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Podcast: New Books in Buddhist Studies
Episode: Carl S. Yamamoto, “Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Politics of Charisma in Twelfth-Century Tibet” (Brill, 2012)
Description: Lama Zhang, the controversial central figure in Carl S. Yamamoto‘s new book may or may not have participated in animal sacrifice, sneezed out a snake-like creature, and engaged in other acts of putative sorcery early in his life. What we can say about this fascinating character, however, is that he was a powerful military and political figure who sustained a community through the “multidimensional mastery” of time, space, and discourse. Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Politics of Charisma in Twelfth-Century Tibet (Brill, 2012) uses Lama Zhang to explore a key moment in Central Tibetan history, the medieval Buddhi...