英文摘要 |
Being located on the 'roof of the world', Tibet finds itself at the meeting point of the eastern, central and southern parts of Asia, from where the ancient civilizations of China, Persia and India originated. Constant interactions between Tibet and its neighboring areas during the course of history have contributed to the multifaceted features of the Tibet culture. Among the diverse aspects of the Tibetan culture, the Tibetan views of death have attracted the attention of many people. Scholars have focused their discussions on the influence of Buddhist thoughts on the Tibetan views of death, especially on 'transferring the consciousness of a dead' ('pho ba) and 'the Tibetan books of the death' (bar do thos grol). Little attention has been paid to the conceptions of death of the ordinary Tibetans. Besides some general introductions to the burial modes and customs, there are only sporadic reports on the imagination and fear of ghosts or on the sorceries for dispelling ghosts. No thorough and systematic examination has been made in the ordinary Tibetans' / non-Buddhist attitude toward death, e.g. the cause of death, possible calamities and hindrances as results of a death event, the relationship between the dead and the surviving members of the family, etc. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Tibetans predict a death event and how they avoid misfortune which could be resulted from the death of a family member. The discussions are based mainly on the depictions relating to death in two Tibetan texts: Vaidurya dkar po, the classic of Sino-Tibetan divination, and bKra shis 'dod' jo, an important text in which diverse popular rituals for driving out adversities are compiled. |