The view from Dolanji

 

Tonpa Shenrab, supposed founder
of the Bon religion
Credit: Lishu Institute

So I´ve been browsing the web after (free) information on Bon or Bön, a fairly obscure minority religion in Tibet and adjacent regions of Nepal. It´s also represented in the Tibetan diaspora. One article I found, unfortunately written in rather bad English, is titled "Contemporary Bönpo Community in Tibetan Refugee Camps" by Anna Szymoszyn, originally published in the journal Ethnologia Polona in 2017. The Polish author has carried out extensive field work in India and Nepal. 

Bon or Bön is a religion resembling the Tibetan form of Buddhism, but considered to be a heretical sect by many adherents of the latter. It´s historical development seems difficult to sort out, and the term "Bon" has been used for both the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet and for later Buddhist-derived groups. Bon is practiced by a a small minority of Tibetans both in Chinese-controlled Tibet and by Tibetan refugees in India. It´s also practiced by small groups in Mustang and Dolpo, two areas in Nepal inhabited by ethnic groups related to, but distinct from, the Tibetans. 

The current status of Bon is complex. In Mustang and Dolpo, Bon is intertwined with two Tibetan Buddhist traditions, Sakya in Mustang and Nyingma in Dolpo. For instance, the same family may send some of its children to Buddhist monasteries, and others to Bon ditto. Bon-pos may celebrate Tibetan Buddhist holidays or worship Buddhist deities. However, it seems that the syncretism is one-sided: Bon families syncretize their minority religion with Buddhism, whereas Buddhist families usually don´t practice Bon-derived traditions. And while traditional discrimination is less strong today, the Bon are still poor and underpriviliged, being a minority within a minority (since Tibetan-related ethnic groups are in their turn underpriviliged in Nepal as a whole). 

In the Tibetan diaspora, the Dalai Lama has "promoted" Bon to the position of an officially recognized "school of Tibetan spirituality". Most Bon refugees from Tibet live in the village of Dolanji in northern India, which was built specifically for the purpose of  settling all Bon-pos in the same location, thereby making it easier to preserve their religion. To gain more traction (and more outside financial support), the local authorities in Dolanji started to recruit Bon children from Mustang and Dolpo to the schools in the village. 

The respective ethnic identities of these children are de-emphasized in favor of both a pan-Tibetan identity and a religious one as Bon-pos. To attract more donor money from the West, the children from Nepal are virtually passed off as Tibetans, even changing their names to more Tibetan-sounding ones. Bon followers in Mustang and Dolpo have no problem sending their children to India, since this gives them a chance to become educated, and also protected them from being kidnapped by the Maoist guerillas during Nepal´s civil war (the Maoists operated in Mustang and Dolpo). The author believes that many Bon-po children in Dolanji are really multi-cultural, since they are (of course) also influenced by broader cultural trends in India and globally. 

I have previously linked to documentaries about Mustang and Dolpo on YouTube, and also read about Mustang´s role in the Tibetan guerilla struggle against China, so I did find this short article somewhat interesting. More to follow about this topic next week?