UC Berkeley

Buddhist texts perpetually remind readers to realize the pervasive nature of suffering by reflecting upon the impermanent and even putrid nature of the human form. However, they also proclaim birth in a human body to be the ideal condition for liberating oneself from that suffering. How can the body be both a tool for transcendence and an obstacle to be overcome? Within tantric Buddhism, the body mandala is a ritual process of imagining parts of the human body as parts of the mandala, a cosmic palace inhabited by Buddhas and attendant deities. In examining a network of texts by scholar-monks Mkhas grub rje (1385-1438) and Ngorchen Kun dga' bzang po (1382-1456) concerning body mandala, this dissertation brings to light complex attitudes towards the role of the body in tantric practice and contextualizes esoteric conceptions of the body in terms of larger social, religious, and political dynamics circulating in fifteenth-century Tibet. In bringing the esoteric into conversation with the humanistic, this dissertation demonstrates the value of studying ritual technologies of the body within their historical contexts as well as in relation to discourses on the body across disciplines and cultures.