Book Reviews 91
in a radical, as opposed to piecemeal,
manner. Human rights discourse provides
an instructive example of Fergusson’s
‘common cause without common theory’
approach: the concept and its institutional
manifestation appear to have been a force
for good measured by standards internal to
the Christian tradition.
In the course of his argument,
Fergusson provides a clear and concise
guide to much recent moral and political
philosophy in the Anglo-American tradi-
tion relevant to Christian ethics, especially
Christian ethics struggling to find a
coherent framework of ethical deliberation.
Rather than being simply a survey, it devel-
ops a position in defence of both moral
realism and the importance of community
to moral life on the basis of his neo-
Barthian framework, itself justified in rela-
tion to the practice of the earliest Christian
communities. Thus it not only clarifies and
synthesises existing debate but makes a sig-
nificant contribution in its own right.
Yet it is disappointing in certain
respects. There is insufficient use of socio-
logical analysis; while one gets occasional
insights, no framework for analysing the
roles of religion in contemporary society is
developed, something which is surely nec-
essary if Fergusson is to surpass MacIntyre
in helping to conceive ‘how a pluralist
society can be organised’ (p. 128). In any
event, it would have been good to see
what a Christian contribution to the
envisioning of a peaceful pluralist society
actually looks like, after the extensive
philosophical argument has been put in
place to justify such a position. Without
this, it remains difficult to see what is
being offered here to public debate, as
opposed to the internal one within the
theological community between liberal
and ‘new ecclesial’ positions. This is a pity,
as the level of argument suggests that a
wider audience is deserved.
DAVID HERBERT
The Open University
 2000 Academic Press
doi:10.1006/reli.1999.0216, available online at
http://www.idealibrary.com on
Melvyn C. Goldstein and Matthew T.
Kapstein (eds), Buddhism in Contemporary
Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Iden-
tity. Berkeley, University of California
Press, 1998, 207 pp. (with 34 black and
white illustrations), r40, £30 (hardback)
ISBN 0 520 21130 8, r15.95, £11.95
(paperback) ISBN 0 520 21131 6.
This collection of fieldwork based essays
examines some of the ways in which
Buddhists and folk religionists in both the
Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)
and in ethnographic Tibet (i.e., parts of
Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan
provinces of the People’s Republic of
China [PRC]) have started to flourish
again after the end of the persecution
associated with the Cultural Revolution.
In the period of revival ushered in by the
Eleventh Party Plenum of 1978, which,
among other things, attempted to address
some of the errors committed in Tibet
during the earlier period of upheaval, a
modicum of automomy in cultural and
religious matters was accorded to the non-
Han minorities. The 1982 Constitution,
however, while upholding the freedom of
religion, stipulated that it must not be a
cloak for counter-revolutionary activity,
and must not disrupt the social order or be
controlled by foreign powers. While this
seems to negate any possible influence of
the Dalai Lama, other important exiled
Tibetan hierarchs or the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile, this has still left
considerable scope for revival in a variety
of ways. In practice, the authorities have
oscillated somewhat in their enthusiasm
for Tibetan cultural and religious renewal,
not least because acceptable manifestations
of national pride in being Tibetan can so
easily metamorphose into unacceptable
displays of Tibetan nationalism. As a
result, the period between 1978 and the
present has veered between a loosening up
(fang) and a tightening down (shou) of
92 Book Reviews
Chinese policy towards the Tibetans
within the PRC.
Melvyn Goldstein’s contribution to the
volume includes an introductory overview
of the period since 1978, and a substantial
first chapter, ‘The Revival of Monastic
Life in Drepung Monastery’, which exam-
ines the recent history of this great seat of
Gelugpa power. In the earlier part of this
century, Drepung housed many thousands
of monks and possessed a de facto power of
veto over any decision of the Tibetan
government, particularly those that it felt
might adversely affect the future of the
Buddhist religion and its high officials. It
was also a major landholder, with 151
agricultural estates and 540 pastoral areas,
140,000 tons of grain in storage, and, in
the 1950s, around r5 million in cash lent
out to loan. As Goldstein’s magisterial A
History of Modern Tibet 1913–1951
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1991) has already made clear, the major
Lhasa monasteries, of which Drepung was
pre-eminent, were often forces of reaction
in Tibetan culture. After 1959 this power
ceased almost overnight.
The monastery began to flourish once
more in the 1980s, although on a much
smaller scale. Apart from anything else, the
monastery now no longer commands the
resources necessary to re-establish mass
monasticism on the old model. As a con-
sequence, its monastic base is now slightly
less than a thousand. As in the past, most
monks must generate income so that the
rest can study, although the proportion of
monks engaged in traditional scholarly
pursuits has, perhaps surprisingly, in-
creased. The emphasis is now on quality,
not quantity. Nevertheless, no monk has
yet graduated with a geshe degree. Follow-
ing recent well-documented political
demonstrations in Lhasa, in which some
young Drepung monks seem to have
taken a prominent role, a crackdown on
potential monastic troublemakers was
launched in 1996. Goldstein’s Epilogue
examines the successes and failures of this
latest outbreak of official harassment,
which includes a restriction on monastic
ordination below the age of 18, and
changes in the curriculum, which includes
a patriotic education programme designed
to counteract those who ‘split the
motherland’ through their adherence to
the cult of the Dalai Lama.
In ‘Re-membering the Dismembered
Body of Tibet’ David Germano investi-
gates the remarkable revival of the
Nyingma Ter (or Treasure) cult and the
personality of one of its principal East
Tibetan (Kham) exponents, Khenpo
Jikphun, himself a prolific Terton
(Treasure Finder) and teacher of the Great
Perfection (rdzogs chen) tradition.
Additionally, Khenpo Jikphun is sup-
posed, in a prior life, to have been closely
associated with the great Tibetan warrior
king Gesar—a potent national icon, but
one that Khenpo has been reluctant to
develop in an explicitly political direction.
Khenpo seems to have been unmolested
during the Cultural Revolution and, fol-
lowing a series of visions, founded an
entirely new religious academy in the
Larung Valley, in present-day Sichuan
province, in 1980. Although not a
monastery in any strict sense, the academy
is based around rigorous scholastic training
and over one hundred students, most of
whom are monks, have already graduated
with the degree of khenpo (very roughly
equivalent to the Gelugpa geshe qualifi-
cation mentioned). This result represents a
considerable improvement on the com-
pletion rates reported at Drepung, and it
is, perhaps, a good thing that the PRC
does not operate quality audits of the type
now endured by St Martin’s College.
Khenpo’s teachings prioritise the
ethical reform of Buddhism and place a
correspondingly high value on monastic
celibacy. His modernism, which empha-
sises both scholasticism and a vigorous
hostility to married monks, is fairly unique
among twentieth century Nyingma lamas.
Yet on the magical front, Khenpo’s

visions and treasure-locating powers draw
on traditional patterns. As such, he has
inaugurated a network of pilgrimage
sites, ‘reawakening the mythic landscape
of ancient Tibet’ and even extending
the concept to the heart of China itself.
Germano argues that this re-establishment
of the Ter tradition today in many ways
parallels the changes that the Nyingma
tradition had to make in the eleventh
century when it successfully re-invented
itself against a background of persecution
and the large-scale importation of new
cultural information from India.
Matthew Kapstein’s ‘A Pilgrimage of
Rebirth Reborn’ focuses on the re-
emergence of an important pilgrimage
ritual, the Powa Chenmo, based on par-
ticipant observation in 1992. The valley
site, around 120 miles northeast of
Lhasa, includes a number of important
monasteries of the Drigung Kagyü order
founded by Jikten Gönpo in the late
twentieth century. Traditionally, the
valley was entirely sealed off for the dur-
ation of the pilgrimage, which was, in
part, connected with monastic revenue
raising activities. The festival culminated
with an esoteric rite called ‘Planting the
Stalk’ (‘jag-zug-ma), which, if properly
conferred and subsequently developed
through practice, opens the fontanel of a
dying person sufficiently for consciousness
to leave the body and travel to the Pure
Land of Amitåbha. The events of 6–13
August 1992 deviated from tradition in a
number of ways. The valley was not sealed
from the secular realm, and its association
with monastic economic and spiritual
power was much attenuated since the or-
der’s estates were dismantled and are now a
thing of the past. Indeed, the two principal
lamas of the Drigung Kagyü, now living in
Indian exile, did not attend. Nevertheless,
Kapstein’s prose succeeds in evoking the
atmosphere of the pilgrimage site.
In the concluding essay, ‘Ritual,
Ethnicity and Generational Identity’,
Lawrence Epstein and Peng Wenbin
 2000 Academic Press
Book Reviews 93
investigate folk rituals among Tibetans in
Qinghai province. In the Repgong region
an annual musical festivity called luröl, dedi-
cated to the deity Anye Shachung who is
regarded by some as an eighth-level bodhisat-
tva, has been celebrated for the last millen-
nium. The chapter examines the rituals of
1991. Clear fertility elements are present.
Older men engage in blood-letting rites, and
some of the younger males dance with skew-
ers through their cheeks. When asked about
this, younger informants, who have now
been exposed to the modern Chinese edu-
cational system expressed embarrassment.
Quite apart from any fear of pain, a factor
surprisingly not considered by the authors,
the new generation seems to regard the ritual
as something primitive which they were re-
luctantly obliged to perform by their elders.
The volume provides some intriguing
snapshots of religious activity in Tibetan
regions in the 1990s. The contributions
are all of a high order but actually cover
quite disparate phenomena. As such, they
are insufficient to provide solid evidence
of the general religious revival alluded to
in the book’s subtitle, but, given the dif-
ficulties associated with fieldwork in the
region, this limitation is to be expected.
What the reader does gain is a good
insight into the resilience and adaptability
of Tibetan religious traditions despite dif-
ficult circumstances. Clearly, more work
along similar lines will be necessary, and
the editors and contributors are to be
congratulated for having provided an ini-
tial impetus in this direction. The book
has a useful bibliography and is largely
free of typographical errors. It would,
however, have benefited from a map.
IAN HARRIS
St Martin’s College, Lancaster
doi:10.1006/reli.1999.0220, available online at
http://www.idealibrary.com on
Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamental-
ism: Political Islam and the New World