Medicine Between Science and Religion

There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.

There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.

List of Illustrations
List of Figures and Maps
Acknowledgements
Notes on Transliteration
Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Chapter 1. Medicine in Translation between Science and Religion
Vincanne Adams, Mona Schrempf and Sienna R. Craig

PART I: HISTORIES OF TIBETAN MEDICAL MODERNITIES

Chapter 2. Biomedicine in Tibet at the Edge of Modernity
Alex McKay

Chapter 3. Tibetan Medicine and Russian Modernities
Martin Saxer

PART II: PRODUCING SCIENCE, TRUTH AND MEDICAL MORALITIES

Chapter 4. Navigating ‘Modern Science’ and ‘Traditional Culture’: The Dharamsala Men-Tsee-Khang in India
Stefan Kloos

Chapter 5. A Tibetan Way of Science: Revisioning Biomedicine as Tibetan Practice
Vincanne Adams, Rinchen Dhondup and Phuoc Le

Chapter 6. Correlating Biomedical and Tibetan Medical Concepts in Amchi Medical Practice
Barbara Gerke

PART III: THERAPEUTIC RITUALS AND SITUATED CHOICES

Chapter 7. Between Mantra and Syringe: Healing and Health-Seeking Behaviour in Contemporary Amdo
Mona Schrempf

Chapter 8. The Extension of Obstetrics In Ladakh
Kim Gutschow

Chapter 9. From Empowerments to Power Calculations: Notes on Efficacy, Value, and Method
Sienna R. Craig

PART IV: RESEARCH IN TRANSLATION

Chapter 10. Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methodology in Tibetan Medicine: History, Background, and Development of Research in Sowa Rigpa
Mingji Cuomu

Chapter 11. The Four Tantras and the Global Market: Changing Epistemologies of Drä (’bras) versus Cancer
Olaf Czaja

Chapter 12. Re-integrating the Dharmic Perspective in Bio-Behavioural Research of a Tibetan Yoga Intervention (tsalung trükhor) for People with Cancer
M. Alejandro Chaoul

Epilogue

Chapter 13. Towards a Sowa Rigpa Sensibility
Geoffrey Samuel

Index