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Yeah. Thank you for the kind of live action line. Thank you for the invitation.

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Good evening, everyone here and also online.

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Yeah, I'm looking forward to discussing my current research project with all of you here at the Tibetan Redwoods.

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Studies Immunol Oxford.

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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,

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when I go to areas firmly established and excellent, and at the same time diverse,

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traditional Tibetan and my own textual studies in Europe is an honour.

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But at the same time, naturally a bit intimidating in the sense that I think that it would be a good idea

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not only to present today the work in progress of my current research project,

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which is an investigation into identity and nation building in 18th century talk,

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but also to follow up on what I personally read as Michael Eriksson's main agenda and lasting legacy regarding research on Bhutan,

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namely the first substantial and very systematic attempt to recalibrate from the source our historical perspective on what we

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usually call the Tibetan cultural area or Tibetan culture with us here and what you will see here roughly suggested on the map.

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So not only is, of course, the Tibetan region in the PRC, but also parts of western China,

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Bhutan, the Indian Himalayas, Nipah golia in the former Soviet Union.

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Depending on the point in history we are looking at in general,

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it is important that we think of recentering research on Bhutan, despite a partially shared history and culture of Tibet,

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and differentiate it clearly from research approaches and textual sources that have a more central Tibetan or Mongolian,

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eastern Tibetan or even chin perspective.

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And therefore, I'm convinced that only if all those perspective from different source materials come together,

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we will have a more accurate and comprehensive view about events in Tibetan history at large.

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So for today, let us for a change. Take a perspective that understands Bhutan as the centre.

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Today. In the first part of my talk, I will briefly introduce Tom's religious and political history between the 17th and 20th centuries.

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To begin this such contextualisation is crucial for our discussion, as in fact,

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Anton's development path is not only vastly different from Western nations, but also from the rest of the Tibetan cultural area.

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Then I will present key features of my analytical framework from the field of Religious studies that focuses on social differentiation processes,

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epistemic structures and identity, and that operationalised my historical philological research on the Bhutanese empirical materials.

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In both the second and third part of my talk,

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I will introduce different empirical material so the textual sources I use explain the historical and social contact context

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and how I approach them to address the issue of identity and nation building processes in China from different angles.

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Based on these examples, I will show how crucial the one two dimensional relationship between religious doctrinal identity, socio cultural identity,

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identity policies and the entangled history for Pluton for these processes of nation building were and still are, more in detail.

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In the second part,

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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.

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I will introduce the Chinese Legal Code from 1729 and relate with textual sources,

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but also activities on the ground that provides important insights into how identity policies

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and collective socio cultural identity building substantially supported nation building.

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Then in the third part, I will zoom in on the individual perspectives,

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the identity and agency of Chinese Buddhist masters as important intermediaries and Bhutan's entangled history with Tibet.

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Five Turbulent History of Tibet.

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Here I will take some clarity look at doctrinal it, but also autobiographical and biographical sources written by the Bhutanese Buddhist masters.

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And finally, I would close with sharing some brief reflections.

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My talk Today I will cover parts of the introductory chapter of my next monograph addressing methodology,

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historical background, textual sources, and key actors.

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And naturally, I'm very happy about feedback and discussion in this room on.

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A quick technical note before I start. It's common in Tibetan textual studies.

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I have transliterated classical Tibetan drums and violin and use for the few Sanskrit terminologies,

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the international alphabet of sounds potential variation. However, I spell with Chinese and Tibetan names and places,

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according to Tornadus and Gell-Mann was simplified phonetic transcription and then of

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standard Tibetan law over to avoid excessive referencing and name dropping throughout.

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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,

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and I'm very happy to share it if you're interested in that.

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Now providing for a bit of historical background in the Tibetan cultural area.

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In the first half of the 17th century, three Buddhist governance established a so-called join to find system of governance.

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This form of Buddhist governance,

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Boston Times two is characterised by a very intricate relationship between the societal spheres of religion and politics,

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but also of law and economics.

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As for us, Bhutan was founded on the rule of a charismatic tantric Buddhist master chopped another key aftershock shuttling in 1625 26.

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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.

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And Sikkim was the Buddhist king consulting. Do they have a living spirit?

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Somewhere along the lines?

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This week elements which are on Tibet and Sikkim, while going back to earlier Tibetan and Indian political thought and societal issues,

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saw significant differences in their respective institutionalisation and organisation, laid out, for example, in their respective legal records.

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It will time. I'm not a unifying figure. Al Sharpton. Two branches of the government, but easy to analyse.

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The region of Bhutan was supposed to exercise political power while the chief, I would of Bhutan, overlook the religious institutions here.

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This Buddhist form of governance is symbolically depicted on a Bhutanese goodwill

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painting We see Shop in the centre was a regent and chief abbots of Bhutan,

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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.

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As it is often translated, it is important to emphasise that the two branches of religion and politics, differentiated though in many ways,

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are still joined together, sometimes symbolically, of course, and sometimes institutionally by the overarching figure of this master or Buddhist king.

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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,

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but falls too short.

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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,

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Tibet and Sikkim. In addition, to complicate matters, as most of you will know,

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we have five different terminologies in the Tibetan language that were often not randomly chosen or just interchangeable.

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I asked. In the Bhutanese case, there is a clear preference for choices.

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And look, I began to translate in my publications as joined to the system of governance in kind of

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abbreviated form and in a more comprehensive form when I'm talking to other colleges.

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Today, I will translate as join to find system of spiritual, temporal or secular, spiritual or religious,

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secular or religion or ideal governance, depending on translation preference for true and see and historical context.

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I think that it really matters which ethic English terminology is.

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With the sometimes century on ground of implicit and often even unconscious Western cultural connotations we use to describe our empirical cases.

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This is also an essential first step when we want to employ a less Anglo and Eurocentric analytical frameworks.

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The point I would come back later to in my talk.

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Then when we move forward in time since the 17th century will turn a living to significant changes in its political organisation and institutions.

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The Absolute Heretic Monarchy was introduced in 1907 under the first King Earl in Bangkok,

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and in 2008 Thailand was transformed into a constitutional monarchy under the fifth King, Giacometti Sonangol.

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Eventually we can therefore say that Bhutan in fact undergoes a very recent democratisation process as a

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Buddhist constitutional monarchy that is guided by the ideas and policies of gross national happiness.

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Very simplified.

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But to get an idea of national happiness is China to have sustainable development model and path that rests on four pillars good governance,

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sustainable socio economic development, preservation and promotion of a vibrant culture and environmental conservation.

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After this brief introduction into the history of Mouton between the 17th and 20th centuries,

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I would like to address more in detail how I then developed my framework to investigate identity and nation to.

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The crucial point to consider when we are looking at nation building in Bhutan is that this joint wide system of governance

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has been existing uninterruptedly from the 17th century until today as a form of institutional social differentiation,

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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,

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Chinese and Buddhist make taxonomies classifications and knowledge systems that are underlying social structures and

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that can be diet pointedly traced as influential for the development and change of those social structures over time.

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These, for example, include concepts of Tibetan Buddhist ethics, rule, territory, societal cohesion and so forth.

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As we see here, chapters join to fight system of governance whilst explicitly renewed in the Constitution of the Kingdom

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of Bhutan in 2008 and is today represented by the King of Bhutan as the head of State and as a Buddhist.

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Therefore, many of the Western added terminologies commonly used in our research field are kind of imprecise or insufficient,

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at least in describing not only the complexity of the pre-modern governance structures in Bhutan and the Tibetan culture area,

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but also and that's even more important for my work in this project.

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Today's presence of tantric Buddhist epistemic structures in Bhutan that are grounded in a non-Western cosmological order.

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Another crucial aspect to consider is that the example of Bhutan is unique in so far that despite being heavily influenced,

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of course, by the British Raj, Bhutan itself was never colonised and therefore is the only country in the Tibetan cultural

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area that still possesses the structural and epistemic continuity as a nation state,

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as Sikkim and Tibet do not exist anymore, independently as a nation state.

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In that sense, town's history is beyond the usually employed binary of coloniser colonised and

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postcolonial studies and embodies the third option of nation building and Asian sorts,

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so to speak. Consequently, this makes the systematic investigation into transcultural entanglements that have been

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ingrained into our growth and its identity and nation building processes even more interesting.

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As such. Mouton is also part of the research field that deals with religious constitutionalism.

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A recent publication complains that in contrast to research on, for example, Islam and constitutional law,

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what is constitutions or what the authors call bureaucracies have been studied relatively little until now.

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And this, even though Buddhism had indeed been very formative for the constitutions of several countries in South and Southeast Asia,

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such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar or Sri Lanka.

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All in all, this should make clear why it is not satisfying to just simply combatants join to fight a system of governance today,

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a theocracy, a hired posse, or a theocratic monarchy.

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As here in the UK, they are quite the strong want in the field of Tibetan legal anthropology and practices,

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with several well-known experts such as professor offers of actual schools, hopefully online there.

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I would be very interested to hear about their experiences and maybe also similar struggles with some of the quite imprecise,

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steady English terminology stemming from Western originally a Christian legal systems.

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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,

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have already much more comprehensively addressed and also explicitly discussed the challenge

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of emigrating distinctions and decolonisation of analogy or frameworks in translations.

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See, for example, also the discourse about loose approach of trans lingual practices.

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It is with all these personal reflections in mind that I have developed an extended analytical framework that aims

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to go beyond the limitations of the Western ADIC frameworks and terminologies I encountered at the beginning.

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This My work has been strongly influenced by my longstanding research association

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with the Centre of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Marketable securities beyond the vast beyond modalities at Leipzig University.

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The research approach of the Multiple Sclerosis Project and the intense discussions with mainly religious studies scholars working on very different

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regions and religions in Leipzig were immensely helpful to identify and describe more precisely functional and structural differentiation,

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social structures, but also the influential underlying epistemic structures in the societies

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spheres of religion and politics in Hutong from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

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In brief, the research approach of multiple singularities understands boundaries and boundary negotiation processes between different societal spheres

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in pre-modern and non-Western societies as either actual functional and structural differentiations or more cognitive epistemic structures.

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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.

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Singularities. One of the greatest contributions of this approach is, therefore,

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that it goes beyond the until recently more dominating only US centric perspectives on secularisation and modernisation theory.

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As the results of this collaborative research book with more than 70 scholars

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globally having been participating over the course of the last eight years,

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will be published in 2024 in the seven volume Sourcebook of Global Secularity.

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It presents primary source materials from all regions of the world in translation and introduction and annotations.

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Besides my two contributions on Wu-Tang, they are also several other really interesting articles by scholars from the field of Tibetan and

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Mongolian studies who took on the challenge of developing and using these new research approaches.

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By adapting now this research approach of multiple similarities.

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For my empirical case of chance,

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I could better carve out the meaning behind the Chinese terminologies in the textual sources that I had identified in my text Critical research.

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I was then able to describe the above mentioned premodern,

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social differentiation processes between the spheres of religion and politics, but also partially law and economics.

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Long was the underlying epistemic structures within the join to fight system of governance more equitably.

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In a second step. And from a diatonic perspective,

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I identified what I call areas of interest so important markers where our boundary negotiation processes

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within the structure of the joint system of governance have taken place and will turn over time.

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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.

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In sum, in that way I can describe more accurately the complexity of the relationship between different societies and Bhutan in the past,

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but also the relevance of tantric Buddhist epistemic structures in the present,

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which allows for a more systematic comparative perspective and conservation,

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and am talking with other scholars and other disciplines that is also less Eurocentric.

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So much for now about my analytical framework that operationalise this my work with the actual empirical materials.

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Let us not only the second part of my talk, turn to empirical material and more in detail to the 18th century.

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To understand why the 18th century is such a crucial time for identity and nation building.

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And. We have to return. Once walked to shop the founder of Britain in the 17th century.

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His assumed death in 1651 was kept secret for an incredible timespan of over 50 years, disguised as a secret meditation retreat.

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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.

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So at the end of the 17th century, to put it in, Michael addresses very poignant words like Forward.

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We are faced with the situation that during these years the Tibetan and Bhutanese states were both ruled by corpses.

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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.

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Naturally, as happened, had been such a charismatic Buddhist ruler and tantric master,

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he left behind a substantial power vacuum with serious ignorance about his succession.

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Consequently, to counter the long lasting negative repercussions and following instability of both political and religious institutions,

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identity and nation building played an extremely important role.

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Henceforth, we can deliberate efforts to strengthen the deliberate efforts to strengthen inner Bhutanese identity and various societal areas with,

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for example, identity policies addressing religious doctrinal, but also socio cultural identity.

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Examples of these identity policies to tackle crisis and foster national integration.

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The codification of domestic and civil laws and administration.

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The commissioning of religious and political histories, cultural knowledge of mass manuscript and block printing projects,

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the building of monasteries and standardisation apply a holistic education,

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but as well highly innovative only public mass media, we could say,

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in the form of stone wall inscriptions that John Adams has pointed out as very particular to time.

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Furthermore, we find the enforcement of a new Chinese dress code and social etiquette and hierarchy.

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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,

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Tenzin Sugar, on behalf of the 10th region, and of which mantle.

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However, we should not imagine this work just as a dry legal codex,

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but as a work that conveys important Buddhist ethical principles and a political philosophy embedded in Tibetan Buddhist tantric cosmology.

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It is ornamented by numerous vivid quotations from other text drawn with such as Buddhist,

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canonical and external canonical works advice literature for rulers who works in sayings and form of other stories of the Buddha.

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Therefore, the actual rules and regulations are legitimised by referring to well-known images

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and some words of the glorious earlier Buddhist governments of Tibet and India,

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Abu representing what I define as epistemic structures.

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This was, of course, an effective means in creating meaning and authority within the Buddhist polity in Bhutan at the time of strife,

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crisis and discord. It should also be mentioned that this Bhutanese Negro Court from 1729 is a standardised version and

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very closely related to some earlier Chinese textual sources dealing with either monastic or civil law,

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as well as conceptions of Buddhist governance of groups, for example, has also comprehensively.

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Compare the Witness Legal Court with the Tibetan region.

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Sanjaya Gyatso Guidelines for Government Officials. I've listed all the sources.

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Yeah, as you see. First, this is Shopkins personal seal,

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which is caused 16 eyes chatroom and also the later Chinese regions use the seal for

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communicating their religious and political authority over the territory of Bhutan.

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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.

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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.

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It was only very recently reconstructed and translated into English, and we see it here on the photograph on this slide.

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As such. Those black slates you see here are indeed, again, an interesting example of identity policies and of early public mass media.

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Fortresses, in turn have always been important public places for the religious, political and military elites together,

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for example, for religious ceremonies and rituals that were supposed to protect the Buddhist country and its populace.

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Similar to Shapiro's earlier stone inscriptions and quasi Buddhist ethical behaviour, law and order and, of course, the allegiance to him.

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The Golden Globe was publicly visible.

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As such, the Golden Yorks should be understood not just as a text in which rules to be followed in society as laid out,

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but as a material object constructing and mediating meaning and identity and visibly claiming and legitimising Japan with.

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Another important aspect of the Chinese legal code from 1729 is that it draws sharp boundaries towards Tibet and the

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common Tibetan heritage also very explicit as a background chapter on how to escape the Guptas Bhutan to Bhutan,

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roughly a century before in 1616, due to an unresolved incarnation dispute with the Saudis about him as a hieroglyph one monastery.

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This had eventually resulted in the split into two Japan lineages the Norse apple,

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then Tibet, and then also later Ladakh lineage and chapter Bhutanese New Southern Village.

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At the same time, this had led to the foundation of the state of Bhutan, but also to walk around between Bhutan and Tibet.

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For roughly a century there after. As a result, they originally own religious doctrinal identity as Bhutanese.

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TOORPAKAI, Who was newly constructed and we can say even we invented to legitimise also political.

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The Bhutanese Legal Corps from 1729 provides important insights into this prominent but very

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gradual and actually quite messy shift from a purely religious doctrinal to a more socio cultural.

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And then finally, political interpretation of path that is also denoting the official Bhutanese national identity.

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Today on the slide we see an early example of this religious and political self-identification as Dropbox.

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As pressed by check drawing on this person, I see the above mentioned six eyes who proclaims I am Japan,

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followed by a very provocative set of claims to legitimise his new rule and Bhutan.

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It is not surprising, therefore,

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that many of the terminologies and taxonomies that express Buddhist episteme as also societies verse of religion, politics,

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law and economics in the Bhutanese Legal code from 1729 have been abandoned,

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appropriated to establish today's constitutional framework and the ideas of policies of gross national happiness.

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Moreover, the ongoing and ongoing democratisation process, we find them prominently discussed in academic, but also public discourses.

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To sum up the Bhutanese legal code from 1729 and related historical sources are extremely valuable in

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providing not only a collective perspective on identity and nation building in 18th century Bhutan,

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but also on the transformation of the joined to the system of governance over time until actually today.

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Now, in the third part, I would like to talk more in detail to the aspect of transcultural entanglement of between Tibet and Bhutan,

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documented in the diverse joint travels of Bhutanese and Tibetan Buddhist scholars, from wars to perhaps schools throughout Tibet from 1740 to 1748.

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In general, the previous studies work and climatology. Tibetan studies has of course, addressed transcultural encounters,

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mostly in the context of what is called borderland studies and mostly focussed on the Tibetan,

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Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian or Tibetan Nepalese interface.

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However, systematic research about the Bhutanese Tibetan faith that is at the heart of my current research for both and Chinese,

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but also a historical and diatonic perspective. Focusing on identity and nation building has not been carried out.

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Consequently, my research seeks to disentangle Bhutan's complex histories with Tibet and surrounding powers such as the British Raj.

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Today my talk, I, of course, focus on Bhutanese primary sources,

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but I would like to mention that in particular for the later Bhutanese British entanglements beginning in the second half of the 18th century.

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I'm also at the moment consolidating the British Library documents from the East India office records in private papers.

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Now as a background in the 18th century.

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Bhutan in Tibet. Finally, after roughly a century of warfare and political hostility following Chapin's flight to Bhutan entered into a

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carefully mediated reconciliation process through far sighted political and religious figures on both sides.

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This new trends, cultural exchanges, characteristics and positive outcomes of this reconciliation process worked.

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For example, the reopening of Tibetan religious sites to Chinese, the exchange of students,

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cross-selling literary production and joint religious ceremonies.

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Bhutanese Tibet. Tibetan diplomacy through charismatic Buddhist masters and restoration projects was shared.

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Bhutanese Tibetan patronage, which John agency has won a record tempered diplomacy.

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We can see one beautiful example of such diplomacy on this cool painting.

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It shows the Tibetan region Polanyi, a crucial political figure in the reconciliation process on the Tibetan side.

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This is two Bhutanese wives whose families actually had fled from Bhutan after school began in the 17th century.

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It belongs to a set of paintings commissioned by him that depict eminent Buddhist masters from both.

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Japan have used schools as a symbol for this new reconciliation process.

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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.

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As an immensely important further step now in this reconciliation process.

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The second day only to Hold on, hold on.

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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,

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12th and 13th chief athletes of Bhutan, extensively through Tibet to find colonial daughter,

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was indeed an excellent choice as he bought the Tibetan intact incarnation of the soul.

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Quite Mad Men of the band took Bakunin, who was extremely popular and who turned until today as a type of Buddhist tantric practitioner,

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best known for demonstrating their spiritual realisation in very unconventional ways, to say the least.

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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.

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He's a person depicted here on the upper left corner with a dark hat.

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And this is actually, to my knowledge, the only visual representation of him that I am aware of.

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On these tablets.

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We have to imagine those Bhutanese students must isolate amongst us being enrolled in one of the most prestigious higher monastic colleges in Tibet,

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namely upon receiving important transmissions from different Tibetan Buddhist lineages and famous Buddhist masters visiting sacred sites.

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But also meeting was important Tibetan political figures.

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These transcultural exchanges also elicited new struggles about their religious doctrinal identity and

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the accept positioning doctrine or positioning tool that the Tibetan branch of the Communist to which,

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despite a partially shared lineage of Buddhist masters,

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this place called Bhutanese scholars consecutively Jacqueline this and constructed a new Bhutanese

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religious document identity by explicitly drawing boundaries to what the Tibetan took back at school.

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This is exemplified in a fascinating cross linked literary production of one route text and different

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commentaries from both Tibetan and Bhutanese Buddhist masters about the Muhammad controversy,

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which is a crucial controversy in Tibetan scholasticism that began in the 12th century

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with the immense critique of one of the most eminent scholars of secular school,

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Zakir Pandita. Today, I won't go into the nitty gritty details of complicated Tibetan adoption debates.

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However, regarding my research, the important thing here is to understand that the religious doctrinal disputes of these Chinese

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masters at the intersection of religion and politics and also the section of Canton in Tibet,

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concrete factor in reinforcing identity and nation building.

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In any case, if you would like to read more about Bhutanese perspective on Man mujer and religious doctrine identity building,

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you are invited to also quite size my monograph, and that is also available access.

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For the remaining time, I will not turn to the autobiographical and biographical writings of these Chinese Buddhist masters.

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These texts indeed provide us with a great morality and formality.

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Individual perspectives and different cultural backgrounds and are therefore very relevant.

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Yeah, it's important to keep in mind the function of biographical and hagiographic writings in the

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Tibetan culture area as important sources documenting history from very different angles.

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Therefore, to obtain a better picture of identity and nation building in Bhutan in the 18th century,

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I analysed these sources together with other sources, graphical sources such as the above mentioned, which are misleading of course, of 1729.

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More by as you are all know, we find in biographical or hagiographic writings a great variety in both form and style,

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such as narratives, dialogues, poetry, songs, and let us but also great variety and content.

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Apart from what we could call the main narrative about the life of this specific person,

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for example, we can find historical and political fact accounts,

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doctrinal treatises and prayers and eulogies, as also here of the usual ethnic Western literary genre.

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Designations of biographical or hagiographic writings do not really cover this immense breadth,

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informed style and content are used as has been proposed here in Oxford.

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Also the terminology of life writings. More specifically, at this point in my current project,

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I focus on the extensive writings off and about the ninth chief editor of Bhutan, Shakya mentioned today.

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He's mostly known for having compiled and thereby preserved the works of the eminent scholar Shankar,

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shocked in which he biologists had considered lost until that discovery in his monastery part of Ding and Bhutan.

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In the 1970s or so, he had considered himself to be an emanation of Czechia shock and awe.

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And as I was able to document in my monograph, implemented important doctrinal concepts into his own intellectual agenda as by cognitive.

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Apart from the very detailed work of John to see a systematic study of his life and role

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in identity and the actual voting processes in Bhutan and Tibet has not been undertaken.

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Even though he was in fact one of the most illustrious figures, an outspoken figure in the intellectual scene at the time.

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Yeah. I consider particular Hajji Shakir mentions extensive personal writings such as two different travelogues offers long stay in Tibet,

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auto and semi biographical accounts, biographies of other religious and political figures,

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His letters and abundant personal notes that are found in this collected works and other set up text.

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Many of the sources are available via BTC, but also via the Endangered Archives Program at the British Library.

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Currently at my work with the Endangered Archives Program.

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I'm looking into the relationship also the differences between these collections and texts.

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Beyond the textual sources presented here, I would like to mention that I, of course,

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very much benefited from my country's groundbreaking work that is still very, very relevant due to its historical for logical depth and accuracy,

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as well as his gift to draw our attention to, um, the researched sources and topics,

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he made numerous important Tibetan language historiographical sources accessible in the form of annotated translations.

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List the original Tibetan text,

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including priceless footnotes and references to numerous others textual sources from the entire Tibetan production area.

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Moreover, considering his depths of knowledge,

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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,

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and which I may partially include into my research as well.

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So we will see how that goes in some of the writings of the ninth, Chief Abbot Chuck Vincent,

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and other Chinese Buddhist masters will provide you insights into what role they played in identity and

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nation building in Bhutan during the complex and entangled history with Tibet in the 18th century.

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There is, of course, much more to say about my research project.

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However, for now, let me pull some strings together and explain this last slide a bit more.

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Today, I addressed how research on Bhutan can play an important role in diversifying our view on the history of the Tibetan cultural

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area in large and how important it is to include a strong sense of perspective and peer group perspective into the conversation.

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I therefore argued for recalibrating the perspective on Tibetan and human history

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in harmony with how I personally understand Michael Erickson's research agenda.

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In the first part, I presented the analytical and theoretical framework that I use for my historical theological

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work on the empirical materialist addressing identity and nation building in Bhutan.

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Moreover, with that, I wanted to provide food for thought.

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How we scholars in the field of climatology could better participate in transdisciplinary and critical questions of methodology and theory,

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for example, about ethnic distinctions, translation, and analytical frameworks that are less Eurocentric than the second and third part.

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I focussed on my empirical sample of Bhutan that shows how,

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beginning in the 18th century as a crucial time for identity and nation building, as well as a critical juncture in Bhutanese history.

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The explicit religious doctrine of self self-identification with the newly founded Bhutanese Backcountry

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School began to transform into what today is the official national identity as Jabbar and as Bhutanese.

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In detail, I showed how religious doctrinal identity building and cultural identity building identity policies,

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transcultural exchanges and entanglements in 18th century Bhutan were linked to each other and influence nation building.

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My analysis is hereby based on diverse textual sources from different literary, jobless,

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representing both collective and individual perspectives, namely the Bhutanese legal cohort from 1729 and related historiographical sources.

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Doctrinal writings about the Muhammad controversy and life writings addressing the joint Bhutanese Tibet, The travels in the future.

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Such historical analysis could also enable us to better understand contemporary societal challenges.

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In Bhutan, for example, of religious pluralism and freedom struck by nationalism or gross national happiness.

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To conclude, as I laid out today, Bhutan indeed provides a unique historical and analytical setting,

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as its development has been characterised by intense and crucial transcultural encounters

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with First Asia and later Western nations that influenced its trajectory substantially.

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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,

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but also global Asian studies beyond Tibet ology.

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On that note, I would like to conclude my talk here, and I'm very much looking forward to your comments and questions now.

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Thank you.