Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler (Buddhism and Modernity)

By:

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis
“Translated with grace and precision . . . gives us a rare glimpse of how Asian religion and life appeared from the perspective of the Tibetan plateau.” —Janet Gyatso, Harvard UniversityIn 1941, philosopher and poet Gendun Chopel sent a manuscript by ship, train, and yak across mountains and deserts to his homeland in Tibet. He would follow it five years later, returning to his native land after twelve years in India and Sri Lanka. But he did not receive the welcome he imagined: he was arrested by the government of the regent of the young Dalai Lama on trumped-up charges of treason. He emerged from prison three years later a broken man and died soon after. Gendun Chopel was a prolific writer, yet he considered that manuscript, to be his life’s work, one to delight his compatriots with tales of an ancient Indian and Tibetan past, Now available for the first time in English, Grains of Gold is a unique compendium of South Asian and Tibetan culture that combines travelogue, drawings, history, and ethnography. Chopel describes the world he discovered in South Asia, from the ruins of the sacred sites of Buddhism to the Sanskrit classics he learned to read in the original. He is also sharply, often humorously critical of the Tibetan love of the fantastic, bursting one myth after another and finding fault with the accounts of earlier Tibetan pilgrims. The work of an extraordinary scholar, Grains of Gold is a compelling work animated by a sense of discovery of both a distant past and a strange present.“The magnum opus of arguably the single most brilliant Tibetan scholar of the twentieth century.” —Lauran Hartley, Columbia University
Copyright:
2014

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
456 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780226092027
Related ISBNs:
9780226091976
Publisher:
The University of Chicago Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
The University of Chicago Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Travel, Religion and Spirituality
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.
Translator:
Thupten Jinpa
Translator:
Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Reviews

No Rating Yet