scholarly journals The Indian Face of Sowa Rigpa

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Stephan Kloos ◽  
Laurent Pordié
Keyword(s):  
Sowa Rigpa

The Efficacy of Collaboration: Tibetan Medicine Across Countries and Conversations

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 152-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sienna Craig
Keyword(s):  
International Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Qinghai Province ◽  
Traditional Medicines ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Tibet Autonomous Region ◽  
Asian Medicine ◽  
Hands On Learning ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

First delivered as a plenary lecture at the ictam viii congress in September 2013 in South Korea, this paper discusses two interdisciplinary and collaborative workshops focusing on Tibetan medicine (also known as Sowa Rigpa) in contemporary contexts. The first event, which took place in December 2011, brought together nearly 40 practitioners of Sowa Rigpa from the greater Himalaya and Tibetan regions of the People’s Republic of China (prc), along with four anthropologists, for intensive, interactive discussions on pharmacology by making medicines together. The second event, which took place in October 2012 in Xining, Qinghai Province, prc, involved practitioners, educators, and researchers from the Arura Group, one of the leading Tibetan medicine institutions in the prc, with researchers from the United States, Europe, and tar (Tibet Autonomous Region) for in-depth discussions about integrative clinical research and the place of the humanities and social sciences in the study of traditional medicines. Both events were supported, directly or indirectly, by the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (iastam), and abided in spirit with the mission of this organisation, namely, to bring scholars and practitioners of Asian medicine together for mutual exchange. While the Kathmandu event emphasised hands-on learning and the co-production of both knowledge and things, the Xining workshop provided Tibetan medical colleagues in the prc with the opportunity to engage with broad discussions, at once methodological and epistemological, about the meaning, purpose, and aims of research on traditional medicines today.

Critically Endangered? Medicinal Plant Cultivation and the Reconfiguration of Sowa Rigpa in Ladakh

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calum Blaikie
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
Medicinal Plant ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Critically Endangered ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
Medical Tradition ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

Despite the increasing attention being paid to Himalayan medicinal plants in various realms over recent years, the effects of resource depletion, and of attempts to control it, on the medical traditions that depend directly upon these plants remain largely in shadow. This article seeks to illuminate this lacuna by examining the relationships developing between medicinal plant conservation and Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) in Ladakh, Himalayan India. I discuss four cultivation projects, their contributions to emergent patterns of medicine production and their positioning within the wider transformations shaping this medical tradition. I show that while some plant species have indeed become increasingly threatened in Ladakh, it is small-scale medicine production, and a particular form of Sowa Rigpa associated with it, that have become ‘critically endangered’, particularly in light of an elite-driven quest to secure central government recognition for the system. Medicinal plants are being cast in a variety of roles on this stage, expressing social, commercial and medical interests that converge and conflict with one another in different fields. I argue that while the projects in question largely feed into contemporary trends towards medical modernisation and the increasing concentration of pharmaceutical production, they also play a counterbalancing role by supporting small-scale production and practice. This multiplicity reflects the ambivalence being experienced by practitioners in a period of considerable flux, as well as calling into question the utility of linear models of medical change and binary conceptualisations of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’.

Absence, Abundance, and Excess

2018 ◽  
pp. 169-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calum Blaikie
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Pharmacy Practice ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. It argues that rapid growth in the availability of formerly limited raw materials was key to the emergence of larger scales of drug production and to the proliferation, complexification and commodification of medicines. These phenomena, in turn, allowed for the emergence of professionalized forms of medical practice, the enfranchisement of certain groups, ideas and practices, and the marginalisation of others. By charting the shifting material, social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Ladakhi Sowa Rigpa in relation to one another, the chapter questions the constitution and boundaries of ‘the medical realm’.

Buddhist Healing and Taming in Tibet

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Gerke
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Manufacturing Processes ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
The People ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

This chapter centers on Tibetan Buddhist patterns and themes of healing and addresses the inter-relationship of medicine and religion in the practice of Tibetan medicine, also called Sowa Rigpa (gso ba rig pa), the “science of healing,” and how Buddhist rituals are employed to enhance the potency of medicines and to protect the pharmacy and the people working in it from accidents and obstacles during difficult manufacturing processes. Examples focus on the refinement of mercury in mercury sulphide ash for use in “precious pills” (rin chen ril bu). The chapter establishes an argument for a parallel between Buddhist ideas of “taming” demons into becoming protectors of the religious teachings and the pharmacological transformation of poisonous substances, especially the pharmacological practices of “taming” mercury into a potent elixir, and what this tells us about Tibetan medical approaches to what is considered “beneficial” and “harmful.”

scholarly journals Critical Review of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine

Pathways ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Gowan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good Manufacturing Practices ◽  
Traditional Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

This article offers a critical review of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine. The ethnography provides rich and comprehensive insights regarding the triumphs and tribulations of Sowa Rigpa (traditional Tibetan medicine) as the medical system is translated across diverse contexts to ensure its continuity within the globalized world; however, these insights can be broadened by more deliberately acknowledging and investigating the (post)colonial subtexts underlying these translations. Incommensurability emerges throughout the ethnography in the form of tensions that arise as tacit knowledge is translated to explicit knowledge in the quest for legitimization. It is argued that expounding the nature of this incommensurability by engaging with rather than rejecting polarized notions of “traditional” and “modern” paradigms can reveal that non-biomedical medical systems and medically pluralistic contexts more broadly are inundated by (post)colonial processes. Borrowing Blaser’s (2013) notion of “Sameing,” it is demonstrated that translation involves (post)colonial processes of assimilation, as Sowa Rigpa is rendered visible through Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and appropriation, as it is made palatable through pharmaceutical commodification. Furthermore, it is argued that these processes mobilize  mimesis and essentialization to transform Sowa Rigpa into a system that is both legitimized and acquiescent to the imperatives of varying external regimes. The simultaneity of these effects and the position that they are not mutually exclusive is asserted throughout the review as further evidence of (post)colonization.

scholarly journals bonpa indigenous cure system of sowa rigpa or ‘science of healing’ practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mansi Singh ◽  
A. K. Sinha ◽  
Rajni Lamba
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Indigenous Medicine ◽  
Holistic Treatment ◽  
Bodily Fluids ◽  
Complex Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Physical Therapies ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

The Tibetan medicinal system is among the oldest known healing traditions practiced in the world. History is witness to the fact that there is a vast treasure trove of indigenous knowledge and practices. It offers a holistic treatment system that is aimed at regulating and maintaining an astute balance of the functional principles defining human existence through mind and body. Indigenous medicine is an integral part of the Tibetan culture and has grown and developed across several centuries and geographical spaces. The origins of Tibetan system that pertain to the Bon religious tenets are apparently very old as aspects of the Tibetan medicine have been traced to ancient cultures over 2,500 years old. Traditionally the Tibetan curative system has been known as Sowa-Rigpa Medicine meaning the ‘Science of Healing’. “It is a centuries old system of treatment that is based on a complex approach to diagnosis, incorporating techniques like taking the pulse and conducting an analysis of bodily fluids besides making an examination of the behavior and dietary intake. The medicines are composed of natural materials (e.g., herbs, minerals, plants, leaves etc) and physical therapies (e.g. Tibetan acupuncture, moxabustion, etc) to treat illness.

Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-191
Author(s):  
Sienna R. Craig ◽  
Barbara Gerke ◽  
Victoria Sheldon
Keyword(s):  
Global Politics ◽  
Sowa Rigpa ◽  
Local Logics
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document