So Close to Heaven The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas

by CROSSETTE, BARBARA

• ISBN13: 9780679743637
• ISBN10: 0679743634
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-06-25
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

For more than a thousand years Tibet, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Bhutan were the santuaries of Tantric Buddhism. But in the last half of this century, geopolitics has scoured the landscape of the Himalayas, and only the reclusive kingdom of Bhutan remains true to Tantric Buddhism. As she travels through Bhutan and its neighbots, Crossette introduces readers to a world that has emerged from the middle ages only to find itself peering into the abyss of modernity.

Author Biography

Barbara Crossette, who joined the New York Times in 1973, spent seven years as a correspondent in Asia, and is now UN bureau chief. She was a Fulbright Professor of Journalism in India and has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and at Princeton University. She won the 1991 George Polk Award for foreign reporting. She lives in New York City and Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

And Then There Was One

The Druk Gyalpo

Becoming Buddha

Before Tibet, There Was Bon

The Road from Lumbini

Ladakh: Eclipsed by Other Gods

Sikkim: “No One Heard Us Cry”

Buddhist Nepal

Buddha and the Bhutanese State

The Dragon People

All Sentient Beings

Aum Rinzi’s World

Two Capitals, Two Eras

To Tashigang

One Sunday in Bumthang An Afterthought

A Glossary of Common Words

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