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Thesis ID: CBB001562079

Narratives of Embryology: Becoming Human in Tibetan Literature (2004)

Garrett, Frances Mary (Author)

University of Virginia
Germano, David
Publication date: 2004
Language: English

Publication Date: 2004
Edition Details: Advisor: Germano, David
Physical Details: 258 pp.

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This dissertation focuses on embryology as it begins to appear in Tibetan texts from the eleventh century, and on what embryology tells us about the relationship between medicine and religion in Tibet. This research examines connections between models of human generation in Tibetan literature and issues of importance in Buddhist religious thought and practice. Spanning many centuries and a wide range of literary genres, writing on embryology is found across all sectarian classifications of Tibetan religion. Accounts in religious texts are generally different in both structure and content than those found in medical texts, and they differ widely from each other as well. In this work I argue that Tibetan embryology is not most productively approached as a topic of ``science'' or ``medicine'' in the way that these disciplines have traditionally been understood in Euro-American thought. Rather, embryology---that is, discussions found in Tibetan medical and religious texts that focus on the development of the human body from conception to birth---may be most fruitfully read as narrative. The embryological narrative may thus be seen as a tool used by Tibetan medical writers not so much to describe what is, but to _pre_scribe what should be, in the effort to articulate acceptable models of identity, continuity, and change. As I assess the significance of embryology across medical and religious literature, questions of cultural transmission and adaptation also surface. As they wrote, how did Tibetans determine when originality was acceptable, and when adherence to tradition was required? What authorities guided Tibetan scholars when they wrote about the human body? Aiming to develop our understanding of how the disciplines of religion and medicine were distinguished in Tibetan literature, this project makes a methodological statement relevant to both the study of Tibetan religion and the study of Tibetan medicine as these are conducted today.

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Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 65/04 (2004): 1409. UMI pub. no. 3131460.

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