The Dynamics of Authority: Tibetan Buddhist Ritual Performance at Rumtek

Abstract

This ethnomusicology research examines Tibetan Buddhist ritual performance at Rumtek Monastery belonging to the Karma bka' brgyud order, Sikkim, India. It considers how participants view 'mind' as the main element of their ritual performance. Using data from one year's fieldwork, I analysed musical scores, ritual manuals, and ritual performances. I interviewed participants to find out how they perceive their mind interacting with other elements including the movements of body and speech in ritual performance. I argue that the dynamics of authority constructed by the networks of ritual and music during these performances, in the monastic and lay communities, are the methods to transform the pratitioners' contaminated minds and to reveal their inner authority, Buddha nature. Previous research in this field focused more on theoretical and top-down explanations. This thesis fills the gap by comparing: the textual performance with the ritual and behavioural performance; the theoretical structure with the practical and dynamic performance; the entirety with the individuals; the outer performance with the inner performance; the cases of masters with the cases of ordinary practitioners. This research proposes a theory of Tibetan Buddhist ritual performance consisting of musical characteristics and religious meanings. It also investigates the cultural logic within the ideological and emotional perspectives of the communities. The rituals discussed include group and individual rituals performed by the monks and by laypeople. The information collected on musical scores and ritual manuals reveals surface and deep musical structures and techniques reflecting the performance's religious meanings. I interviewed participants to ascertain a general and specific understanding of rituals in relation to their beliefs and experiences, and their evaluation of the efficacy of ritual performance. Ethnographic writing is the way to show cultural meanings through the creation and communication of these ritual performances. The theories of analysis in linguistics and semiotics, performance and performativity, reception and emotion, and musical semiotics and analysis are adopted to discuss the interaction between humans and deities in actual practice based on signs and the identification of the musical theory of ritual. In the process of institutionalisation, the authority of the monastic community has been legitimised by the regulated and repeated textual, behavioural, and ritual performances. The monastic community bases their musical and ritual authority on the networks of ritual performance. Through performance, the monastic community connects this world with the Buddhist pure land for the purposes of practice, karma, and worldly wishes. In addition to the richness of ritual music for offering to deities, the non-duality of method and wisdom are embodied in the musical performance. The cultural logic of ritual performance illustrates that the main element in rituals is 'mind'. The outer and the inner performances are constructed by signs in chanting music, instrumental music, and visualisation. Practitioners constructing the seeming reality, which is interdependent on signs within their mind or the world, is a method used to deconstruct the seeming reality and to realise emptiness. Their evaluation of efficacy is based on faith and a belief in karma. Their assessment of future possibility satisfies their emotions. Show more