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Descriptive Survey of Tibetan Charms and Amulets

Research period:2015.10-2019.3

NAGANO Yasuhiko

Keywords

Tibetan Buddhism,Bon,amulet

Objectives

The National Museum of Ethnology purchased the “Collection of Tibetan Buddhist Paintings” in 1979. In fact, this collection did not consist of Buddhist paintings but was made up of over a thousand charms and amulets of the Nyingma sect of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Religion and of engraved blocks for the printing of those items. While having established the system of its own doctrine, philosophy and logic, and having constituted one of the pillars essential for Oriental philosophythe ways of thinking of Eastern peoples, Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Religion had passionately accepted popular folk beliefs in the development of their unique religious services. In the “substratum,” or Tibetan spiritual culture, it is considered that transcendental principles and secular economic principles are connected with each other, and that “magical viewpoints or fetishes” work as a trigger to connect these two principles systematically. For this very reason, a certain portion of Tripitaka Tangyur of the Buddhism and the Bon Religion is dedicated to “magic” and “counter magic.” Charms and amulets are part of the fetishes close to us that can work in “magic” and “counter magic.”
 
Focusing on the charms and amulets widely used in Tibet, and from the viewpoint of the general public, we aim to clarify the state in which a religion is observed in Tibet as well as part of the substratum in the religious culture through various items including the charms and amulets, by conducting surveys and studies from various angles about the descriptions of the content, meanings and usage of charms and amulets, the documental backing of them, the protocol relating to prayers and sanctification (provision of power) of them, the economic system of such prayers and sanctification, and the contemporary meanings for people including non-Tibetans. We would also like to describe and analyze the sentences that include reference to the icons of charms and amulets stored at the National Museum of Ethnology and mantras

Research Results

1. For this collection, the seller of it provided the descriptive data when the collection was bought by the Museum in 1979. The data have been checked by the “information card” project since 1981, and tentative results are now open at http://htq.minpaku.ac.jp/menu/database_eng.html under the title of Detailed information on artifacts in the catalog. Although the data is helpful to some extent in terms of knowing the situation of usage and purchase in locality in the 1970’s, they do not contain any concrete description of iconographical features and actual usage. The photo data attached by the project above are of a low-definition and not so suitable for the general public or academic use.
In order to improve this situation, we revised the description including title of objects, genre and usage, and added anew the detailed iconographical features, transliteration of text, translation of it, philological grounds, bibliographical references, references to some previous works and so on. We also took high-definition photos of all objects so that people can observe more fine details.
The database will be open to the public in the 2020 fiscal year as a part of “Info-Forum Museum” database at
http://www.minpaku.ac.jp/english/research/activity/project/ifm.
 
2. Besides the database above, we compiled an independent volume in which nine articles concerning particular objects the joint research members were interested in are included. It was published by Hūkyōsha Publications under the title of Religious Iconography of Tibet and its World of Belief (in Japanese). The convener is confident that the volume accelerates this kind of research and deepens the understanding of Tibetan culture among the general public.