The Cult of Tara

PREFACE xv
ch
ts
t
P
ch' j
ts' dz
t' d
p' b
ny y sh zh
n
m
1
w
s z
The research on which this paper is based was carried out under a
grant from the Foreign Area Fellowschip Program and was conducted
in the hill station of Dalhousie, Himacha' Pradesh, where the
remnants of many of the great Tibean monastic centers have
gathered.
Here my wife and I lived with a group that calls itself the Tibetan
Craft Community for the Progress of the Dharma, earning its living
mainly by the production of Tibetan handicrafts and centering upon
the charismatic person of K'amtrii Rinpoch'e VIII Donju nyima,
the Precious Incarnation of K'am, Sun of the True Lineage. This
community consists of about 50 monks and about 250 lay people,
preserving among themselves—perhaps better than any other refugee
group I have encountered—their traditional practices and
community relationships. I would like to express my deep gratitude
to K'amtrii Rinpoch'e for his kindness to us, which sprang spontaneously
and openly from a nature "precious" by more than title.
I would like to thank the manager of the lay community, Geleg
namje, and his brother, the gifted artist Ts'ewang tobje, for opening
their house and their hearts to us, and all the monks and lay people
who became our friends.
My major informant in this group was the young Choje jats'o,
head of the monastery of Drugu and the eighth in his line of incarnations,
whose natural graciousness, scholarship, and quick grasp
of what I as a Western scholar was attempting to accomplish made
him both an ideal informant and a good friend. My major informant
for the various artistic traditions was Tendzin yongdii, a venerable
and learned lay artist who has been depicting these deities on
painted scrolls for all the Tibetan sects for more than fifty years.
Some of his drawings are reproduced in this book. For information
on the actual performance of ritual—hand gestures, chants, and
offerings—I am grateful to Kajii drugje, the head monk of the
monastery, who, I think, got as much delight from my singing as I
got from his, though for different reasons.
I would further like to express my indebtedness to Miss Diane
Perry (Ani Tendzin Pemo) for her advice and encouragement, and
especially for her Perfection of Forbearance in the face of infuriating