New Books In Buddhist Studies

Jacob Dalton‘s recent book, The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (Yale University Press, 2011), examines violence (both symbolic and otherwise) in Tibetan Buddhism. Dalton focuses in particular on the age of fragmentation (here 842-986 CE), and draws on previously unexamined Dunhuang manuscripts to show that this period was one of great creativity and innovation, and a time when violent myths and rituals were instrumental in adapting Buddhism to local interests, thereby allowing Buddhism to firmly establish itself in Tibet. While much twentieth-century scholarship faithfully followed Tibetan historiography’s assertion that the age of fragmentation was a dark time during which the light of Buddhism faded completely, Dalton not only confirms that Buddhism continued throughout this period, but also looks to the Dunhuang materials to show that it was in fact the age-of-fragmentation narratives of demon taming that laid the groundwork for the emergence of a new, pan-Tib