“My name is Legion”: the complexity of characters in Tibetan exorcism rituals

Charles Ramble est directeur d’études à la section Histoire et Philologie de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université Paris sciences et lettres. De 2006 à 2013, il fut Président de l’International Association for Tibetan Studies.

« The notion of distributed personhood, that has been the subject of much anthropological writing in recent years, is a familiar concept in Tibetan belief. Perhaps the most obvious expression of the idea is to be found in the idea that a single person has multiple souls that reside in natural features – lakes, trees, mountains, rocks and so forth. But the opposite is also true: a single feature may be the locus of numerous identities. While this observation has been well documented in the case of (for example) sacred mountains, which pilgrims of different faiths or schools revere as the territory of members of their respective pantheons, the attribution of plural identities to the same object within a single ritual has been less well explored. Many Tibetan exorcistic rituals feature effigies that have precisely such a diversity of personae: the effigy may stand simultaneously for the patient, for the demon that has caused the affliction, and also for the divinity that will confront and overcome the demon. »

Quand: Jeudi 20 février 2020 / De 17h00 à 19h00
Où: Université Concordia / 1455 boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
Salle H-1154

La conférence se déroulera en anglais / Une période de questions suivra

Entrée gratuite / Bienvenue à tous !