On the margins

 

"A Minority Within a Minority: Being Bonpo in the Tibetan Community in Exile" is a dissertation by Yu-Shan Liu, a Taiwanese anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. I found it free of charge on the web at "Academia.edu". I read about half of it and skimmed the rest. The author carried out fieldwork in Dolanji, a settlement of Tibetan refugees in Himachal Pradesh, India. Dolanji is a unique settlement in that virtually all of the 2000 inhabitants are Bon-pos or Bön-pos, adherents of the non-Buddhist Bon or Bön religion, rather than Buddhists. The point of the field work was to study how this "minority within a minority" (only about 2% of the Tibetan refugees are Bon-pos) create, recreate and negotiate its identity in relation to the Tibetan Buddhist refugee majority (which is itself a small minority in India).  A funny detail is that I originally assumed Yu-Shan Liu was male, so at first I was surprised to learn that "he" spent considerable time in the kitchen with the women learning to make Tibetan food! 

The author says relatively little about the Bon religion itself, probably because that really isn´t her area of expertise. I suspect this obscure and slightly enigmatic belief-system creates problems even for Western scholars devoted to study it! The short story is that Bon resembles Tibetan Buddhism, but is nevertheless regarded as a separate religion by both adherents and outsiders. The Bon-pos themselves claim that Bon is far older than Buddhism and was practiced in Tibet long before Buddhism was introduced from India. They associate Bon with Zhangzhung, an ancient kingdom in Western Tibet of which very little is known from "real" historical sources. The Bon-pos interviewed by the author identified Zhangzhung very explicitly with a portion of Tibet, and apparently believed that the Bon "buddha" Tonpa Shenrab lived there, whereas Western scholars speculate either that Zhangzhung was far larger or that Bon originally came from elsewhere, perhaps from the Swat valley or Central Asia. To Bon-pos, by contrast, it´s very important to place the origins of Bon in Tibet itself, indeed Tibet "proper" rather than some peripheral region. This is obviously because of their Tibetan ethnicity and Tibetan nationalist discourse. 

The exact number of Bon followers is unknown, but the usual estimate is that only a few percent of the total Tibetan population are Bon-pos. When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, the Abbot of Menri - the head of the Bon religion - soon followed suit. The Menri monastery was then refounded in India. Since Bon is outwardly similar to Tibetan Buddhism, most laypeople (at least until recently) didn´t really understand the differences between the two religions. Originally, regional identities were more important for the Bon refugees in India than their religious identity (or pan-Tibetan nationhood, for that matter). Still today, the neighborhoods in Dolanji are based on what region of Tibet the refugees originally hailed from. By contrast, the monks - both Bon and Buddhist - are very well aware of the differences. In exile, the monks had to "create" both a specific and homogenous Bon identity among the refugees, while also somehow incorporate this Bon identity into the wider Tibetan nationalist discourse. 

When the Tibetan government in exile was established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in India, the Bon-pos were originally excluded from participation. Tibetan nationalism was exclusively Buddhist. In 1977, the Dalai Lama finally changed course and recognized the Bon-pos as "Insiders", granting them one seat in the Tibetan exile parliament. Tibetan Muslims and Christians are still excluded. The Bon-pos seem to have a somewhat ambivalent status within the Tibetan nation-in-exile. Traditionally, only Buddhists have been seen as "Insiders", but since 1977, Bon followers have the strange distinction of being both "Insiders" and non-Buddhists (thus, the Dalai Lama does *not* regard Bon as a form of Buddhism, as often erroneously stated in Western sources). This is reflected in Bon discourse, which simultaneously both emphasizes the special character of Bon and its role in pan-Tibetan nationalism, indeed, Bon is put forward as a kind of super-nationalism as the "original" religion of the Tibetans. 

It´s interesting to note that while the Bon identity centers on religion, it does seem to have a kind of quasi-ethnic component, since the monks are strongly emphasizing the connection between current Bon and the ancient land of Zhangzhung, which is then recast as a pre-Buddhist version of Tibet. For instance, Bon "researchers" have discovered that the Kinnaur people, who live in a different part of Himachal Pradesh, speak "the Zhangzhung language", and dancers from this ethnic group therefore participate in Dolanji festivals (interestingly, older Bon-pos in the settlement don´t get any of it and often leave during the Kinnaur dances). There does seem to be a potential tension between the Bon identity, especially in this quasi-ethnic form, and the pan-Tibetan identity. Indeed, the Chinese government seems to have spotted this, and promotes Bon at the expense of Buddhism in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (China-controlled Tibet). Zhangzhung was conquered by the Tibetan Buddhist Yarlung dynasty during the Early Middle Ages, so if Bon could be connected to a "Zhangzhung" ethnicity, this could be turned against Tibetan nationalism and split it apart. I assume that only the small size of the Bon community precludes the Chinese from playing this card even harder. 

Dolanji seem to enjoy a somewhat autonomous status within the structures of the Tibetan exile government. Ironically, the reason seems to be the earlier discrimination against the Bon. Being marginalized by the Central Tibetan Authority, the Bon-pos turned to a Catholic relief organization (sic) and with its help established Dolanji as an exclusively Bon enclave. If I understand the author correctly, the land in Dolanji is owned by the Bon-pos themselves, not by the Tibetan or Indian authorities, and the official representing the exile government is also elected locally. There seems to be a certain amount of "diplomacy" between the Dolanji leadership, including the Abbot, and the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. The Tibetan leader visited the settlement during the author´s stay, and interestingly enough held three quite different speeches to different audiences. For some reason, his "private" speech in front of the Menri monks was the most evasive! An additional problem for the Dalai Lama is that he isn´t just the political head of the Tibetan exile administration, but also the de facto spiritual leader of a specific Buddhist sect, Geluk. Purists within Geluk might not like too many concessions to Bon. 

One issue not touched upon in the dissertation is the role of Western "converts" to Bon. How do they influence the creation and recreation of Bon identity? Some Western scholars who study Bon seem to be pro-Bon or even Bon-pos themselves. John Myrdhin Reynolds seems to have recieved "empowerments" from both Bon and the Tibetan Buddhist sect Nyingma! The question seems pertinent (but perhaps sensitive) since I get the impression that these scholars locate the origins of Bon far outside Western Tibet and hence have a potentially "anti-nationalist" take on the religion. 

With that, I end this little discussion.