Tibetan remnant

"Bön in Dolpo" is a 2014 documentary about Dolpo, an area in northern Nepal, apparently part of a larger district somewhat confusingly called Dolpa. Due to its remoteness and traditional Tibetan culture, Dolpo (or was it Dolpa) has apparently become popular among Western film-makers and trekkers who want to visit an area that is still reminescent of ancient Tibet. It´s not clear why they don´t simply visit Bhutan! 

The language spoken in Dolpo, Thakali, is related to Tibetan. What really interests foreign visitors seems to be the religion, known as Bon or Bön. The term can refer to two very different things: the pre-Buddhist shamanic religion of Tibet (which may or may not be extinct - I honestly don´t know), and a much later breakaway group from Tibetan Buddhism. That tradition still exists in Dolpo. The problem is that the Buddhist off-shoot claims to be the original Bon (and hence much older than Buddhism), while nevertheless being obviously Vajrayana Buddhist in nature. The monks, the iconography, the philosophy, the Tantric and Dzogchen practice - it´s all the same. In Dolpo, Bonpos and Vajrayana Buddhists even worship together! 

The documentary is pro-Bon and therefore uncritically repeats the Bon mythology, according to which Bon is the most ancient religion in the world, and was the state religion of a pre-Tibetan empire called Zhangzhung (of which very little is really known). It also claims that the ethnic groups in Dolpo are the last survivors of Zhangzhung and that some still speak the Zhangzhung language. 

It seems Dolpo *is* important within today´s Bonpo community, since the religion can still be practiced freely there, in contrast to Chinese-controlled Tibet. All current "teaching texts" are said to come from Dolpo. I noticed that many Bon monks in this isolated region can speak tolerable English, suggesting of course that they were educated elsewhere, presumably in Kathmandu or even India (this is implied at one point in the documentary). The Dalai Lama has an ecumenical approach towards Bon, and is featured several times in this production as he makes Bon-friendly statements. 

Most of "Bön in Dolpo" is ethnography 101. We get to see Himalayan vistas, poor villages, Bon rituals, monks building a stupa, and so on. It´s not always that interesting, unless you are a hardline Tibetophile. The documentary claims that both the monks and the foreign doctors in the area are combining modern medicine with Ayurveda and traditional Tibetan medicine. There is also a school, but it´s unclear to me whether it teaches "real" subjects, or simply Bon religion and Ayurveda. Bizarrely, the school (named after the Bon master Tapriza) was set up with the aid of two Western women, an anthropologist and an conservationist! Another smaller school, started by a monk, also seems exclusively Bon-oriented.

"Bön in Dolpo" ends with expressing fear of Chinese influence in the region, since China wants to build a modern highway through the area. The government of Nepal has good relations with China, which is something of a problem for anti-Chinese Tibetans in Dolpo. 

There, the story ends. For now?