Sixth Conference of the InlemalionaJ Association

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ANNOUNCEMEI'ITS Symposia:

Sixth Conference of the InlemalionaJ Association

of Tibetan Studits

... 66

Second InlCm:

lIional Seminar

on

Tibetan

Unguage. ... 66

SaSOfl National Congress on SUUCt\ll'e

and Transition; Society, Poverty and

Politics in NepaL ... _ ...

66

The

Anthropol ogy of Nepal .

People,

Problems and Processts. ... 67

Exhli~~~Ual

Conftrtnce of

!he

Unguistic Society of NepaL ... 68

Culture and Everyday Ufe

in

Tibtt. ... _ ... _ ... _ .. _ ... 69

Organizations; Aims

and

Objectiyes of A SH ... __ .... _ ... 70

CON11tIBUTORS 10

TH1S lSSUE

... 72

]

EDITORIAL

Tbe present issue is being dislributed free to a ll those persons who filled ou t and returned the queSlionaire th at was enclosed in the inaugural issue of Autumn 1991. Nr.3 ,however,iSlhelast

issue to be distributed on these term •.

Enclosed you will Cind informalioo on how to subscribe to issues -t and :5

01

the Bulletin.

Our aim in publis hing the Europe.n

Bulle!in of HimaJayan Research

has been to bring toaetber European scholars and to provide a Ccru m in which we might disc uss current re search in a dialogue with scholars Crom the Hima- layan r egion itself. To Cacillute this dialogue the South Asia In stitute has taken out a block subscription

oC

twenty copies to be diSlributed through its Kath mandu orrice to institutes in Nepal.

What we need now is the financial support of the community

oC

European scbolars.

Il

you have Cound this and the previous issues

oC

the Bulletin at all helpfu l and informa tive in Culfilling these aims, please support usfurtber by promptly returning thl!! subscr iption form enclosed with this issue.

In preparing th e present issue, we are very much indebted to Lucene Boul- nois, who relires this year as Librarian at the Ce ntre d 'Etudes himalayennes al Meudon. and to her Cellow librarians from institutes in and around Paris for having compiled a guide to the resources on Himalaya n studies in Paris.

Wolf Kahlen se nt us his travel re port on the worksofThang-stong rGya l-powith the re quest that readers help with suggestions C or tracki ng down archivl!!

ma terial. The article on ora l ritual teIls from Martin Gaenszle reviews recent textual approaches to the study

oC

ritual

discourse in the Himalayas, to which Andras HoCer has added sil: proposals

Cor

an ethnoaraphy

of

the performed wo rd. To Prayag Raj Sharma, Gerard Torfin, LudmiUa Tuting and " . Warikoo

"e are indebted Cor conference and t:I. hibltion news fro m Kathmandu and New Delhi.

This Bulletin can survive only "With reaular contributions and SUlil!!slions Crom iu readers. In this respect promises

of

articles have been more forthcoming than research reporu and s uggestions

Cor

book reviews; and we ask you

10

bear this in mind. Ou r fourth iss ue has alre ady taken shape with the publication of. among other things. a review article on ecoloaical move ments in the Himalayas. a report on missionary archives in It aly, the continuation of the report on the libraries of Paris. plus the list of current research activities of our readership. based on the questionaire.

We still need, bowever, news.

announcements and research reports.

Pleasl!! keep us informed. The deadline for submissions is 30th October.

Editors:

Richard Burghart

Martin Gaenszle

Andras HMer

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ContribuUnl Bdltou:

Austria: Dr. Michael Torslen Much.

Institut fOr TibetolOlie und Bud dhismuskunde. Un iversitat Wien, Maria· Theresien-Str. 3111. A- 1090 Wien .

France: Dr. Anne de Sales . 23, rue Mon toraueil ,

F-7~001

Paris.

Great Britain: Dr . Michael

Hutt.

Depart- me ntof IndolOly,SchoolofOriental

&.

African Studies, Thornhaull h Street, London WC!.

Poland: Dr. KrrySltof Oebnickl, Instytut Orientanslyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawsklego, Krakowskle Przedmiescle 26128 , Wanuwa, Switzerland: Dr. Joanna Pfarf-

(zarneckl, Ethnoloaischel Se minar der Univenitat ZOrich, Freien steinstr.

3~.

CH -8032 Zurich.

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REVIEW ARTICLE

The Tezt Within -

Studies of Oral Ritual Tezu in Nepal in the LISt Decade

Martin Gaenszle

HOLMBERG, David H. 1989. Order in Nepal Unpub Ph.D . dissertation , Paradoz. My tb, Ritual, and Ezcban,e University

of

Cambridge.

amon, NepaJ's Taman,. Ilhaca and London: Carnell University Press . 265 pp .. iIIus .. 296 pp., S 29.95

MAStARINEC, Gngory G . 1990. Tbe RuliD,s

of

tbe Ni,ht: An EthnogrAphic Eze,esis

^oJ

Sbamank Oral Tuts from Western Nepal. Unpub . Ph.D . disserta - tion, Univenity of Hawaii,

MUMFORD , Stan Royal 1989, Himllaya n Dialogue. Tibetan Lamas Ind Gurun, Sha mans

in

Nepal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 286 pp .• illus., n.p.1.

OPPITZ. Michael 1981. Scha manen im Blinden Land:

£in

BilderbuCh aus dem Himalaya. Frankfurt: Syndikll. 285 pp"

iHus .. n.p.1.

SALES. An ne de 199

I. ~

,ui'ne de vas jeuz de t .. mbours. La reli6ion Chama- nique des Ma,ar du nord. Nanterre:

Societe d 'Ethnologie, 339 pp ., iIIul., n .p. l .

STEINMANN, Brigine 1987. Lel Taman, du Nepal. Us-,el

et

re/i,;on.

religion de fus-,e. Paril: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. A.D.P.F ..

3 10 PP .. illus .. 1:59 FF.

STRICKLAND. Simon S., 1982. Belief, Practice$, and Le,end$: A Study in the Narra tive PoeIfY

0[

the GuruD"

of

As

I

mode of cultural transmiuion.

writina has obvious advantages over oral tradition. and thus the written tell tends to be regarded as seU -evidently superior to words reproduced (ram memory. Neverthe less, there have always been arounds to argue the oppo- lite . The Egyptian kins in one of Plato's dialogues (Phaidros) rejected the newly invented script as a mode

0(

transmit- tina knowledge. argumg that it would only weaken man 's capacity to memorize. Si milarly

in

contemporary Nepal. sbamans value the ability to chant tbeir tellS from memory. Ac- cording to GuruDII myth. variants

of

which are also (ound amonl the tiranti m eallerD Nepal, the forefathers did have written tells. but eventually an ancestral shaman ate tbem; therefore , they recite the tell from within and do not rely on written Versions lite the lamas (Mumford 1989 : 531.