Yeah. Thank you for the kind of live action line. Thank you for the invitation.
Good evening, everyone here and also online.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to discussing my current research project with all of you here at the Tibetan Redwoods.
Studies Immunol Oxford.
So of course, I state the obvious when I say that for a researcher like me who is mainly concerned with Bhutan and the Himalayas, speaking in Oxford,
when I go to areas firmly established and excellent, and at the same time diverse,
traditional Tibetan and my own textual studies in Europe is an honour.
But at the same time, naturally a bit intimidating in the sense that I think that it would be a good idea
not only to present today the work in progress of my current research project,
which is an investigation into identity and nation building in 18th century talk,
but also to follow up on what I personally read as Michael Eriksson's main agenda and lasting legacy regarding research on Bhutan,
namely the first substantial and very systematic attempt to recalibrate from the source our historical perspective on what we
usually call the Tibetan cultural area or Tibetan culture with us here and what you will see here roughly suggested on the map.
So not only is, of course, the Tibetan region in the PRC, but also parts of western China,
Bhutan, the Indian Himalayas, Nipah golia in the former Soviet Union.
Depending on the point in history we are looking at in general,
it is important that we think of recentering research on Bhutan, despite a partially shared history and culture of Tibet,
and differentiate it clearly from research approaches and textual sources that have a more central Tibetan or Mongolian,
eastern Tibetan or even chin perspective.
And therefore, I'm convinced that only if all those perspective from different source materials come together,
we will have a more accurate and comprehensive view about events in Tibetan history at large.
So for today, let us for a change. Take a perspective that understands Bhutan as the centre.
Today. In the first part of my talk, I will briefly introduce Tom's religious and political history between the 17th and 20th centuries.
To begin this such contextualisation is crucial for our discussion, as in fact,
Anton's development path is not only vastly different from Western nations, but also from the rest of the Tibetan cultural area.
Then I will present key features of my analytical framework from the field of Religious studies that focuses on social differentiation processes,
epistemic structures and identity, and that operationalised my historical philological research on the Bhutanese empirical materials.
In both the second and third part of my talk,
I will introduce different empirical material so the textual sources I use explain the historical and social contact context
and how I approach them to address the issue of identity and nation building processes in China from different angles.
Based on these examples, I will show how crucial the one two dimensional relationship between religious doctrinal identity, socio cultural identity,
identity policies and the entangled history for Pluton for these processes of nation building were and still are, more in detail.
In the second part,
I will turn closely to the 18th century that I interpret as the formative period and critical juncture for identity and nation building and Hutong.
I will introduce the Chinese Legal Code from 1729 and relate with textual sources,
but also activities on the ground that provides important insights into how identity policies
and collective socio cultural identity building substantially supported nation building.
Then in the third part, I will zoom in on the individual perspectives,
the identity and agency of Chinese Buddhist masters as important intermediaries and Bhutan's entangled history with Tibet.
Five Turbulent History of Tibet.
Here I will take some clarity look at doctrinal it, but also autobiographical and biographical sources written by the Bhutanese Buddhist masters.
And finally, I would close with sharing some brief reflections.
My talk Today I will cover parts of the introductory chapter of my next monograph addressing methodology,
historical background, textual sources, and key actors.
And naturally, I'm very happy about feedback and discussion in this room on.
A quick technical note before I start. It's common in Tibetan textual studies.
I have transliterated classical Tibetan drums and violin and use for the few Sanskrit terminologies,
the international alphabet of sounds potential variation. However, I spell with Chinese and Tibetan names and places,
according to Tornadus and Gell-Mann was simplified phonetic transcription and then of
standard Tibetan law over to avoid excessive referencing and name dropping throughout.
Much like and on the slides, there's a comprehensive bibliography with all the primary and secondary sources that are the basis of my talk,
and I'm very happy to share it if you're interested in that.
Now providing for a bit of historical background in the Tibetan cultural area.
In the first half of the 17th century, three Buddhist governance established a so-called join to find system of governance.
This form of Buddhist governance,
Boston Times two is characterised by a very intricate relationship between the societal spheres of religion and politics,
but also of law and economics.
As for us, Bhutan was founded on the rule of a charismatic tantric Buddhist master chopped another key aftershock shuttling in 1625 26.
Then we have a little later on in 1642 Tibet under the fifth de la Lama, which is for sure the most researched on of these governments until today.
And Sikkim was the Buddhist king consulting. Do they have a living spirit?
Somewhere along the lines?
This week elements which are on Tibet and Sikkim, while going back to earlier Tibetan and Indian political thought and societal issues,
saw significant differences in their respective institutionalisation and organisation, laid out, for example, in their respective legal records.
It will time. I'm not a unifying figure. Al Sharpton. Two branches of the government, but easy to analyse.
The region of Bhutan was supposed to exercise political power while the chief, I would of Bhutan, overlook the religious institutions here.
This Buddhist form of governance is symbolically depicted on a Bhutanese goodwill
painting We see Shop in the centre was a regent and chief abbots of Bhutan,
standing slightly below on each of his sides. As such, I understand this form of Buddhist governance, not just as a view of the government.
As it is often translated, it is important to emphasise that the two branches of religion and politics, differentiated though in many ways,
are still joined together, sometimes symbolically, of course, and sometimes institutionally by the overarching figure of this master or Buddhist king.
Also equating this arrangement was a theocracy so ruled by God literally or hydroxy ruled by priest may be tempting from all of us some perspective,
but falls too short.
It is necessary to identify and describe more in detail the exact nature of this join united aspect in those different forms of governance in Bhutan,
Tibet and Sikkim. In addition, to complicate matters, as most of you will know,
we have five different terminologies in the Tibetan language that were often not randomly chosen or just interchangeable.
I asked. In the Bhutanese case, there is a clear preference for choices.
And look, I began to translate in my publications as joined to the system of governance in kind of
abbreviated form and in a more comprehensive form when I'm talking to other colleges.
Today, I will translate as join to find system of spiritual, temporal or secular, spiritual or religious,
secular or religion or ideal governance, depending on translation preference for true and see and historical context.
I think that it really matters which ethic English terminology is.
With the sometimes century on ground of implicit and often even unconscious Western cultural connotations we use to describe our empirical cases.
This is also an essential first step when we want to employ a less Anglo and Eurocentric analytical frameworks.
The point I would come back later to in my talk.
Then when we move forward in time since the 17th century will turn a living to significant changes in its political organisation and institutions.
The Absolute Heretic Monarchy was introduced in 1907 under the first King Earl in Bangkok,
and in 2008 Thailand was transformed into a constitutional monarchy under the fifth King, Giacometti Sonangol.
Eventually we can therefore say that Bhutan in fact undergoes a very recent democratisation process as a
Buddhist constitutional monarchy that is guided by the ideas and policies of gross national happiness.
Very simplified.
But to get an idea of national happiness is China to have sustainable development model and path that rests on four pillars good governance,
sustainable socio economic development, preservation and promotion of a vibrant culture and environmental conservation.
After this brief introduction into the history of Mouton between the 17th and 20th centuries,
I would like to address more in detail how I then developed my framework to investigate identity and nation to.
The crucial point to consider when we are looking at nation building in Bhutan is that this joint wide system of governance
has been existing uninterruptedly from the 17th century until today as a form of institutional social differentiation,
but also epistemic structure. Of course, today in a very transformed and a nice way on that epistemic structure, as I understand here, for example,
Chinese and Buddhist make taxonomies classifications and knowledge systems that are underlying social structures and
that can be diet pointedly traced as influential for the development and change of those social structures over time.
These, for example, include concepts of Tibetan Buddhist ethics, rule, territory, societal cohesion and so forth.
As we see here, chapters join to fight system of governance whilst explicitly renewed in the Constitution of the Kingdom
of Bhutan in 2008 and is today represented by the King of Bhutan as the head of State and as a Buddhist.
Therefore, many of the Western added terminologies commonly used in our research field are kind of imprecise or insufficient,
at least in describing not only the complexity of the pre-modern governance structures in Bhutan and the Tibetan culture area,
but also and that's even more important for my work in this project.
Today's presence of tantric Buddhist epistemic structures in Bhutan that are grounded in a non-Western cosmological order.
Another crucial aspect to consider is that the example of Bhutan is unique in so far that despite being heavily influenced,
of course, by the British Raj, Bhutan itself was never colonised and therefore is the only country in the Tibetan cultural
area that still possesses the structural and epistemic continuity as a nation state,
as Sikkim and Tibet do not exist anymore, independently as a nation state.
In that sense, town's history is beyond the usually employed binary of coloniser colonised and
postcolonial studies and embodies the third option of nation building and Asian sorts,
so to speak. Consequently, this makes the systematic investigation into transcultural entanglements that have been
ingrained into our growth and its identity and nation building processes even more interesting.
As such. Mouton is also part of the research field that deals with religious constitutionalism.
A recent publication complains that in contrast to research on, for example, Islam and constitutional law,
what is constitutions or what the authors call bureaucracies have been studied relatively little until now.
And this, even though Buddhism had indeed been very formative for the constitutions of several countries in South and Southeast Asia,
such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar or Sri Lanka.
All in all, this should make clear why it is not satisfying to just simply combatants join to fight a system of governance today,
a theocracy, a hired posse, or a theocratic monarchy.
As here in the UK, they are quite the strong want in the field of Tibetan legal anthropology and practices,
with several well-known experts such as professor offers of actual schools, hopefully online there.
I would be very interested to hear about their experiences and maybe also similar struggles with some of the quite imprecise,
steady English terminology stemming from Western originally a Christian legal systems.
I would also like to add to that it seems like contrary to us in the field of climatology, other academic disciplines such as religious studies,
have already much more comprehensively addressed and also explicitly discussed the challenge
of emigrating distinctions and decolonisation of analogy or frameworks in translations.
See, for example, also the discourse about loose approach of trans lingual practices.
It is with all these personal reflections in mind that I have developed an extended analytical framework that aims
to go beyond the limitations of the Western ADIC frameworks and terminologies I encountered at the beginning.
This My work has been strongly influenced by my longstanding research association
with the Centre of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Marketable securities beyond the vast beyond modalities at Leipzig University.
The research approach of the Multiple Sclerosis Project and the intense discussions with mainly religious studies scholars working on very different
regions and religions in Leipzig were immensely helpful to identify and describe more precisely functional and structural differentiation,
social structures, but also the influential underlying epistemic structures in the societies
spheres of religion and politics in Hutong from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
In brief, the research approach of multiple singularities understands boundaries and boundary negotiation processes between different societal spheres
in pre-modern and non-Western societies as either actual functional and structural differentiations or more cognitive epistemic structures.
As a result, it can trace and document in a more comprehensive way diverse global secular religious arrangements that she was called in this project.
Singularities. One of the greatest contributions of this approach is, therefore,
that it goes beyond the until recently more dominating only US centric perspectives on secularisation and modernisation theory.
As the results of this collaborative research book with more than 70 scholars
globally having been participating over the course of the last eight years,
will be published in 2024 in the seven volume Sourcebook of Global Secularity.
It presents primary source materials from all regions of the world in translation and introduction and annotations.
Besides my two contributions on Wu-Tang, they are also several other really interesting articles by scholars from the field of Tibetan and
Mongolian studies who took on the challenge of developing and using these new research approaches.
By adapting now this research approach of multiple similarities.
For my empirical case of chance,
I could better carve out the meaning behind the Chinese terminologies in the textual sources that I had identified in my text Critical research.
I was then able to describe the above mentioned premodern,
social differentiation processes between the spheres of religion and politics, but also partially law and economics.
Long was the underlying epistemic structures within the join to fight system of governance more equitably.
In a second step. And from a diatonic perspective,
I identified what I call areas of interest so important markers where our boundary negotiation processes
within the structure of the joint system of governance have taken place and will turn over time.
This means that as a result, I kind of better understand Bhutan's development path, so to speak, the bits and pieces that are part of this process.
In sum, in that way I can describe more accurately the complexity of the relationship between different societies and Bhutan in the past,
but also the relevance of tantric Buddhist epistemic structures in the present,
which allows for a more systematic comparative perspective and conservation,
and am talking with other scholars and other disciplines that is also less Eurocentric.
So much for now about my analytical framework that operationalise this my work with the actual empirical materials.
Let us not only the second part of my talk, turn to empirical material and more in detail to the 18th century.
To understand why the 18th century is such a crucial time for identity and nation building.
And. We have to return. Once walked to shop the founder of Britain in the 17th century.
His assumed death in 1651 was kept secret for an incredible timespan of over 50 years, disguised as a secret meditation retreat.
Similarly to the situation of the fifth Dalai Lama, whose death had been concealed by the Regency Tynecastle for a period of at least 15 weeks.
So at the end of the 17th century, to put it in, Michael addresses very poignant words like Forward.
We are faced with the situation that during these years the Tibetan and Bhutanese states were both ruled by corpses.
In a manner of speaking and then shot to death was eventually disclosed at the beginning of the 18th century, sometime between 74 and 77.
Naturally, as happened, had been such a charismatic Buddhist ruler and tantric master,
he left behind a substantial power vacuum with serious ignorance about his succession.
Consequently, to counter the long lasting negative repercussions and following instability of both political and religious institutions,
identity and nation building played an extremely important role.
Henceforth, we can deliberate efforts to strengthen the deliberate efforts to strengthen inner Bhutanese identity and various societal areas with,
for example, identity policies addressing religious doctrinal, but also socio cultural identity.
Examples of these identity policies to tackle crisis and foster national integration.
The codification of domestic and civil laws and administration.
The commissioning of religious and political histories, cultural knowledge of mass manuscript and block printing projects,
the building of monasteries and standardisation apply a holistic education,
but as well highly innovative only public mass media, we could say,
in the form of stone wall inscriptions that John Adams has pointed out as very particular to time.
Furthermore, we find the enforcement of a new Chinese dress code and social etiquette and hierarchy.
These identity policies we find also richly documented in the Chinese legal code from 1729 that was composed by the 10th chief abbot of Bhutan,
Tenzin Sugar, on behalf of the 10th region, and of which mantle.
However, we should not imagine this work just as a dry legal codex,
but as a work that conveys important Buddhist ethical principles and a political philosophy embedded in Tibetan Buddhist tantric cosmology.
It is ornamented by numerous vivid quotations from other text drawn with such as Buddhist,
canonical and external canonical works advice literature for rulers who works in sayings and form of other stories of the Buddha.
Therefore, the actual rules and regulations are legitimised by referring to well-known images
and some words of the glorious earlier Buddhist governments of Tibet and India,
Abu representing what I define as epistemic structures.
This was, of course, an effective means in creating meaning and authority within the Buddhist polity in Bhutan at the time of strife,
crisis and discord. It should also be mentioned that this Bhutanese Negro Court from 1729 is a standardised version and
very closely related to some earlier Chinese textual sources dealing with either monastic or civil law,
as well as conceptions of Buddhist governance of groups, for example, has also comprehensively.
Compare the Witness Legal Court with the Tibetan region.
Sanjaya Gyatso Guidelines for Government Officials. I've listed all the sources.
Yeah, as you see. First, this is Shopkins personal seal,
which is caused 16 eyes chatroom and also the later Chinese regions use the seal for
communicating their religious and political authority over the territory of Bhutan.
Then another source would be the monastic code dated to 1629, and the third source would be the first Bhutanese Eagle Court, so to speak.
That is called the Golden Yolk, and found on three now damaged black slates at the huts on the fortress of the old capital of Bhutan.
It was only very recently reconstructed and translated into English, and we see it here on the photograph on this slide.
As such. Those black slates you see here are indeed, again, an interesting example of identity policies and of early public mass media.
Fortresses, in turn have always been important public places for the religious, political and military elites together,
for example, for religious ceremonies and rituals that were supposed to protect the Buddhist country and its populace.
Similar to Shapiro's earlier stone inscriptions and quasi Buddhist ethical behaviour, law and order and, of course, the allegiance to him.
The Golden Globe was publicly visible.
As such, the Golden Yorks should be understood not just as a text in which rules to be followed in society as laid out,
but as a material object constructing and mediating meaning and identity and visibly claiming and legitimising Japan with.
Another important aspect of the Chinese legal code from 1729 is that it draws sharp boundaries towards Tibet and the
common Tibetan heritage also very explicit as a background chapter on how to escape the Guptas Bhutan to Bhutan,
roughly a century before in 1616, due to an unresolved incarnation dispute with the Saudis about him as a hieroglyph one monastery.
This had eventually resulted in the split into two Japan lineages the Norse apple,
then Tibet, and then also later Ladakh lineage and chapter Bhutanese New Southern Village.
At the same time, this had led to the foundation of the state of Bhutan, but also to walk around between Bhutan and Tibet.
For roughly a century there after. As a result, they originally own religious doctrinal identity as Bhutanese.
TOORPAKAI, Who was newly constructed and we can say even we invented to legitimise also political.
The Bhutanese Legal Corps from 1729 provides important insights into this prominent but very
gradual and actually quite messy shift from a purely religious doctrinal to a more socio cultural.
And then finally, political interpretation of path that is also denoting the official Bhutanese national identity.
Today on the slide we see an early example of this religious and political self-identification as Dropbox.
As pressed by check drawing on this person, I see the above mentioned six eyes who proclaims I am Japan,
followed by a very provocative set of claims to legitimise his new rule and Bhutan.
It is not surprising, therefore,
that many of the terminologies and taxonomies that express Buddhist episteme as also societies verse of religion, politics,
law and economics in the Bhutanese Legal code from 1729 have been abandoned,
appropriated to establish today's constitutional framework and the ideas of policies of gross national happiness.
Moreover, the ongoing and ongoing democratisation process, we find them prominently discussed in academic, but also public discourses.
To sum up the Bhutanese legal code from 1729 and related historical sources are extremely valuable in
providing not only a collective perspective on identity and nation building in 18th century Bhutan,
but also on the transformation of the joined to the system of governance over time until actually today.
Now, in the third part, I would like to talk more in detail to the aspect of transcultural entanglement of between Tibet and Bhutan,
documented in the diverse joint travels of Bhutanese and Tibetan Buddhist scholars, from wars to perhaps schools throughout Tibet from 1740 to 1748.
In general, the previous studies work and climatology. Tibetan studies has of course, addressed transcultural encounters,
mostly in the context of what is called borderland studies and mostly focussed on the Tibetan,
Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian or Tibetan Nepalese interface.
However, systematic research about the Bhutanese Tibetan faith that is at the heart of my current research for both and Chinese,
but also a historical and diatonic perspective. Focusing on identity and nation building has not been carried out.
Consequently, my research seeks to disentangle Bhutan's complex histories with Tibet and surrounding powers such as the British Raj.
Today my talk, I, of course, focus on Bhutanese primary sources,
but I would like to mention that in particular for the later Bhutanese British entanglements beginning in the second half of the 18th century.
I'm also at the moment consolidating the British Library documents from the East India office records in private papers.
Now as a background in the 18th century.
Bhutan in Tibet. Finally, after roughly a century of warfare and political hostility following Chapin's flight to Bhutan entered into a
carefully mediated reconciliation process through far sighted political and religious figures on both sides.
This new trends, cultural exchanges, characteristics and positive outcomes of this reconciliation process worked.
For example, the reopening of Tibetan religious sites to Chinese, the exchange of students,
cross-selling literary production and joint religious ceremonies.
Bhutanese Tibet. Tibetan diplomacy through charismatic Buddhist masters and restoration projects was shared.
Bhutanese Tibetan patronage, which John agency has won a record tempered diplomacy.
We can see one beautiful example of such diplomacy on this cool painting.
It shows the Tibetan region Polanyi, a crucial political figure in the reconciliation process on the Tibetan side.
This is two Bhutanese wives whose families actually had fled from Bhutan after school began in the 17th century.
It belongs to a set of paintings commissioned by him that depict eminent Buddhist masters from both.
Japan have used schools as a symbol for this new reconciliation process.
It has completely recalled that King acquired bloody split into the Bhutanese and Tibetan branches of the two parties to well, not too long ago.
As an immensely important further step now in this reconciliation process.
The second day only to Hold on, hold on.
We've got Dodger, one of the most important figures on the Tibetan side, travelled with a group of Bhutanese students, among them the later, ninth,
12th and 13th chief athletes of Bhutan, extensively through Tibet to find colonial daughter,
was indeed an excellent choice as he bought the Tibetan intact incarnation of the soul.
Quite Mad Men of the band took Bakunin, who was extremely popular and who turned until today as a type of Buddhist tantric practitioner,
best known for demonstrating their spiritual realisation in very unconventional ways, to say the least.
This, of course, made it easier to act as a Tibetan intermediary in the still very tense relations between Tibet and Bhutan at that time.
He's a person depicted here on the upper left corner with a dark hat.
And this is actually, to my knowledge, the only visual representation of him that I am aware of.
On these tablets.
We have to imagine those Bhutanese students must isolate amongst us being enrolled in one of the most prestigious higher monastic colleges in Tibet,
namely upon receiving important transmissions from different Tibetan Buddhist lineages and famous Buddhist masters visiting sacred sites.
But also meeting was important Tibetan political figures.
These transcultural exchanges also elicited new struggles about their religious doctrinal identity and
the accept positioning doctrine or positioning tool that the Tibetan branch of the Communist to which,
despite a partially shared lineage of Buddhist masters,
this place called Bhutanese scholars consecutively Jacqueline this and constructed a new Bhutanese
religious document identity by explicitly drawing boundaries to what the Tibetan took back at school.
This is exemplified in a fascinating cross linked literary production of one route text and different
commentaries from both Tibetan and Bhutanese Buddhist masters about the Muhammad controversy,
which is a crucial controversy in Tibetan scholasticism that began in the 12th century
with the immense critique of one of the most eminent scholars of secular school,
Zakir Pandita. Today, I won't go into the nitty gritty details of complicated Tibetan adoption debates.
However, regarding my research, the important thing here is to understand that the religious doctrinal disputes of these Chinese
masters at the intersection of religion and politics and also the section of Canton in Tibet,
concrete factor in reinforcing identity and nation building.
In any case, if you would like to read more about Bhutanese perspective on Man mujer and religious doctrine identity building,
you are invited to also quite size my monograph, and that is also available access.
For the remaining time, I will not turn to the autobiographical and biographical writings of these Chinese Buddhist masters.
These texts indeed provide us with a great morality and formality.
Individual perspectives and different cultural backgrounds and are therefore very relevant.
Yeah, it's important to keep in mind the function of biographical and hagiographic writings in the
Tibetan culture area as important sources documenting history from very different angles.
Therefore, to obtain a better picture of identity and nation building in Bhutan in the 18th century,
I analysed these sources together with other sources, graphical sources such as the above mentioned, which are misleading of course, of 1729.
More by as you are all know, we find in biographical or hagiographic writings a great variety in both form and style,
such as narratives, dialogues, poetry, songs, and let us but also great variety and content.
Apart from what we could call the main narrative about the life of this specific person,
for example, we can find historical and political fact accounts,
doctrinal treatises and prayers and eulogies, as also here of the usual ethnic Western literary genre.
Designations of biographical or hagiographic writings do not really cover this immense breadth,
informed style and content are used as has been proposed here in Oxford.
Also the terminology of life writings. More specifically, at this point in my current project,
I focus on the extensive writings off and about the ninth chief editor of Bhutan, Shakya mentioned today.
He's mostly known for having compiled and thereby preserved the works of the eminent scholar Shankar,
shocked in which he biologists had considered lost until that discovery in his monastery part of Ding and Bhutan.
In the 1970s or so, he had considered himself to be an emanation of Czechia shock and awe.
And as I was able to document in my monograph, implemented important doctrinal concepts into his own intellectual agenda as by cognitive.
Apart from the very detailed work of John to see a systematic study of his life and role
in identity and the actual voting processes in Bhutan and Tibet has not been undertaken.
Even though he was in fact one of the most illustrious figures, an outspoken figure in the intellectual scene at the time.
Yeah. I consider particular Hajji Shakir mentions extensive personal writings such as two different travelogues offers long stay in Tibet,
auto and semi biographical accounts, biographies of other religious and political figures,
His letters and abundant personal notes that are found in this collected works and other set up text.
Many of the sources are available via BTC, but also via the Endangered Archives Program at the British Library.
Currently at my work with the Endangered Archives Program.
I'm looking into the relationship also the differences between these collections and texts.
Beyond the textual sources presented here, I would like to mention that I, of course,
very much benefited from my country's groundbreaking work that is still very, very relevant due to its historical for logical depth and accuracy,
as well as his gift to draw our attention to, um, the researched sources and topics,
he made numerous important Tibetan language historiographical sources accessible in the form of annotated translations.
List the original Tibetan text,
including priceless footnotes and references to numerous others textual sources from the entire Tibetan production area.
Moreover, considering his depths of knowledge,
I'm very much looking forward to see his personal research notes that are housed in the Oz paper collection at the Borden Library tomorrow,
and which I may partially include into my research as well.
So we will see how that goes in some of the writings of the ninth, Chief Abbot Chuck Vincent,
and other Chinese Buddhist masters will provide you insights into what role they played in identity and
nation building in Bhutan during the complex and entangled history with Tibet in the 18th century.
There is, of course, much more to say about my research project.
However, for now, let me pull some strings together and explain this last slide a bit more.
Today, I addressed how research on Bhutan can play an important role in diversifying our view on the history of the Tibetan cultural
area in large and how important it is to include a strong sense of perspective and peer group perspective into the conversation.
I therefore argued for recalibrating the perspective on Tibetan and human history
in harmony with how I personally understand Michael Erickson's research agenda.
In the first part, I presented the analytical and theoretical framework that I use for my historical theological
work on the empirical materialist addressing identity and nation building in Bhutan.
Moreover, with that, I wanted to provide food for thought.
How we scholars in the field of climatology could better participate in transdisciplinary and critical questions of methodology and theory,
for example, about ethnic distinctions, translation, and analytical frameworks that are less Eurocentric than the second and third part.
I focussed on my empirical sample of Bhutan that shows how,
beginning in the 18th century as a crucial time for identity and nation building, as well as a critical juncture in Bhutanese history.
The explicit religious doctrine of self self-identification with the newly founded Bhutanese Backcountry
School began to transform into what today is the official national identity as Jabbar and as Bhutanese.
In detail, I showed how religious doctrinal identity building and cultural identity building identity policies,
transcultural exchanges and entanglements in 18th century Bhutan were linked to each other and influence nation building.
My analysis is hereby based on diverse textual sources from different literary, jobless,
representing both collective and individual perspectives, namely the Bhutanese legal cohort from 1729 and related historiographical sources.
Doctrinal writings about the Muhammad controversy and life writings addressing the joint Bhutanese Tibet, The travels in the future.
Such historical analysis could also enable us to better understand contemporary societal challenges.
In Bhutan, for example, of religious pluralism and freedom struck by nationalism or gross national happiness.
To conclude, as I laid out today, Bhutan indeed provides a unique historical and analytical setting,
as its development has been characterised by intense and crucial transcultural encounters
with First Asia and later Western nations that influenced its trajectory substantially.
But Bhutan was never colonised. Therefore, we can rightly say that Wu Tang is still a missing piece and trends disparages courses in area studies,
but also global Asian studies beyond Tibet ology.
On that note, I would like to conclude my talk here, and I'm very much looking forward to your comments and questions now.
Thank you.