Awards

• Commended for AAR Book Award for Excellence in the historical studies category 2016
• Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2015
• Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2017
• Winner of E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize 2017
• Winner of E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies 2017
• Winner of E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize, Association for Asian Studies 2017
• Winner of Outstanding Academic Title 2017
• Winner of Toshihide Numata Book Award 2017

Overview

Critically exploring medical thought in a cultural milieu with no discernible influence from the European Enlightenment, Being Human in a Buddhist World reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It further studies the adaptation of Buddhist concepts and values to medical concerns and suggests important dimensions of Buddhism's role in the development of Asian and global civilization. Through its unique focus and sophisticated reading of source materials, Being Human adds a crucial chapter in the larger historiography of science and religion. The book opens with the bold achievements in Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso, then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authority on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It follows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. Being Human in a Buddhist World ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.

Full Product Details

9780231164962

Table of Contents

Reviews

An amazing book and a stellar contribution to Columbia University Press's growing catalog of Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist studies, for it will be the key book on medicine and religion in Tibet for this generation. Like Gyatso's book on autobiography, her new book on medicine will simply be field defining. Little of this literature has received attention to date, and in fact much of it has only been available to a contemporary international scholarly audience for a decade or so. -- Kurtis R. Schaeffer, The University of Virginia Janet Gyatso's long awaited Being Human in a Buddhist World is the most important study of Tibetan medicine in the English language, surpassing previous scholarship in the scope of its history, the extent of its research, and the depth of its insights. But it is also more than that. It is the rare work that causes us to rethink the foundations of our field, leaving readers with both answers and questions about what is encompassed by terms like Tibetan Buddhism and medical science. -- Donald Lopez, Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan

An amazing book and a stellar contribution to Columbia University Press's growing catalog of Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist studies, for it will be the key book on medicine and religion in Tibet for this generation. Like Gyatso's book on autobiography, her new book on medicine will simply be field defining. Little of this literature has received attention to date, and in fact much of it has only been available to a contemporary international scholarly audience for a decade or so. -- Kurtis R. Schaeffer, The University of Virginia

Author Information

Janet Gyatso is Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard University, where she serves on the faculty of the Divinity School, in the Study of Religion, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Inner Asian and Altaic Studies. Her writing has centered on Tibetan Buddhism and its cultural and intellectual history from the perspective of large issues in the humanities about human experience and its literary presentation. She is the author of Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary, as well as several edited volumes.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available