Rethinking Treasure: New Perspectives on the gter ma Traditions of Tibet

A distinctive feature of Tibetan religion is its tradition of ‘Treasure discovery’ (gter ma), in which prophesied individuals reveal hidden treasures of sacred texts, sacred objects, and sundry other items, concealed in the landscape, the elements, or even the mind. Much of Tibet’s most influential religious literature is revealed in this way, so the Treasure traditions have attracted considerable academic interest. Why and how did this unique tradition arise? Early scholars tried to explain it predominantly as a device for religious innovation that drew on the pre-Buddhist burial cults of the ancient emperors, but neither of these propositions now remain entirely tenable. By contrast, many more salient features have so far remained under explored: gter ma’s dense intersections with the cosmologies of Tibet's non-elite indigenous ‘nameless’ religion; its cultural interconnectedness with the contemporaneous textual revelatory traditions of the non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir; the efforts of early gter ma apologists to present it as a continuation of the Indian traditions of nidhi, including the nidhiśāstra materials shared by Śaiva and Buddhist tantrists in India; the widespread adaptation of Mahāyāna narrative tropes of prophesied dharmabhāṇakas that characterised much early Tibetan tradition-building; and more. This course will present materials from a book in progress that rethinks the nature and origins of gter ma.