Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings
Illuminated manuscripts from The White Beryl of Sangs-rgyas rGya-mtsho with the Moonbeams of treatise of Lo-chen Dharmásrī
Commentary and translations by Gyurme Dorje
Postage will be calculated at checkout
Description
Elemental divination is an intricate Tibetan system of calculations based on the five elements: wood, fire, earth, iron and water. Drawing on Chinese, Indian and Tibetan traditions, the practice was used to make predictions and thus guide decisions across all aspects of life.
The system is explained in The White Beryl, a 17th-century treatise by Desi Sangye Gyatso, the renowned polymath and regent to the Fifth and Sixth Dalai Lamas. In the following century, two magnificently illustrated manuscripts were then created to depict the practices described in The White Beryl, featuring exquisite representations of the zodiac of Indian astrology and elaborate charts used in Chinese elemental divination.
This scholarly publication reproduces both manuscripts along with a detailed and extensive commentary linking them to The White Beryl by Tibetologist Gyurme Dorje. Accompanying this is Dorje’s translation of Moonbeams, another treatise on Tibetan astrology by Lochen Dharmaśrī, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and scholar.
About the Author
Gyurme Dorje was a Scottish Tibetologist, translator and writer. After studying Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh, Dorje spent around a decade living among Tibetan communities in India and Nepal. Thereafter, he completed a PhD in Tibetan literature at SOAS, University of London, where he became a research fellow. He also wrote the Footprint travel guide Tibet Handbook and spent his later years translating major Tibetan Buddhist texts.
