Description
Book SynopsisDivining with Achi and Tārā is a book on Tibetan methods of prognostics with dice and prayer beads (mālā). Jan-Ulrich Sobisch offers a thorough discussion of Chinese, Indian, Turkic, and Tibetan traditions of divination, its techniques, rituals, tools, and poetic language. Interviews with Tibetan masters of divination introduce the main part with a translation of a dice divination manual of the deity Achi that is still part of a living tradition. Solvej Nielsen contributes further interviews, a mālā divination of Tārā and its oral tradition, and very useful glossaries of the terminology of Tibetan divination and fortune telling. Appendices provide lists of deities and spirits and of numerous identified ritual remedies and supports that are an essential element of a still vibrant Tibetan culture.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1 Dice for Divination—One of Many Tools of Randomization 2 Poetry in the Prophecy 3 Chinese Buddhist Divination Poetry 4 Poetry in the Turkic Irk Bitig 5 Poetry in Turfan Fragments 6 Brief Poetical Elements in the Sanskrit Pāśakakevalī 7 Poetry in a Tibetan Dunhuang Divination Manual 8 Poetry in Mipham’s A ra pa tsa na 9 Structure and Nucleus of the Achi Mo 10 Poetry in the Achi Mo 11 More on the Divinations’ General Prognoses 12 The Detailed Prognoses and Their Categories 13 Ritual Remedies and Supports 14 Remedies in the Book of Consecration 15 Remedies in Tibetan Dunhuang Texts 16 Remedies in the Pāśakakevalī 17 Remedies in Later Tibetan Mo Texts 18 Ritual Proficiency 2 Interviews 1 Interview with Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen Rinpoche 2 Interview with Lho Ontul Rinpoche 3 Translation of the Achi Mo 1 The Sādhana 2 Tibetan Text and Translation of the Divination Manual of Achi 4 Mālā Divination 1 Phreng Mo: A Popular Tibetan Way of Divining with a Mālā 2 Tibetan Text and Translation of the Divination Manual of Tārā 3 Interviews with Khenchen Nyima Rinpoche and Dorzin Dhondrup Rinpoche 4 Explanations from Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen Rinpoche 5 Explanations from Dorzin Konchog Dhondrup Rinpoche 6 Some Variations and Similarities 7 Special Terminology of Tibetan Divination 8 Terminology of Fortune and Misfortune in Tibetan Buddhist Mo Divination Appendix 1: Glossary of Deities and Spirits Appendix 2: Alphabetical List of Ritual Remedies and Supports Bibliography Index
