Ritualizing a Transnational Tibetan Buddhist Network on the Mongol Steppe in the 1780s

This paper examines how Tibetan Buddhist rituals transcended linguistic and cultural barriers, and brought together monks and lay practitioners through highly formulaic ritual performances in Inner Asia in the late eighteenth century. I suggest that the inclusive nature of these rituals was essential to make religion a transnational power. For centuries, Tibetan Buddhism had been central to Tibetans in the Himalayas and Mongols on the Steppe, especially within the context of the expansive imperial power of Qing China (1644-1911). However, research on the Buddhists’ interactions with the Qing central state often focus on state policies towards Buddhist events and their patrons, which implies that the emperors in Qing China used Tibetan Buddhism to keep the Mongols at bay and leaves the imperial subjects silent. This paper considers rituals as a force of agency in the transnational Buddhist network as the Qing empire took shape territorially and culturally in the eighteenth century and suggests that rituals, as an embodied power, reify Tibetan Buddhism on the Mongol Steppe. Through examining several dozen ritual texts and ritual instructions (khrid yig) in the Tibetan language, Chinese official documents, and a rare collection of Mongolian letters (bicig), this paper shows how rituals served to create and sustain a sense of transnational Buddhist community through teaching about and performing rituals in two monasteries on the edge of the Qing empire. I consider that Buddhists at various imperial borderlands circulated and reconstructed knowledge about Buddhist rituals while circumventing the encroaching political authority of Qing China. Through exploring alternative ways of conceptualizing the relationship of Tibetan Buddhism to Qing China, I argue that rituals, as an analytical category, show how religion migrated across regions and culturally undermined Qing China’s imperial enterprise.