This paper aims to highlight a recurring set of topics, themes and beliefs widely shared by several Himalayan cultures. In particular, the notions related to the web of relations entangling human and other-than-human communities, which constitute the epistemological framework to understand, explore and discuss ideas, ideologies and worldviews about the environment. In the Himalayas, in fact, the cosmos is thought to be parceled among several entities interacting with each other on a regular basis, each and one of them in charge of a specific sphere of influence. Villagers tend to interpret and explain daily occurrences – and especially bad luck, misfortune, illness and disgrace – very often as the result of the interaction between the individual and one of the many entities with whom she shares the landscape. Landscape itself, moreover, could be sometimes represented as a living field of forces or a distinct, powerful entity. This worldview, which we could carefully define as a form of animism (not in the Tylorian way, but in its reevaluation by the most recent scholarship), is also deeply ingrained in the Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist understanding of the cosmos, and combined with it to produce a unique system shaped by multiple influences interacting with each other over a multiplicity of levels.
The Animated Landscape: Human and non-human communities in the Buddhist Himalayas / Torri, Davide. - In: RIVISTA DEGLI STUDI ORIENTALI. - ISSN 0392-4866. - 88:(2015), pp. 251-268.
The Animated Landscape: Human and non-human communities in the Buddhist Himalayas
Davide Torri
2015
Abstract
This paper aims to highlight a recurring set of topics, themes and beliefs widely shared by several Himalayan cultures. In particular, the notions related to the web of relations entangling human and other-than-human communities, which constitute the epistemological framework to understand, explore and discuss ideas, ideologies and worldviews about the environment. In the Himalayas, in fact, the cosmos is thought to be parceled among several entities interacting with each other on a regular basis, each and one of them in charge of a specific sphere of influence. Villagers tend to interpret and explain daily occurrences – and especially bad luck, misfortune, illness and disgrace – very often as the result of the interaction between the individual and one of the many entities with whom she shares the landscape. Landscape itself, moreover, could be sometimes represented as a living field of forces or a distinct, powerful entity. This worldview, which we could carefully define as a form of animism (not in the Tylorian way, but in its reevaluation by the most recent scholarship), is also deeply ingrained in the Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist understanding of the cosmos, and combined with it to produce a unique system shaped by multiple influences interacting with each other over a multiplicity of levels.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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