Travel & Adventure
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THE CLEAR MIRROR: A Traditional Account of Tibet's Golden Age by Sakyapa Sonam Gyaltsen, translated by McComas Taylor and Lama Choedak Yuthok 315 pp., 16 line drawings, 2 maps. #CLMI - list price $ 16.95 Our Price $11.86 (you save 30%) Published by Snow Lion A rich blend of history, legend, poetry, adventure and romance, The Clear Mirror is a treasure-trove of traditional Tibetan narrative and folk wisdom. It presents in full the often-cited but elusive accounts of the origins of the Tibetan people, the coming of the Dharma to Tibet, and the appearance of Avalokiteshvara as the patron deity of Tibet. The text treats the era during which Buddhism came to Tibet, Lhasa became the capital, and the Jokhang and Ramoche temples were founded. Written to inform and entertain, the book has a pre-eminent position in Tibetan society and is popular today. More ... | |
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LABRANG: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations by Paul Kocot Nietupski, photos from the Griebenow Archives, 1921-1949 160 pp., 9" x 8" high, 36 color and 100 b&w photos, illustrations. #LA - list price $ 24.95 Our Price $17.46 (you save 30%) Published by Snow Lion Labrang Monastery, located in northeast Tibet at the strategic intersection of four major Asian civilizations--Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and Muslim--was one of the largest Buddhist monastic universities. In the early twentieth century, it housed several thousand monks. Labrang was also a gathering point for numerous annual religious festivals, supported an active regional marketplace where Chinese artisans rubbed shoulders with Hui merchants and nomadic Tibetan highlanders, and was the seat of a Tibetan power base that strove to maintain regional autonomy through the shifting alliances and bloody conflicts that took place between 1700 and 1950. More ... | |
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SACRED GROUND: Jamgon Kongtrul on "Pilgrimage and Sacred Geography" by Ngawang Zangpo. A Tsadra Foundation Series book. 260 pp., 15 b&w photos, cloth. #SAGR - list price $ 24.95 Our Price $17.46 (you save 30%) Published by Snow Lion Sacred Ground describes two journeys: a journey outward to specific pilgrimage places in Eastern Tibet; and a journey inward, to the sacred world of tantra, accessible through contemplation and meditation. It sheds light on Himalayan Buddhists' concepts of sacred land, places of pilgrimage in tantric Buddhism, and how pilgrimage is undertaken. It enhances our appreciation of the world and its sacred aspect everywhere first and foremost, wherever we sit now. On the basis of a judicious choice of rare Tibetan texts, translated here for the first time, correlating inner and outer pilgrimage, this book is of considerable value to the Buddhist practitioner. More ... | |
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SKY BURIAL: An Eyewitness Account of China's Brutal Crackdown in Tibeet by Blake Kerr, photos by John Ackerly, foreword by H.H. the Dalai Lama, intro. by Heinrich Harrer 186 pp. #SKBU - list price $ 12.95 Our Price $9.06 (you save 30%) Published by Snow Lion "Sky Burial is the distilled truth—alternately tragic, hilarious, and rousing—of two young Americans' exposure to the joyous spirit of the Tibetan people and their courageous struggle to survive under the brutal subjugation of Chinese communist rule. It is a vivid portrait of a critical moment in Tibet's modern history. An evocative, endearing, and invaluable book."—John Avedon, author ofIn Exile from the Land of Snows More ... | |
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TALES OF THE TURQUOISE: A Pilgrimage in Dolpo by Corneille Jest 190 pp., line drawings, 2 maps. #TATU - list price $ 12.95 Our Price $9.06 (you save 30%) Published by Snow Lion In the early spring of 1961, Dr. Jest undertook a three-week circumambulation of the valley in the company of Tibetans, visiting temples, shrines and sacred mountains. His companion Karma, an elderly nomad from Western Tibet and a gifted story-teller, punctuated the journey with traditional tales and his own reflections. More ... | |
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THE HOLY LAND REBORN: Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India by Toni Huber Cloth. 502 pp. #HOLARE - list price $ 45.00 Our Price $36.00 (you save 20%) The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans consider Tibet to be "the child of Indian civilization" and that India is the "holy land" from whose sources the Tibetans have built their own civilization. What explains this powerful allegiance to India? In The Holy Land Reborn, Toni Huber investigates how Tibetans have maintained a ritual relationship to India, particularly by way of pilgrimage, and what it means for them to consider India as their holy land. More ... | |
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IN THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHA: Secret Journeys, Sacred Histories, and Spiritual Discovery in Tibet by Matteo Pistono 288 pages, hardbound, 9 b&w photos. #INSHBU - $ 25.95 For nearly a decade, Matteo Pistono evaded Chinese security and smuggled out photos of prisons, secret documents, and firsthand interviews of torture victims and other atrocities committed by the Chinese government, giving them to the Dalai Lama, human rights organizations, the U.S. State Department, and anyone who would listen. Yet Pistono did not originally intend to fight for human rights in Tibet—he had gone there as a Buddhist pilgrim. [Scroll down for author's video...] More ... | |
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MAPPING THE TIBETAN WORLD by Kotan Publishing 416 pp., 21 color photos, 280 maps, many b&w photos. #MATIWO - list price $ 23.95 Our Price $19.16 (you save 20%) With over 280 highly detailed, tried and tested maps, this is an excellent source of travel information to the Himalayas and all of Tibet, not just the TAR. It is a complete travel guide that provides the information needed for economic yet exciting visits to this region. More ... | |
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SACRED LANDSCAPE AND PILGRIMAGE IN TIBET: In Search of the Lost Kingdom of Bon by Geshe Gelek Jinpa, Charles Ramble and Carroll Dunham, photog. by Thomas L. Kelly, ed. by Susan Costello 204 pp., with 60 min. DVD. #SALAPI - $ 65.00 Geshe Gelek Jinpa, a monk of the little-known Bon faith, takes us on a fascinating pilgrimage, visually and spiritually, through the spectacular landscape of western Tibet in search of the lost, sacred Bon homeland of Zhangzhung. This spiritual adventure is the first book to document the living tradition of Bon, whose origins predate Buddhism in Tibet by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. What makes this narrative so compelling is that it features the voice and perspective of the monk Gelek, giving it an intimacy and knowledge of Bon not found in religious texts. More ... | |
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SKY TRAIN: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam, foreword by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Paper, 286 pages. #SKTRTI - $ 24.95 In her lyrical narrative of a journey to Tibet on China's new "Sky Train," Canyon Sam glimpses the past through the eyes of Tibetan women—a visionary educator, a freedom fighter, a gulag survivor, a child bride. Gracefully connecting the women's poignant histories to larger cultural, political, and spiritual themes, she finds wisdom and wholeness even as she acknowledges Tibet's irreversible changes. More ... | |
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TIBET: A History by Sam van Shaik 352 pp., 38 b&w photos & illustrations, cloth. #TIHISA - $ 35.00 Situated north of the Himalayas, Tibet is famous for its unique culture and its controversial assimilation into modern China. Yet Tibet in the twenty-first century can only be properly understood in the context of its extraordinary history. More ... | |
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ZHANG ZHUNG: Images from a Lost Kingdom by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, translated from the Tibetan by Andriano Clemente, compiled and collated by Alex Siedlecki 104 pp., paper, 40 color and b&w images and maps. #ZHZHIM - $ 34.00 The Kingdom of Zhang Zhung, with the venerated Mount Kailash as its center and heart, was an ancient realm which originated more than three thousand years ago, corresponding geographically to the western Tibet of today. Rooted in Bon, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, the kingdom was famed in its time, but subsequently its name became virtually unknown even to Tibetans, who regarded it only as the unreal setting of myths or legends. However, this realm was the true cradle of Tibetan culture. More ... | |