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Article: Secular morality, village law, and Buddhism in Tibetan societies.
- Article from:
- Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
- Article date:
- March 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Royal Anthropological Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Many anthropological studies of Tibetan (1) communities place the practices and principles of Buddhism at the heart of their analyses of social forms. This is entirely consistent with the idea which is promoted by Tibetan elites and accepted by most of the laity that religious principles are of universal and encompassing significance. Such principles include moral schemes, most notably the 'three poisons' of anger, jealousy, and ignorance said to underlie all immoral behaviour. In this article I describe a Ladakhi community in which the people are strong adherents of Tibetan Buddhism and have unequivocally accepted the idea of karma but who do not regard their religion as ...