Research Group

PaganTibet, "Reconstructing the Pagan Religion of Tibet" is a five-year project (2023-2028) funded by the European Research Council and based at the EPHE in Paris, under the direction of Charles Ramble. The aim of the project is to investigate the nature of Tibetan religion before the arrival of Yungdrung Bon and Buddhism. We know from Bonpo histories that Tonpa Shenrab Miwo encountered religions systems known as "Bon" when he brought his teachings to the Tibetan Plateau, and retained some of their rituals after modifying them to accord with his spiritual principles. Traces of these systems are preserved in some of the texts of the Four Ways of Cause, but especially in a large corpus of manuscripts belonging to a priestly tradition called Le'u that have recently come to light in eastern Tibet. In order to avoid confusion with Yungdrung Bon, the project refers to the traditions represented in these texts not as Bon but as Pagan Religion. However, since it is the monks of Yungdrung Bon who are most familiar with the literary conventions and the concepts contained in this corpus, PaganTibet is collaborating closely with the monks of Triten Norbutse and of Shenten Dargye Ling under the guidance of Khenchen Tenpa Yungdrung and of Khenpo Gelek Jinpa in the tasks of digitising, electronically transcribing, editing and annotating these works to make their content more comprehensible and accessible. In August of this year, the members of the Pagan Tibet project will gather at Shenten Dargye Ling for a week – as they did last year – for an intensive reading of selected texts in an environment where they will be able to seek the advice of the monks and to benefit from the monastery's well-furnished library of Bon literature.