Topical Seminar in Asian Humanities (492-0-20)
Topic
Historical Texts and Biographies
Instructors
Pema Bhum
Meeting Info
University Library 3722: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This class over three quarters is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including (especially in the third quarter) texts relevant to their research.
We will explore various genres: canonical and other religious texts, religious songs (mgur), poetry (snyan ngag), biographies (rnam thar), avadanas (rtogs brjod), and histories. We will also look at administrative documents (gzhung yig), other manuscripts and scrolls to become familiar with the most common forms of Tibetan calligraphy. Students will gain facility in the use of Tibetan dictionaries essential for reading classical texts, in particular for understanding kāvya-derived ornamental vocabulary and rhetorical devices.
Learning Objectives
Students will learn to identify commonly found vocabulary, grammatical constructions and other conventions appearing in Classical Tibetan texts, including religious, literary, and historical genres. In the third quarter, students will be introduced to texts in dbu-med scripts and the abbreviated words (skung yig) often employed in these. They will learn how to identify texts helpful for their research and begin reading those texts.
Teaching Method
Online only
Evaluation Method
Class participation & Homework
Percentage of Final Grade
30%
3 Short quizzes
15%
Mid-Term
25%
Final Examination
30%
Class Materials (Required)
མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་རང་རྣམ་མགུར། Autobiographical Song of Marpa the Translator
Author: མར་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བློ་གྲོས། Marpa Chokyi Lodroe, 1036-1102
Selected Excerpts from བཀའ་ཐང་སྡེ་ལྔ། (Five Chronicles)
Terma by ཨོ་རྒྱན་གླིང་པ། Ogyen Lingpa (b. 1323-1360/67/74?)
རྣམ་ཐར་ཁོག་འབུབ། (An overview of Tibetan life-writing forms)
Author: ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད། Karma Chakmé (1613-1678)
གཏེར་འབྱུང་ལོ་རྒྱུས་བསྡུས་པ། Brief of history of Terma
Terma by Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorjé, 1800-1859?
རྩེ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་བཅའ་ཡིག The regulations or guidelines (bca' yig) for the Rtse School
Author: 13th Dalai Lama, 1876-1933
ཚིགས་བཅད་ཀྱི་རྩོམ་སྟངས། The rules for metrical verse composition
Author: དུང་དཀར་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས། Dungkar Lozang Trinlé, 1927-1997
Class Attributes
Synchronous:Class meets remotely at scheduled time