About this episode

The episode discusses Jue Liang's book on the literary tradition surrounding Yeshe Tsogyel, a key figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel (Oxford UP, 2026) is the first comprehensive study dedicated to the literary tradition surrounding Yeshe Tsogyel, revered as the foremost matron saint of Tibetan Buddhism. It traces the emergence and development of a rich body of narratives about Yeshe Tsogyel during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, focusing on the Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist tradition. Through careful textual analysis, the book constructs an emic (insider) Tibetan Buddhist theory of gender and female religious eminence, examining how Yeshe Tsogyel's multifaceted identities--as a devoted disciple, tantric consort, sky-goer (dakini), and spiritual mother--embody a dialectic that shifts back and forth between Tibetan women's social and cultural marginalization and a Buddhist discourse of soteriological inclusivity. Jue Liang queries these texts for their social and religious functions, especially where ambivalence and contradictions abound. However, these ambivalences do not necessarily disadvantage women in Tibetan Buddhism. Operating with ambivalent, sometimes competing, discourses on womanhood, Nyingma Buddhist…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Jue Liang

Topics covered

• Tibetan Buddhism
• gender studies
• literary tradition
• Yeshe Tsogyel
• Nyingma tradition

Keywords

• Tibetan Buddhism
• Yeshe Tsogyel
• gender
• literary analysis
• Nyingma

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Oxford UP

Books & works: Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel

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