The Holy Land Reborn: Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India (Buddhism and Modernity series) (repost)

A major contribution to the study of Buddhism, this book describes changes in Tibetan constructs of India over the centuries, ultimately challenging largely static views of the sacred geography of Buddhism in India. Author investigates how Tibetans have maintained a ritual relationship to India, particularly by way of pilgrimage, and what it means for them to consider India as their holy land.

Focusing on the Tibetan creation and recreation of India as a destination, a landscape, and a kind of other, in both real and idealized terms, Huber explores how Tibetans have used the idea of India as a religious territory and a sacred geography in the development of their own religion and society. In a timely closing chapter, Huber also takes up the meaning of India for the Tibetans who live in exile in their Buddhist holy land.

The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans consider themselves “the child of Indian civilization” and that India is the “holy land” from whose sources the Tibetans have built their own civilization. What explains this powerful allegiance to India?

This book had a long, slow gestation, and its birth owes a lot to many different people.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration

Part One: Locating and Dislocating the Land of the Buddha
• 1 The Shifting Terrain of the Buddha
• 2 Buddhist Knowledge and Anachronism in Tibet
• 3 Journeying to the Centre of the World
• 4 Tantric Buddhist India and Its Tibetan Appropriation

Part Two: Reinventing the Holy Land in India
• 5 Nirvana in Assam
• 6 Return to the Centre of the World
• 7 The Allure of the Atsaras
• 8 The Precious Guru in the Punjab

Part Three: Modern Rebirths of the Holy Land
• 9 Archaeological and Discursive Rebirths of Buddhist India
• 10 Encountering the Modern Holy Land
• 11 Exile in the Land of the Buddha
Notes
Bibliography
-Tibetan Sources
-Sources in Other Languages
Index