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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2014
This paper examines the case of a Shiite practitioner of Tibetan medicine in Ladakh, North-western India. It recounts the story of a Buddhist family converted to Islam, for which the abandonment of religion has not led to the discontinuation of a lineal medical practice known to have Buddhist overtones. This situation provides an invitation to explore the social consequences of maintaining the practice in a region characterized by religious conflict, as well as the criteria of sameness and difference, technique and genealogy that make a marked ‘other’ a practitioner of Tibetan medicine. These religious overlaps are, however, not only apparent at the social level; they are also present in the preparation of medicines, in etiological narratives or in the physical regimes of bodily care. The composite nature of medical practice helps us to observe from a new angle the role of religion in the practice of Tibetan medicine. The way medicine is enacted and performed in this context provides empirical materials to study the paradigms that both structure and confer motion to Tibetan learned medicine. The ethnography of a remote region in the Himalayas opens up research paths for the anthropology of Asian medicine amongst new categories of healers and renewed contexts of practice.
1 Alter, J. S. (2005). ‘The politics of culture and medicine’, in Alter, J. S. (ed.), Asian Medicine and Globalization, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 15–16Google Scholar.
2 Tibetan terms are first transcribed in Roman characters corresponding to their pronunciation in Ladakh for recurrent terms in this study, and then transliterated between brackets upon their initial occurrence on the basis of the scheme defined in Wylie, Turrell (1959). ‘A standard system of Tibetan transcription’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 22: 261–276CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sanskrit terms are preceded by ‘Skt.’
3 See Meyer, Fernand (1988). ‘Médecine et bouddhisme au Tibet’, Grand Atlas des Religions, Encyclopedia UniversalisGoogle Scholar.
4 See Garrett, Frances (2006). ‘Buddhism and the historicizing of medicine in thirteenth-century Tibet’, Asian Medicine, 2:2, 204–224CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pordié, Laurent (2008a). ‘Reformulating ingredients: outlines of a contemporary ritual for the consecration of medicines in Ladakh’, in van Beek, M. and Pirie, F. (eds), Ladakhi Societies. Continuity and Change in Anthropological Perspectives, Leiden: BrillGoogle Scholar.
5 See Pordié, Laurent (2007a). ‘Buddhism in the everyday medical practice of the Ladakhi amchi’, Indian Anthropologist, 37:1, 93–116Google Scholar.
6 See Meyer, Fernand (1987). ‘Essai d’analyse schématique d’un système médical, la médecine savante du Tibet’, in Retel-Laurentin, A. (ed.), Etiologie et perception de la maladie, Paris: L’HarmattanGoogle Scholar; and Schrempf, Mona (2010). ‘Between mantra and syringe: Healing and health-seeking behaviour in contemporary Amdo’, in Adams, V., Schrempf, M. and Craig, S. (eds), Medicine between Science and Religion. Exploration on Tibetan Grounds, Oxford: Berghahn BooksGoogle Scholar.
7 Alter (2005). Asian Medicine and Globalization, p. 16.
8 In his comparative study of Chinese and Greek therapeutic practices, Unschuld, Paul (2009), What is medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing, Berkeley: University of California Press, takes up the problem of the categorization of medicineCrossRefGoogle Scholar. He argues that the constitution of ‘medicine’— and therein its differentiation from ‘healing’—accounts for the recognition of the ‘laws of nature’ which are themselves connected to a larger reordering of the world occurring through socio-political transformations. The interconnectedness of various realms of social life as part of medicine per se is indirectly addressed in his thesis.
9 See Alter (2005). Asian Medicine and Globalization; Digby, Anne, Ernst, Waltraud and Muhkarji, Projit B. (eds), (2010). Crossing Colonial Historiographies. Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspectives, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars PublishingGoogle Scholar; and Guilloux, Ronald (2011). ‘Évolution de la « tradition » dans la réception de l’acupuncture chinoise en France (1860–1980)’, Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances, 5:1, 13–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 See Attewell, Guy (2007). Refiguring Unani tibb. Plural Healing in Late Colonial India, New Delhi: Orient LongmanGoogle Scholar; Beckwith, Christopher I. (1979). ‘The introduction of Greek medicine into Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 99:2, 297–313CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Filliozat, Jean (1949). La doctrine classique de la médecine indienne, Paris: École Française d’Extrême-OrientGoogle Scholar; and Speziale, Fabrizio (2010). Soufisme, religion et médecine en Islam indien, Paris: KarthalaGoogle Scholar.
11 See Attewell (2007). Refiguring Unani tibb.
12 See Sivaramakrishnan, Kavita (2006). Old Potions, New Bottles. Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850–1945), Hyderabad: Orient LongmanGoogle Scholar.
13 See Saxer, Martin (2004). Journeys with Tibetan Medicine. How Tibetan Medicine Came to the West. The Story of the Badmayev Family, M.A. Thesis, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of ZürichGoogle Scholar.
14 Foucault, Michel (1963). Naissance de la clinique, Paris: Presse Universitaires de FranceGoogle Scholar.
15 See Saxer, Martin (2010). ‘Tibetan medicine and Russian modernities’, in Adams, V., Schrempf, M. and Craig, S. (eds), Medicine between Science and Religion. Exploration on Tibetan Grounds, Oxford: Berghahn BooksGoogle Scholar.
16 See Adams, Vincanne, Schrempf, Mona and Craig, Sienna (2011). ‘Introduction: Medicine in translation between science and religion’, in Adams, V., Schrempf, M. and Craig, S. (eds), Medicine between Science and Religion. Explorations on Tibetan Grounds, Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 3–12Google Scholar.
17 I have been only able to locate two references about non-Buddhist practitioners of sowa ripga in the Himalayas—I have deliberately omitted the so-called ‘pre-Buddhist’ bön as they are, as far as the practice of Tibetan medicine is concerned, closely related to Buddhist practitioners (see Millard, Colin (2002). Learning Processes in a Tibetan Medical School, Ph.D. Dissertation, Edinburgh University)Google Scholar. John Bray notes regarding the village of Khuksho in Ladakh's Purig, that the local cleric (akhun) practised ‘amchi medicine’ (Bray, John (1991). ‘Ladakhi history and Indian nationhood’, South Asia Research, 11:2, 115–133)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nawang Tsering Shakspo remarks in the following years in an article on the same village: ‘It was also interesting to learn that the Akhon, the Muslim religious leader, practises traditional Ladakhi amchi medicine as well as performing Shia rituals’ (Shakspo, Nawang Tsering (1995). ‘The significance of Khuksho in the cultural history of Ladakh’, in Osmaston, H. and Denwood, P. (eds), Recent Research on Ladakh, Vols. 4 and 5, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, p. 183)Google Scholar. However, even though these authors seem to speak of the same man, none of them provides more information.
18 The Kingdom of Ladakh was constituted in the tenth century by a family descendant of the Tibetan monarchy (see Luciano, Petech (1977). The Kingdom of Ladakh, Roma: Instituto italiano per il Medio ed Extremo Oriente)Google Scholar. It went through many wars and was finally invaded by the Dogras of Kashmir in 1834 and incorporated in 1842 in the territory of Gulab Singh. This man enjoyed British protection and became the Maharaja of Kashmir in 1846. Notwithstanding the occurrence of major events in the political life of Ladakh during these years, and then in the 1930s (violence against the Hindu Maharaja who was in power in the region), I consider the period of independence of India as a trigger for the formation of modern identities, although there was, of course, a sense of identity formed and perceived long before.
19 See John Bray (1991). ‘Ladakhi history and Indian nationhood’; and Martijn van Beek (1998). van Beek, M. (1998). ‘True Patriots: Justifying Autonomy for Ladakh’, Himalayan Research Bulletin, 18:1, 35–45Google Scholar.
20 Ladakh consists of two administrative districts: Leh, where the majority of the inhabitants are Buddhists, and Kargil, with a Muslim majority (apart from Zangskar, which is Buddhist). The region is inhabited by equal proportions of Buddhists and Muslims (see Srinivas, Smriti (1998). The Mouths of People, the Voice of God: Muslims and Buddhists in a Frontier Community of Ladakh, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 16)Google Scholar.
21 This Buddhist association was founded under the auspices of the Kashmiri Buddhist Shri dar Kaul, and received the support of both the Ladakhi religious leaders and the aristocracy. Today, the Ladakh Buddhist Association works to ensure the rights of Buddhist communities, struggles against the ‘Islamization’ of Ladakh and promotes Ladakhi language. For further study on the social role of the Ladakh Buddhist Association, in particular its reformist and radical stance, and on the tensions this association has fostered between Buddhists and Muslims, see the works by Aggarwal, Ravina (2004). Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India, Durham and London: Duke University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bertelsen, Kristoffer (1997). ‘Early modern Buddhism in Ladakh: on the construction of Buddhist Ladakhi identity and its consequences’, in Dodin, T. and Räther, H. (eds), Recent Research on Ladakh, Vol. 7, Ulm: Ulmerkulturanthrpologishe ScriftenGoogle Scholar; Dollfus, Pascale (1995). ‘Ethnohistoire des musulmans du Ladakh central’, in Osmaston, H. and Denwood, P. (eds), Research on Ladakh, Vol. 4 and 5, Delhi: Motilal BanarsidassGoogle Scholar; Mills, Martin (1999). ‘Belief and the priest. Religious reform and ethical self-determination in Buddhist Ladakh’, Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, 19:2, 167–185Google Scholar; Smriti Srinivas (1998). The Mouths of People, the Voice of God, p. 109); van Beek, Martijn (2001), ‘Beyond identity fetishism: ‘Communal’ conflict in Ladakh and the limits of autonomy’, Cultural Anthropology, 15:4, 525–569Google Scholar; and van Beek, Martijn and Bertelsen, Kristoffer (1997). ‘No Present Without Past, The 1989 Agitation in Ladakh’, in Dodin, T. and Räther, H. (eds), Recent Research on Ladakh, Vol. 7, Ulm: Ulmerkulturanthrpologishe ScriftenGoogle Scholar.
22 In the Indian context, communalism accounts for issues pertaining to relationships between religious groups, although the term does not exclusively cover this meaning. ‘In its common Indian usage the word “communalism” refers to a condition of suspicion, fear and hostility between members of different religious communities. In academic investigation, more often than not, the term is applied to organised political movement based on the proclaimed interests of a religious community’ (Pandey, Gyanendra (1990). The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 6)Google Scholar.
23 See Martijn van Beek (2001). ‘Beyond identity fetishism’.
24 See Chebel, Malik (1998). La formation de l’identité politique, Paris: Petite Bibliothèque PayotGoogle Scholar.
25 See Abélès, Marc (1997). ‘La mise en représentation du politique’, in Abélès, M. and Jeudy, H.-P. (eds), Anthropologie du politique, Paris: Armand CollinGoogle Scholar.
26 See Martijn van Beek (2001). ‘Beyond identity fetishism’.
27 See van Beek, Martijn (1998). ‘True Patriots: Justifying Autonomy for Ladakh’, Himalayan Research Bulletin, 18:1, 35–45Google Scholar; van Beek, Martijn (2000). ‘Dissimulations: Representing Ladakhi ‘identity’’, in Driessen, H. and Otto, T. (eds), Perplexities of Identification: Anthropological Studies in Cultural Differentiation and the Use of Resources, Aarhus: Aarhus University PressGoogle Scholar; and Martijn van Beek (2001). ‘Beyond identity fetishism’.
28 See Abélès, Marc (1997). ‘La mise en représentation du politique’, in Abélès, M. and Jeudy, H.-P. (eds), Anthropologie du politique, Paris: Armand Collin, p. 247Google Scholar.
29 The Kargil conflict of 1999, which brought national attention to the region, was seized by the Ladakh Buddhist Association in 2000 as an opportunity to renew the regional demand for Union Territory status.
30 Ladags Melong (2002). [Special issue on the demand for Union Territory Status in Ladakh], October, p. 21.
31 See Rashme Sehgal (2002). ‘Trifurcation tangle (interview with Thupstan Chhewang)’, The Times of India, 20 August; Morup Tashi (2002). ‘What do the new MLAs say?’, Ladags Melong, October, pp. 16–18; and Sonam Wangchuk (2002). ‘Ladakhis unite for UT status’, Ladags Melong, pp. 10–11.
32 On relationships between Buddhists and Muslims in Zangskar, see Gutschow, Kim (2006). ‘The Politics of Being Buddhist in Zangskar: Partition and Today’, India Review, 5:3–4, 470–498CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Cited in Sunetro Ghosal (2006). ‘The great political debate’, Ladags Melong, 26–27 August, p. 26.
34 See Sunetro Ghosal (2006), ‘The great political debate’, as well as the position papers and the discussions that followed in the articles by Ladags Melong Team (2006). ‘Leh's power struggle’, Ladags Melong, 12–13 December; and Stanzin Dawa (2006). ‘The devil's advocate’, Ladags Melong, 14–15 December. Thupstan Chhewang later pointed out in La Revue de l’Inde, the ‘overwhelming victory’ of the LUTF over Congress, stressing that it was ‘clear that the LUTF represents the people of Ladakh’ (cited in Claude Arpi (2007). ‘Entrevue avec Thupstan Chhewang’, La Revue de l’Inde, avril-juin 80–86).
35 Here we find a particular national scheme characteristic of the period in power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), from 1998 to 2004. This organization of the national-Hinduism then regularly used secular rhetoric, whereas it is precisely the BJP that conferred to religion a new legitimacy in politics. See Jaffrelot, Christophe (1993). Les nationalistes hindous: Idéologie, implantation et mobilisation des années 1920 aux années 1990, Paris: Presse de Science PoGoogle Scholar.
36 Cited in van Beek, Martijn (2004). ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Hindu Nationalism and Buddhist Radicalism in Ladakh’, in Limaye, S., Malik, M. and Wirsing, R. (eds), Religious radicalism and security in South Asia, Honolulu: Asia-pacific Center for Security Studies, p. 214Google Scholar.
37 The Ladakh Buddhist Association maintains relations with the BJP and the VHP since the late 1980s and since 1997 with the RSS (see Martijn van Beek (2004). ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, pp. 203–207). The Kargil conflict of 1999 helped revive these relationships; it also contributed to strengthening religious communitarianism in Ladakh.
38 Ibid., p. 198.
39 Ibid.
40 See Smith, Sara (2009). ‘The domestication of geopolitics: Buddhist-Muslim conflict and the policing of marriage and the body in Ladakh, India’, Geopolitics, 14:2, 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Smith, Sara (2011). ‘She says herself, “I have no future”: Love, fate, and territory in Leh District, India’, Gender, Place and Culture, 18:4, 455–476CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 See Pordié, Laurent (2007b). ‘Médecine traditionnelle et conflits interreligieux au Ladakh’, La Revue de l’Inde, 7 : 157–170Google Scholar.
42 His real name is Ahmed Jaffar. Aba is a kinship term that designates the father, but it is also employed in a general way to refer to amchi. By virtue of their status (social status and the status of elder) numerous amchi are called ‘Aba’ by villagers in Ladakh.
43 I have intentionally chosen a margin of error of ten years to avoid overly crass mistakes when the confirmation of information appeared to me to be imprecise.
44 See Clarke, R. T. (1901). Assessment Report of the Kargil Tehsil of Baltistan, LahoreGoogle Scholar, cited in Grist, Nicola (1998). Local Politics in the Suru Valley. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Goldsmith's College, University of London, p. 98Google Scholar.
45 Whereas one can easily see here a reference to the altruism of Buddhism, it should be said that this notion is not absent from Islam. Having a ‘good heart’ is also considered by the Buddhist amchi to be a fundamental quality for the practice of medicine. See Laurent Pordié (2007a). ‘Buddhism in the everyday medical practice of the Ladakhi amchi’, pp. 100–101.
46 A regular practice does not however imply that the activities of the rural amchi would be reserved exclusively for medicine. They are simple villagers and a large part of their time is occupied with agricultural or pastoral work.
47 Haji Qasim is no longer alive. The title Haji is given to persons who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
48 The Ladakhis from Leh generally present Mulbek as being the last Buddhist bastion in Purig, located before the Muslim region of Kargil.
49 In Tambis, the principle of placement of the amchi in the row is identical to the habitual practice in Buddhist villages. See Ravina Aggarwal (2004). Beyond Lines of Control, pp. 154–155; Kaplanian, Patrick (1981). Les Ladakhis du Cachemire, Paris: Hachette, pp. 171–190Google Scholar; and Pirie, Fernanda (2007). Peace and Conflict in Ladakh: the Construction of a Fragile Web of Order. Leiden: Brill, pp. 48–50)Google Scholar.
50 Modalities of interaction between individuals in Tambis are thus very similar to those described by Fernanda Pirie in her study on a Buddhist village (Pirie, 2007. Peace and Conflict in Ladakh).
51 They also underscore that this possibility is absolutely not conceivable for the ‘interior science’ (nang gi rig gnas), the only one of the five major domains of knowledge that would be specifically ‘not common’ (thun mong ma yin pa’i rig gnas) in Buddhism. See, more generally on the place of the sowa rigpa within the framework of the scholastic sciences: Frances Garrett (2006). ‘Buddhism and the historicizing of medicine in thirteenth-century Tibet’; and Laurent Pordié (2008a). ‘Reformulating ingredients’.
52 Sheikh, Abdul Gani (2004). ‘The importance of cooperation between the different systems of medicine in Ladakh’, paper presented at the Seminar on Health and Social Harmony, Ladakh Society for Traditional Medicines and Niwano Peace Foundation, LehGoogle Scholar, October.
53 See Pascale Dollfus (1995). ‘Ethnohistoire des musulmans du Ladakh central’; Howard, Neil (1997). ‘What happened between 1450 and 1550 AD? And other questions from the history of Ladakh’, in Osmaston, H. and Tsering, N. (eds), Recent Research in Ladakh 6, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers [First edition, Bristol, 1996]Google Scholar; Nicola, Grist (1995). ‘Muslims in Western Ladakh’, The Tibet Journal, 20:3, 59–70, p. 61Google Scholar; and Grist, Nicola (1999). ‘Twin peaks: The two shi’ite factions of the Suru valley’, in van Beek, M., Bertelsen, K. B. and Pedersen, P. (eds). Ladakh. Culture, History and Development between Himalaya and Karakorum, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, Sterling Publishers, p. 132Google Scholar.
54 We know only a little about this village, which in particular accommodated the residence of the Buddhist governor of the Suru valley in the 1820s, although the region had already converted to Islam before 1758, the date of the re-annexation of Purig to the Kingdom of Ladakh. See Moorcroft, William and Trebeck, George (2005 [1841]). Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab, in Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz and Bokhara, from 1819 to 1825, Vol. 2, Boston, Massachusetts: Elibron ClassicsGoogle Scholar.
55 See Harvey, Andrew (1983). A Journey in Ladakh, London: CapeGoogle Scholar.
56 Patrick Kaplanian (1981). Les Ladakhis du Cachemire.
57 Ibid., p. 33.
58 Ibid., p. 42.
59 See Gérard Rovillé, G. (1991). ‘Contribution à l’étude de l’islam au Baltistan et au Ladakh’, in Icke-Schwalbe, L. and Meier, G. (eds), Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Gengerwärtige Forschungen in Ladakh, Dresden: Museum für VolkerundeGoogle Scholar.
60 See Siddiq Wahid (1989). ‘Riots in Ladakh and the genesis of a tragedy’, Himal, September–October pp. 24–25.
61 At the time of this research there were 40 government amchi in Leh District and 18 in Kargil District. Aba Jaffar was the only Muslim. The recruitment of these amchi mainly aimed at widening the health coverage in the region, especially in places where biomedicine was absent or judged insufficient (supply and personnel).
62 Jaffar related that three Englishmen (?) came in 1999 and gave 700 rupees to the family, but not the medicines they had been promised. By the same token, Aba Jaffar and Akbar Ali time and again expressed their desire to obtain from me plants, pills or a little money.
63 More specifically, Nicola Grist underscores that ‘the legitimate beliefs, religious practices and politics of shi’its [Shiites] in the Suru valley are commonly pathologized and ridiculed’ (Grist, 1999. ‘Twin peaks: The two shi’ite factions of the Suru valley’, p. 151). This phenomenon, which one also encounters in Tambis, has contributed to the marginalization of Shiites in Ladakh.
64 This type of village arrangement also pertains to other amchi families in Buddhist Ladakh. See Pordié, Laurent (2002). ‘La pharmacopée comme expression de société. Une étude himalayenne’, in Fleurentin, J., Mazars, G. and Pelt, J.-M. (eds), Des sources du savoir aux médicaments du futur, Paris: Editions de l’IRD—SFEGoogle Scholar.
65 As elsewhere in rural Ladakh, Jaffar's medical practice is economically in deficit (Ibid.). Jaffar said that he prescribed the equivalent of 12,000 rupees in medicines per year and spent around 600 rupees per week on tour, against which he obtains a compensation that varies from 50 to 200 rupees. This amchi, like a number of his Buddhist counterparts in the villages, provides himself with medicinal materials and medicines once a year, in the autumn, in the city of Leh and sometimes in Kargil.
66 The myrobalan fruit (Terminalia chebula) is present in a large number of medicinal preparations. Terminalia chebula is a symbolic tree in Tibetan medicine. Sangye Smanla, the Buddha Master of Remedies, is classically represented holding a myrobalan branch in his right hand, in the gesture of a gift.
67 See Laurent Pordié (2007a). ‘Buddhism in the everyday medical practice of the Ladakhi amchi’.
68 The history and origins of the Gyud-zhi remain obscure. Its present version seems to have been elaborated in Tibet around the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, despite the highly probable existence of learned medical practices in that country since the second half of the seventh century. This text was then completed and developed, in particular during the revision carried out in the seventeenth century and orchestrated by Sangye Gyamtso (1653–1705), the Regent of the Fifth Dalai Lama. See Meyer, Fernand (1995). ‘Theory and practice of Tibetan Medicine’, in Alphen, J. V. and Aris, A. (eds), Oriental Medicine. An Illustrated Guide to the Asian Arts of Healing, Serindia Publications (re-edited by Shambala Publishers, Boston, 1997)Google Scholar.
69 See Mayer, Robert (1994). ‘Scriptural Revelation in India and Tibet’, Tibetan Studies 2: 533–544Google Scholar.
70 Apart from the medical domain, this is not an exception in Muslim Ladakh. John Bray (1991,‘Ladakhi history and Indian nationhood’) and Nawang Tsering Shakspo (1995, ‘The significance of Khuksho in the cultural history of Ladakh’) also noted a similar fact in the village of Khuksho, in Purig. Ravina Aggarwal (2004, Beyond Lines of Control) and Smriti Srinivas (1998, The Mouths of People, the Voice of God) made identical remarks in their respective studies in the village of Achinatang and in the Nubra valley.
71 Kaplanian, Patrick (1987). ‘Entre lha et lhu. Conception de la maladie chez les ladakhi,’ in Retel-Laurentin, A. (ed.), Etiologie et perception de la maladie dans les sociétés modernes et traditionnelles, Paris: L'harmattanGoogle Scholar.
72 See Meyer, Fernand (1983). ‘Pratiques alimentaires et diététiques médicales en milieu tibétain’, Informations sur les Sciences Sociales, 22:2, 283–309, p. 299CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 See Dollfus, Pascale (2003). ‘De quelques histoires de klu et de bstan’, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, 2: 4–39, p. 11Google Scholar.
74 Ibid.
75 See Patrick Kaplanian (1987).
76 On other occasions, Jaffar spoke of the ‘Master/owner of the ground’ (sa bdag), notably in the case of the collection of medicinal stones. See Laurent Pordié (2007a). ‘Buddhism in the everyday medical practice of the Ladakhi amchi’, pp. 104–105, for an example of the Buddhist ritual employed for the collection of stones.
77 See Eaton, Richard (2004). ‘Approaches to the study of conversion to Islam in India’, in Lorenzen, D. N. (ed.), Religious movements in South-Asia 600–1800, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 111Google Scholar.
78 Ibid.
79 Nawang Tsering Shakspo (1995). ‘The significance of Khuksho in the cultural history of Ladakh’, p. 187.
80 He added that, should his patients be cured in that way, it was because their afflictions were due to malevolent spirits (gdon). According to my interlocutor, the breath is able to eliminate any type of illness that is not caused by malevolent spirits (illnesses of karmic origin, according to the Tibetan medical aetiology, were not however mentioned by Sadja Ali).
81 Practitioners of Tibetan medicine generally know numerous mantra that are used in the framework of medicine. The Buddhist canon, moreover, contains quite a large number of texts enumerating therapeutic mantra (sman sngags)
82 These are the Sanskrit names of three of the most emblematic bodhisattvas in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The employment of Sanskrit to designate the bodhisattvas and certain deities is very common in Ladakh. Mañjuśrī (Tib. ‘Jam-dpal dbyang) personifies wisdom, Avalokiteśvara (Tib. Spyan-ras-gzigs) compassion, and Vajrapāṇi (Tib. Phyag-na rdo-rje) power (of Enlightenment). These bodhisattvas form the triad of the ‘protectors of the three families’ (rig gsum mgon po).
83 They rather characterize situations relating to shamanism or to African medicines, for which the power of the healer is measured by the power to bring death. ‘This reversal of polarity and of signification [between life and death] manifests a fundamental break in the history of therapeutic power’ (See Fassin, Didier, 2000. Les enjeux politiques de la santé. Etudes sénégalaises, équatoriennes et françaises, Paris: Karthala, p. 76)Google Scholar. The man of knowledge (and power) thus becomes a demiurge whose knowledge and faculties appear as a defiance of powers, of natural laws or indeed of life. See Augé, Marc (1975). ‘La logique du malheur (pouvoir et croyances à la sorcellerie)’, in Augé, M., Théorie des pouvoirs et idéologie. Etudes de cas en Côte d’Ivoire, Paris: HermannGoogle Scholar.
84 These persons included the Chief Executive Councillor of the Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council and the President of the Ladakh Buddhist Association.
85 See Georges, Balandier (1980). Le pouvoir sur scène, Paris: BallandGoogle Scholar.
86 See Didier Fassin and Eric Fassin (1988). ‘De la quête de légitimité à la question de légitimation: les thérapeutiques « traditionnelles » au Sénégal’, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, 110, XXVIII-2, 207–231.
87 See Vincanne Adams, Mona Schrempf and Sienna Craig (2011). ‘Introduction: Medicine in translation between science and religion’.
88 See Pordié, Laurent (2008b). ‘Tibetan medicine today. Neo-traditionalism as an analytic lens and a political tool’, in Pordié, L. (ed.), Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, London and New York: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar; and Vargas, Ivette (2008). ‘Tibetan medicine revisited in the West. Notes on the integrative efforts and transformative consequences occurring in Massachusetts’, USA, in Pordié, L. (ed.), Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, London and New York: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar.
89 See Janes, Craig (1995). ‘The transformations of Tibetan Medicine’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9:1, 6–39CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
90 See Adams, Vincanne (2001). ‘Particularizing Modernity: Tibetan Medical Theorizing of Women's Health in Lhasa’, Tibet, in Connor, L. H. and Samuel, G. (eds), Healing Powers and Modernity. Traditional Medicine, Shamanism and Science in Asian Societies, Westport, Connecticut and London: Bergin and Garvey, p. 230Google Scholar.
91 See Fernand Meyer (1987). ‘Essai d’analyse schématique d’un système médical, la médecine savante du Tibet’.
