:04:28,180 --> 00:04:35,200 which I hope will result in a monograph I am looking at on the one hand and looking at construction of memories 38 00:04:35,590 --> 00:04:42,490 about so-called underground Buddhist and developing popular hagiography centred on its key personalities. 39 00:04:42,700 --> 00:04:50,860 And at the same time, I'm looking at religious transformations that this condition of state imposed mode of secrecy has triggered. 40 00:04:51,580 --> 00:05:01,090 And when it comes to treasure practices, treasure recoveries in the present economic context, on the one hand, 41 00:05:01,210 --> 00:05:08,860 it is part of the broader pattern for the role, the scope of religious transformations, because it is a rather new phenomenon. 42 00:05:09,180 --> 00:05:15,940 I mean, treasure recovery, especially if we think about the Tibetan tradition of thermal revolution, 43 00:05:15,940 --> 00:05:21,040 which is largely predicated on the role and figure of the treasure revealer, 44 00:05:21,370 --> 00:05:28,300 who is a recognised national treasure revealing so concealers from previous lifetimes. 45 00:05:28,810 --> 00:05:38,200 But in in the institutes all recognised reincarnations was practically non-existence since the 18th century. 46 00:05:38,470 --> 00:05:46,660 So this so the validity or I mean this important element on which the validity rest was gone at the same time, 47 00:05:46,660 --> 00:05:50,530 even though it is quite new, I mean, it says a practice in at large. 48 00:05:50,980 --> 00:06:01,210 They are used deployed as a way of maintaining continuity in the local of the local tradition as a means of survival, 49 00:06:01,420 --> 00:06:05,680 whether in the Soviet era or today, the treasure practices were deployed. 50 00:06:06,130 --> 00:06:14,920 Almost as a means of survival of local tradition. And at present, they are looked at as instruments of national and ethnic cultural renewal. 51 00:06:15,610 --> 00:06:29,420 So now. I said, I'll introduce two absolutely different varieties of what can be subsumed under the stress and mode rubric, 52 00:06:29,900 --> 00:06:33,379 which somewhat also these two cases are very different, 53 00:06:33,380 --> 00:06:41,370 but and they somewhat strongly correspond to the overstated Tibetan dichotomy of earth treasures and minus treasures. 54 00:06:42,840 --> 00:06:47,490 And one is rooted in directly embedded in the Soviet history of suppression, 55 00:06:47,700 --> 00:06:55,440 while the other case is that it is the result of transnational connections of present day common Buddhist groups. 56 00:06:56,100 --> 00:07:03,660 So when saying that Buddhism in Soviet filmmaking moves on the grounds, it can be understood quite literally. 57 00:07:03,990 --> 00:07:12,600 Not only that, upon their return, the secret underground ex monks lived in dug out houses, but importantly, 58 00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:17,420 as was largely the case during periods of religious persecution in other societies, 59 00:07:17,430 --> 00:07:23,070 that scenes, Tibetan societies or among other Mongol groups of people were built. 60 00:07:23,190 --> 00:07:27,870 They buried Buddhist texts, images and ritual paraphernalia in the grounds. 61 00:07:28,230 --> 00:07:34,080 This was happening particularly beginning from the late twenties, throughout the thirties and forties. 62 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:42,240 And one important place for such one I wouldn't place was such underground concealment, 63 00:07:43,050 --> 00:07:49,050 particularly among the monks, were ancient burial models abounding on the northern Caspian. 64 00:07:49,050 --> 00:07:54,660 Still, these mountains they date to different historical eras, 65 00:07:55,200 --> 00:08:02,790 from the early Bronze Age to the decline of the Golden Horde and one in the same burial mound, 66 00:08:02,790 --> 00:08:07,620 which is a basically it contains graves of three story people. 67 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:17,940 And one of the same mounds can contain burials belonging to absolutely a very different distance, historical times, historical eras. 68 00:08:18,180 --> 00:08:26,640 And in this way, amount is point of intersection of diverse temporalities, which resonates with the function of the treasures. 69 00:08:26,910 --> 00:08:28,860 So on the one hand, I'm looking at, 70 00:08:28,890 --> 00:08:39,390 I explore this relationship between the comics historical veneration of burial models and the recent treasure recoveries. 71 00:08:40,380 --> 00:08:45,000 And this, in turn, reveals very important connection between the cult of mountains, 72 00:08:45,420 --> 00:08:51,450 among the Mongols, at least the veneration of local deities and treasure revelations. 73 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:56,580 So in the in the topography of the northern Caspian lowlands, 74 00:08:57,030 --> 00:09:05,189 the burial mounds functions as they basically they substituted for mountains because the comics, they brought the culture of mountains with them. 75 00:09:05,190 --> 00:09:15,450 But there were no mountains. So they were these nows. They became of this important reference points in their Buddhist ritual landscape of the comics. 76 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:22,500 They were venerated as sacred heart and the bones of different categories of cosmological beings, 77 00:09:23,070 --> 00:09:27,060 from the territorial deities to enlightened members of the Pantheon. 78 00:09:27,330 --> 00:09:32,940 And some specific monks were in fact associated with particular deep Buddhist deities from the Pantheon. 79 00:09:34,180 --> 00:09:42,390 So so while being incorporated into this basically Buddhist size and becoming part of the Buddhist landscape, 80 00:09:42,930 --> 00:09:50,850 the models also functioned as important reference points and sacred sacred areas. 81 00:09:50,850 --> 00:09:55,080 Territories of patrilineal. Patrilineal. 82 00:09:57,320 --> 00:10:03,710 Territories at which initial collective rituals were conducted during the Soviet era. 83 00:10:04,370 --> 00:10:07,310 When saying that would is went underground. 84 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:15,830 So basically the models they were connected, that they became the sites of diverse types of secret ritual practices. 85 00:10:16,190 --> 00:10:23,600 Most of all, collective rituals will covertly conducted at the site or in the vicinity of the mosque. 86 00:10:24,710 --> 00:10:29,900 Sometimes what directly connected with certain underground ex monks secretly 87 00:10:29,900 --> 00:10:35,090 practising and performing rituals for individual supplicants during the Soviet era. 88 00:10:35,510 --> 00:10:42,169 And of course, they'd work. So that was the place where all these treasures Buddhist images, 89 00:10:42,170 --> 00:10:49,250 texts and ritual implements were concealed during the time of the destruction of monasteries. 90 00:10:49,790 --> 00:10:53,300 And the reason for choosing demons was a numerous. 91 00:10:53,630 --> 00:10:59,630 One possible practical way is that being the most prominent in the landscape, 92 00:11:00,230 --> 00:11:09,740 the mind's function is a sort of mnemonic devices for people to remember because it was not only the monastics who would hide the images, 93 00:11:10,130 --> 00:11:13,490 but also just the common people, common to cheese and believers. 94 00:11:13,750 --> 00:11:21,170 And my respondents would tell me stories about, you know, their family or their family, family accounts, 95 00:11:21,380 --> 00:11:30,950 how they buried their family images, statues of Buddha statues, and then were able to recover them upon their return from the devastation. 96 00:11:31,310 --> 00:11:40,110 And now the important reason is that Mars being sacred, being a sacred spiritual territory and negative sort of life, 97 00:11:40,370 --> 00:11:46,340 and surrounded with numerous taboos and ritual prohibitions. 98 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:50,210 So that was regarded as a space, a space of exclusion. 99 00:11:50,480 --> 00:12:00,800 So they provided a very safe place to conceal and to hide Buddhist images from being destructed and defiled and dissipated, 100 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:05,330 which was largely the case, of course, during the destruction of monasteries. 101 00:12:05,750 --> 00:12:13,550 To what extent are the images buried in or in the vicinity of the mines was supposed to be recovered in the future? 102 00:12:13,760 --> 00:12:18,079 It still remains to be investigated because on the one hand, 103 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:27,530 people do want to recover and there are recoveries of images documented and whether individual families or monks, 104 00:12:27,860 --> 00:12:36,470 they do encounter this, whether spontaneous or deliberately looking for ancestors. 105 00:12:36,490 --> 00:12:43,010 But at the same time, it could be that statues were just buried there for protection. 106 00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:51,829 And even even now, the excavation, the unearthing of these images requires a specific ritual setting. 107 00:12:51,830 --> 00:12:58,610 And a series of rituals must be conducted to restore the proper balance between the territorial entities. 108 00:12:58,610 --> 00:13:01,880 Abiding Citizen Biden. The role in the models. 109 00:13:02,210 --> 00:13:06,680 And you must take in the treasures from them, perhaps. 110 00:13:06,890 --> 00:13:11,810 And of course, there is this popular hagiography in mythologies, 111 00:13:11,810 --> 00:13:18,139 developing their own demons around the treasure recoveries and around the pre-revolutionary 112 00:13:18,140 --> 00:13:24,380 or Soviet secret so that monastics who would who were supposed to be hiding the statues, 113 00:13:25,820 --> 00:13:35,030 numerous stories, miraculous legends about treasures of pre-revolutionary monasteries hidden around certain mines, for example. 114 00:13:35,030 --> 00:13:46,160 This is one of them. Some of these mountains are now being restored, reconstructed as sites of sites of worship by monasteries and by lay communities. 115 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:54,740 And this is one of the examples, perhaps one of the largest models, because some of this was backwards, although not all of them are so prominent. 116 00:13:55,550 --> 00:13:58,220 And there was also legends that surrounded this mound. 117 00:13:58,490 --> 00:14:06,140 No treasures have been recovered from here so far, but there are numerous legends surrounding this particular site. 118 00:14:06,530 --> 00:14:16,099 But perhaps one of the largest one of the largest recent discovered treasure discoveries which received attention in the media was 119 00:14:16,100 --> 00:14:25,970 in 2016 when an entire collection of Buddhist images and ritual implements that you can see numbering approximately 2040 items, 120 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:34,610 was discovered in a very low mound, ostensibly of the sites in an era near the village in the centre of Kunming. 121 00:14:36,860 --> 00:14:44,630 Here you can see the ritual. The monk is chanting prayers and making offerings to demands to the end. 122 00:14:44,690 --> 00:14:52,130 This as a budget in the mound, where after the treasures have after the treasures were removed. 123 00:14:52,670 --> 00:14:55,460 And what's another interesting point? 124 00:14:55,990 --> 00:15:05,470 Regarding this specific practices and this is Congress is that the focus is not so much to the actual discoverer who found the items, 125 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:12,370 but importantly it is the role of the concealer and the reconstruction of the past and of the local history. 126 00:15:12,610 --> 00:15:19,660 That is the focus of attention here. People are trying to reconstruct, for example, regarding this collection. 127 00:15:21,330 --> 00:15:32,010 People are trying to reconstruct the history of the of this specific collection where where it comes from and different interpretations, 128 00:15:32,010 --> 00:15:37,050 different opinions expressed. For example, monks from the central monastery. 129 00:15:37,290 --> 00:15:43,650 And they suggest that it must have been hidden by now by monks from the nearby monastery. 130 00:15:43,860 --> 00:15:49,769 Then local people from the nearby villages that I talk to connect this specific collection and 131 00:15:49,770 --> 00:15:57,690 the items with the certain important secret Buddhists that were practising during the time. 132 00:15:58,770 --> 00:16:02,870 All religious suppression in the Soviets in Soviet economy can. 133 00:16:03,210 --> 00:16:11,700 So this process of recovering treasures from the mind is also the process of reconstructing the history of the recovered objects. 134 00:16:11,700 --> 00:16:13,860 And by constructing the history of the objects, 135 00:16:14,190 --> 00:16:21,959 people reconstruct the history of their their local history and their local Buddhist history, and in this way, 136 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:32,220 recreate their unique subjectivities and belonging so they are the case, or rather, as a story prolongs the story, 137 00:16:32,220 --> 00:16:40,350 that beginning 2010 is another interesting dimension of present day and recoveries. 138 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:49,170 At least it is seen by some adherents as treasures, and it is directly connected with transnational influences, 139 00:16:49,980 --> 00:16:58,590 which at the same time becomes the site of civil strife and tension on the on the chronic religious scene. 140 00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:00,390 Because on the one hand, 141 00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:11,550 post-Soviet cosmic identity building is rooted opposing Buddhism and especially in the in the historical connection between the comics and Tibet. 142 00:17:11,820 --> 00:17:16,379 And for this reason, Tibetan long Tibetan Buddhist lamas, 143 00:17:16,380 --> 00:17:24,900 especially emigre lamas in exile and reconstructed Tibetan Buddhist establishment, were built, for example, across India and in Nepal. 144 00:17:25,110 --> 00:17:28,680 They play a very important, prominent role in this process. 145 00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:37,860 However, on the other hand, this constant, this tendency of looking for foreign inspiration elsewhere beyond cosmic, 146 00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:51,960 beyond the Roman wall, there is also can be also criticised by those who aspire to a more local form of religious practice in Buddhism. 147 00:17:52,530 --> 00:18:00,270 So my second example concerns the introduction of the worship of to protect deities in several cosmic Buddhist centres, 148 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:13,500 which the adherents see as mind treasures and which were revealed by a very well known Tibetan emigre Lama Kadri made in Potsdam. 149 00:18:14,220 --> 00:18:23,370 He's the head of the rebel lineage and the founder of the International Records Centre with all Atlas monasteries in different countries. 150 00:18:23,850 --> 00:18:26,880 So the important thing that he is recognised as, 151 00:18:27,360 --> 00:18:36,030 as a treasure reveal as a person and his lineage of his birth includes a number of very important Buddhist personalities. 152 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:45,780 So during his first visit to the media in the summer of 2010, 153 00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:53,339 Kadri Me is reputed to have had a number of visions and dreams of a local protective deity and later 154 00:18:53,340 --> 00:19:02,100 composed or rather reveals as reported by my interlocutors and offering prayer texts for his worship. 155 00:19:02,580 --> 00:19:10,710 According to the text and the descriptions received from the Tibetan, the deity is an ancient gods in and the war gods of the aurochs, 156 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:15,599 who had been helping to cull mixed since the time of their migration. 157 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:21,480 So the lower hoga came together with them and continued helping them in their new cave. 158 00:19:21,690 --> 00:19:30,660 However, during the the general dark time of the Soviet era, this crucial connection was allegedly lost, 159 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:36,690 and it is now due to the agency of a powerful lama that this connection is being restored. 160 00:19:37,500 --> 00:19:38,190 The name. 161 00:19:39,270 --> 00:19:50,910 So this is the concise version of the text and the name of the new dates is Jungle Drill La Dull, cause they call them Inconsequential Jungle Dog. 162 00:19:51,570 --> 00:19:56,750 And as the name indicates, the new DG belongs to the class of Rule of four. 163 00:19:56,760 --> 00:20:05,700 I'm not talking about Warrior. It is equestrian warrior heroes whose tasks include protecting the country and its people increased in wealth. 164 00:20:06,060 --> 00:20:13,889 And this type of deer, this category of the warrior deities was and is well known throughout the among the Mongol groups. 165 00:20:13,890 --> 00:20:19,050 And of course in Tibet and in coming the conflicts were not exception to this rule. 166 00:20:19,230 --> 00:20:25,440 Nevertheless, the name Jiu Gar is quite new, at least to me, as the name suggests. 167 00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:34,499 It is the images, the immediate reference to the to what is regarded as the ancestral home of the called Exclusion Gardena. 168 00:20:34,500 --> 00:20:42,150 That is the geographical area from where they came to the field regarded as new locale. 169 00:20:42,630 --> 00:20:51,990 And so in this sense the recovered protected entity reinforce the karmic links within the 170 00:20:51,990 --> 00:20:58,270 region and their belonging to the larger Mongolian Tibetan Buddhist world at large at the same. 171 00:20:58,370 --> 00:21:11,900 So another important point is that at least the followers of Kadri may correlate this rediscovered equestrian deejay with the epic hero Jungkook Khan, 172 00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:17,660 the prominent Mongolian and Euler Khan, epic hero, the universal conqueror. 173 00:21:17,660 --> 00:21:20,410 And the ruler of the imaginary kingdom of. 174 00:21:22,030 --> 00:21:32,200 As has been traditionally the case in other innovations science the comic epic was performed used to be performed 175 00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:40,330 in a special ritual setting by spy boards who were also believed to possess visionary powers in the Soviet Union. 176 00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:47,890 However, Jaeger was suppressed as a visionary and ritual practice, but promoted as a literary text. 177 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,720 And at present there is a tendency of resynchronisation therapy. 178 00:21:53,800 --> 00:22:00,910 And perhaps this invention, or the rediscovery of jungle jungle Khan as a deity, 179 00:22:00,910 --> 00:22:08,560 embodied, embodied as a warrior deity, is part of this general resynchronisation. 180 00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:16,480 Nevertheless. If you look at the of the stock, I was the produce was painted. 181 00:22:18,530 --> 00:22:28,430 Only in accordance, according to the visions received from mom to the text and visions of Non-covid man and here their lineage, 182 00:22:28,670 --> 00:22:33,200 the genealogy of the the rediscovered data is reflected. 183 00:22:33,530 --> 00:22:36,860 So as you can see, edge and God's law is. 184 00:22:37,900 --> 00:22:44,110 A servant, an attendant in the retinue of guests. And this was also in the text that I showed you previously. 185 00:22:45,010 --> 00:22:50,790 So. In this sense. So in this sense. 186 00:22:50,810 --> 00:22:55,580 Guest star, which is of course, a well-known now the hero of another well-known epic, 187 00:22:55,790 --> 00:23:02,180 especially importance in eastern Tibet and among other Mongol groups, but not so much among the comics. 188 00:23:02,540 --> 00:23:11,690 So it turns out that this entire cosmology and this lineage somehow puts the comics the epic hero, 189 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:17,060 low ranking them lore to the to the Tibetan epic hero. 190 00:23:17,780 --> 00:23:26,389 And also, it appears that the comic worried it serves not so much as a defender of national interests, but this. 191 00:23:26,390 --> 00:23:30,560 But most of us would soldier in fights and enemies of Buddhism. 192 00:23:30,770 --> 00:23:44,380 And this is this is quite this this became quite a provocative innovation and led to intense debates, if not outright. 193 00:23:46,620 --> 00:23:49,620 Outright conflicts between the Buddhist groups. 194 00:23:50,190 --> 00:23:58,030 But the story is to continue because during his next trip in the summer of 2011, 195 00:23:58,380 --> 00:24:07,290 now Catherine Mann is reported to have had and is reported to have had a seizure and a new series of visions. 196 00:24:07,500 --> 00:24:11,880 And this time the visions were about another biblical date of the comics. 197 00:24:12,150 --> 00:24:20,400 And according to the text and the descriptions received from the turtle on the day she was identified as the white's old man, 198 00:24:21,330 --> 00:24:28,620 which of course, the white man is a very well-known figure throughout Tibetan, Buddhist and the Mongol world. 199 00:24:28,860 --> 00:24:39,930 And in case it is, this figure has been traditionally venerated as the Lord of the land and water and the guardian of codes and nature. 200 00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:47,300 Basically his principle task is to regulate the relationship between humans and natural worlds, 201 00:24:47,570 --> 00:24:55,460 which includes not only protecting herds and healing, but also punishing for what is considered improper behaviour. 202 00:24:55,470 --> 00:25:02,870 And in this sense, the wild old man is perceived as ambivalent, highly ambivalent, but also powerful. 203 00:25:03,170 --> 00:25:10,160 And in present day comics, The Wild Man is perhaps the central figure of popular worship. 204 00:25:10,430 --> 00:25:21,200 And there is a growing number of religious groups whose religious and ritual and healing practice is focussed on the veneration of the wild man. 205 00:25:21,950 --> 00:25:25,909 And some of these some of these groups, at least the practices, 206 00:25:25,910 --> 00:25:34,490 the practices of textual revelation somewhat resonates with the Thurmont textual term of discoveries. 207 00:25:34,820 --> 00:25:43,309 For example, some of these communities they claim to be receiving texts of religious importance are usually ritual and heathen. 208 00:25:43,310 --> 00:25:51,410 Texts from deeds is usually from the Buddhist deities, from the Buddhist faith and and of course, from the wild man. 209 00:25:51,710 --> 00:26:01,190 So they claim to be receiving special texts and visions and themes, and this texts encoded in incomprehensible language. 210 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:06,950 And then they claim to be receiving translations or a code to decipher the text. 211 00:26:07,370 --> 00:26:13,130 So this is something that's happening in public. There's grassroots movements focussed on the words of myth. 212 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:23,000 And of course, here, the Wild Man, I mean, he receives new functions and his entire role is receives profound reinterpretation. 213 00:26:23,390 --> 00:26:26,420 But coming back to the to our inputs. Yeah, 214 00:26:26,780 --> 00:26:34,549 he he is his discovery proposes another way to another type of distortion of the indigenous 215 00:26:34,550 --> 00:26:40,790 cosmology and another way of reinterpreting the function and the figure of the white old man, 216 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:48,620 which is reflected again in the new thangka that was again painted, 217 00:26:48,860 --> 00:26:55,430 produced in accordance with the instructions, vision and texts received from them accordingly. 218 00:26:56,180 --> 00:27:06,530 So here we can see that the words old man, so it appears that the wild man is somehow admitted, is correlated with the of family. 219 00:27:06,770 --> 00:27:13,639 So you can see that in the upper register. In the middle you can see there was a megabucks lent by Guru and watch it. 220 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,720 And then I'll look at the spa and the suit. 221 00:27:16,790 --> 00:27:25,130 We have this big, big depiction of I agree the centre and what is unusual is that according to my informants. 222 00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,550 The wild man is directly connected with gravity. 223 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:38,820 So the wild man is has been retained re subjugated by high river and it is river cruise control in the wild now. 224 00:27:39,950 --> 00:27:50,689 And so when Booth actually Booth Concourse Booth, where both paintings present a sort of collective collaboration, 225 00:27:50,690 --> 00:27:53,749 collective work, collective work between the third gong, 226 00:27:53,750 --> 00:27:59,900 the treasure dealer, the painter and the Buddhist Buddhist monastics, 227 00:28:00,290 --> 00:28:08,210 because it includes a several important elements which are quite typical of the comic local tradition. 228 00:28:08,390 --> 00:28:14,570 I don't know if you can see it all, but in the corner in the lower register there is a depiction of Saiga antelope. 229 00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:24,410 If you can see it and you know, for the comics they believe that the Saiga Antelope is the mount, the mountain animal of the Wild Man. 230 00:28:24,650 --> 00:28:31,670 And this is the first time I have never seen conkers or depictions or the depictions of the wild man with saiga. 231 00:28:31,940 --> 00:28:34,429 But this appears to be something, again, 232 00:28:34,430 --> 00:28:43,460 new new tendency to be caught in cooperation with local mythology and books representing it in them in the developing arts. 233 00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:53,149 So let's so the topic is our collective collaboration and it also looks like it seems, which I have not really looked at, 234 00:28:53,150 --> 00:28:59,900 but it also seems the text written by Nakajima about the new text written about the world now is 235 00:28:59,900 --> 00:29:07,820 also seems to be a sort of collective production of Intertextual nature because according to my. 236 00:29:08,930 --> 00:29:11,390 According to the lamas that I talked to in Jamaica, 237 00:29:11,690 --> 00:29:19,730 they told me they emphasised that Revere was experiencing difficulties in locating the wise old man, 238 00:29:19,910 --> 00:29:28,610 and for this reason he asked the lamas some lamas, in case they had any other texts devoted to this duty. 239 00:29:28,820 --> 00:29:32,830 And of course, the texts devoted to the wise old man are not. 240 00:29:33,170 --> 00:29:38,270 I mean, there are numerous texts devoted to the sage in Jamaica, in Tibetan, in Karmic. 241 00:29:38,630 --> 00:29:46,160 And so they gave him the lamas gave and gave him several all the copies. 242 00:29:46,340 --> 00:29:55,040 And this is allegedly the pre-revolutionary all the copy of the incense offering to the wise old man. 243 00:29:55,220 --> 00:29:58,910 And there was another text that they gave him and gave it to the person, 244 00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:07,880 the text which was allegedly used before the Soviet era to cause the articles, rain and sweetness, the weather. 245 00:30:08,090 --> 00:30:11,900 So I have not done this year, but it would be interesting to see to what extent. 246 00:30:13,300 --> 00:30:20,950 To what extent how much has been so much has been borrowed from it's older from the old allegedly old checks donated to the states. 247 00:30:21,850 --> 00:30:25,620 So. So as. 248 00:30:30,020 --> 00:30:37,310 So this new discoveries, of course, they became very contested points. 249 00:30:37,610 --> 00:30:40,910 And on the one on the one hand, the ball was off. Markers remain. 250 00:30:41,180 --> 00:30:50,930 They see them as treasures. But the details, the images, the texts and the emphasised numerous accounts. 251 00:30:51,170 --> 00:31:00,590 So they relate numerous stories of miraculous happenings, changes in the weather, which they maybe even dreams and their own experiences, 252 00:31:00,590 --> 00:31:08,750 visionary experiences that they had, which they interpret as signs that prove the validity of the new treasures. 253 00:31:09,470 --> 00:31:17,750 And one of such important signs, at least what they told to me, is that the name of the new temple, as you can see here, 254 00:31:17,990 --> 00:31:27,860 this is one of the new outlets of the Reform International Centre of it was built a few years ago in Copenhagen. 255 00:31:28,010 --> 00:31:35,329 And the name of this temple, the monastery and the monastery will be devoted first and foremost to the to the worship, 256 00:31:35,330 --> 00:31:43,340 to the rituals devoted to the newly discovered deities, to God and to the wise old man and to gifts. 257 00:31:43,370 --> 00:31:51,429 Are they this coincidence? So they emphasise that the name of this specific monastery coincides with the name 258 00:31:51,430 --> 00:31:59,720 of pre-revolutionary Kunming Buddhist monastery that was located around this area. 259 00:31:59,900 --> 00:32:05,840 And that shifted. And it's indeed true. There was there was the monastery with the same name, which was quite old, 260 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:11,720 and it was brought in the 17th century when it was still in its mobile nomadic form, 261 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:18,790 and then it acquired its stationary incarnation in the village of A. 262 00:32:19,970 --> 00:32:33,770 So. So the disciples of academia, they tried to somehow validate and legitimise the new developments that they are now trying to promote. 263 00:32:34,130 --> 00:32:40,220 But at the same time, on the other hand, and this opinion is perhaps even more belated and more proliferated and comic. 264 00:32:40,610 --> 00:32:45,860 So the opinion is that this new this new and this innovations this innovations of Christian logic, 265 00:32:46,370 --> 00:32:50,650 they are not gaining ground because it contradicts certain important principles of, 266 00:32:50,670 --> 00:32:56,270 first of all, that the guest star guest star has never been venerated in common. 267 00:32:56,930 --> 00:33:05,020 And then the Jungkook Khan cannot be a foot soldier or guest star because he's the conqueror of the universe. 268 00:33:05,300 --> 00:33:09,200 And so he cannot be an attendant, a servant in directing gifts. 269 00:33:09,830 --> 00:33:15,590 So some even expressed their opinion that it can be not just of no appeal, 270 00:33:15,590 --> 00:33:22,700 but it can be quite dangerous to promote this new cause because it can anger and outrage the local. 271 00:33:22,970 --> 00:33:28,930 It is the true protectors of cosmic who do not want to be re subjugated in this. 272 00:33:28,970 --> 00:33:36,290 But most some of our government cosmology and perhaps several of my interlocutors cited it. 273 00:33:36,590 --> 00:33:42,080 I cited an example that proves this inconsistency. 274 00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:50,899 So during one of his subsequent trips to Mecca, I think it was 2000, I'm not sure, not exactly sure where it was, but now I'm glad that he made it. 275 00:33:50,900 --> 00:33:58,280 But should during when he was given big public ritual, public initiation into the new practice of the white man, 276 00:33:58,580 --> 00:34:02,750 he suffered a stroke and spent some time in the hospital. 277 00:34:02,900 --> 00:34:10,400 And of course, this episode, this unfortunate event, was interpreted by a number of other Buddhist communities who do not support the new practice. 278 00:34:10,580 --> 00:34:20,150 It was interpreted as the truth of the local deities who do not agree with this new cosmology that is being imported. 279 00:34:20,690 --> 00:34:24,860 So. So I guess just. 280 00:34:25,820 --> 00:34:35,420 I shall leave it here. Just what my my point was to show two different cases of what are considered as treasure and to what extent it is. 281 00:34:36,820 --> 00:34:46,530 No matter how new it may seem and how unusual it can be in the in the general historical context of care, 282 00:34:46,810 --> 00:34:55,900 it is nevertheless deployed as a way of reinventing continuity and as an instrument of recovery 283 00:34:55,900 --> 00:35:02,530 and revival or renewal of what is being needed by their adherents as the true indigenous, 284 00:35:02,530 --> 00:35:06,250 authentic elements of their tradition. 285 00:35:07,090 --> 00:35:08,950 Well, thank you. I guess I have to stop here.