Bearers of the Past, Bridges with the Beyond: The Complicated Lives of Ordinary Objects

• Published in: Life writing Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 411 - 428
• Main Author: Ramble, Charles
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.07.2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: acheiropoieton; namthar; Nepal; sacred relics; Tibet; Tibetan hagiography
• ISSN: 1448-4528; 1751-2964
• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2020.1773027

The emergence of social history within the domain of Tibetan Studies in recent years has been marked by a closer interest in the lives of people who would not usually be the subject of biographical studies. While there is also a Tibetan tradition of writing about the lives of sacred objects that has in turn attracted a certain amount of scholarly interest, the anthropological practice of documenting the histories of everyday artefacts remains relatively undeveloped. Following an examination of some of the dominant themes that emerge from the life stories of famous relics in the Christian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, this essay will take the case of two objects that have acquired some fame in their village setting to illustrate how the same themes-such as the importance of the objects as links to a sacred past, the existence of conflicting narratives, and the device of substitution-all feature equally prominently in the narratives associated with them.