Glossary

Caste is a traditional system of social division in India and Nepal. The English word “caste” combines two Indic concepts. “Varna” refers to an ancient fourfold division of occupations into priests (brahmins), warriors, farmers, and laborers. In Nepal, the caste system is unique and applies to both Hindu and Buddhists. Like the Hindu brahmins, Buddhist Vajracharya priests and Shakyas are considered the highest caste among the Buddhists, with similar correlations to other social occupational groups. Udas or Uray caste is formed by hereditary merchants and artisans. They are known for their part in the development of industry, trade, arts and culture, and the trade with Tibet. The other ethnic groups traditionally existed largely outside of caste. The caste system was officially abolished in Nepal in 1963.  

Confucianism refers to the teachings of Confucius (559–479 BCE), a philosopher, ritualist, and political advisor who lived in eastern China. Confucius and his disciples stressed the importance of filial piety, ritual correctness, moral governance, and propriety in human relationships. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279), a version of Confucius’s teachings called “Neo-Confucianism” became the dominant ideology in China, and government officials were selected based on competitive exams on Neo-Confucian philosophy until 1905. At a popular level, “Confucianism” often refers to Chinese traditions of filial piety and ancestor veneration, many of which blended elements of Daoism and Buddhism.

The Cultural Revolution was a political and social movement in communist China from 1966 to 1976. During this time, traditional culture across all of China came under violent attack, and almost all religious institutions were shut down and many were physically destroyed. In minority areas, ethnic differences and indigenous cultural practices, such as use of Tibetan language or dress, were seen as backward and subject to persecution, adding an additional racial dimension. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans fled to India or Nepal, and many Himalayan artworks were destroyed or scattered abroad.

Dual rulership is a Tibetan political theory, in which secular and religious power are fused in the same government, similar to the Western idea of a theocracy. The Tibetan Ganden Podrang government, with the Dalai Lamas at the head, can be understood as a dual-rulership system. Dual rulership can contrast with a priest-patron or cho-yon relationship.

The Eight Great Events are eight scenes from the life of Buddha Shakyamuni that became a standard part of his iconography in India and Nepal. The eight events are:

1. The birth of the Buddha
2. His awakening (enlightenment)
3. His first sermon
4. A monkey offers him honey
5. He tames a wild elephant
6. Descending from the Heaven of the Thirty-Gods
7. Defeating heretical sects by miraculous displays
8. The Buddha’s death (Skt. parinirvana)

In the Mongol Empire, households were organized into thousands (chiliarchies) and ten-thousands (myriarchies). These social groupings would then be required to provide units of warriors for the Mongol armies.

Pakpa script, or Mongol square script, was invented in 1270 by Drogon Chogyel Pakpa (1235–1280 CE), a Tibetan lama and leader of the Sakya tradition who served as imperial preceptor to the Mongol emperor Qubilai Khan (1215–1294). In 1271, Qubilai decreed it the official script of the empire, and that all officials had to learn it, and be referred to as the Mongol script. The Pakpa script adapts the letters of the Tibetan alphabet, squared off to be written vertically, in order that they could be placed alongside the Uygur-based Mongolian and Chinese scripts, both of which were written top-to-bottom. The Pakpa script was intended to be a universal alphabet for all the languages of the Mongol Empire, and employed on official documents, monuments, and passports.

A practice of hiring and commissioning artists to create works of art. In religious context patrons were often rulers, religious leaders, as well as ordinary people. (see also donor)

Proto-Sharada script is the earliest form of the Sharada script, which was used in medieval Kashmir to write Sanskrit and Kashmiri. The Proto-Sharada script is attested in a few manuscripts and inscriptions from northern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan from the first millennium CE.

Ranjana, sometimes known by its Tibetan pronunciation “lantsa,” is one of several scripts used in Nepal to write Nepalese and Sanskrit. Tibetans and Mongols often use Ranjana as a decorative script to write Sanskrit mantras and dharanis.

Sanskrit is an ancient language used in India. An early member of the Indo-European language family, Sanskrit was the language of the ancient Vedas in the second millennium BCE. Over millennia, Sanskrit ceased to be used as a spoken language, but it continued as the main literary language of India until the modern era. The Mahayana and Vajrayana canons were originally written in Sanskrit. Today, Sanskrit continues to be studied as a liturgical language among Hindus and Newari Buddhists, and Sanskrit-language mantra and dharani are chanted in rituals all across the Buddhist world.

The Tibetan script is used to write the Tibetan language, as well as several other smaller Himalayan languages. Based on the Brahmi script used in the Gupta Empire in India, the Tibetan script was developed under the Tibetan Empire in the seventh century and is credited to minister Tonmi Sambhota (b. 619?). Two important forms of the Tibetan script are “Uchen” (Tib. “having a head”), a standard type used in printed texts, and “Umey” (Tib. “headless”), a cursive form sometimes used in manuscripts. There are many other cursive and decorative forms of the script.