The yogin & the madman : reading the biographical corpus of Tibet's great saint Milarepa

Author / Creator

Quintman, Andrew (Andrew H.), author

Available as

Online

Summary

Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052--1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhis...

Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052--1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre's most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the "Madman of Western Tibet." Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin's corporeal rel.

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