Space, territory, and a stupa in Eastern Nepal : Exploring Himalayan themes and traces of Bon

Abstract

Recent research has adduced growing evidence for a distinct stratum of cultural practices that underlies various `tribal' traditions in the Himalayan region and that also seems to be characteristic of various local versions of the Bon tradition. Bon literature is not uncommonly embedded in cultural patterns that are more specifically Himalayan than belonging to the greater South Asian heritage. Two aspects of this that have received attention in Ramble's (1997) study of a Bon guide to the sacred Kong-po mountain (rKong-po bonri) are the symbolism of wild boar hunting involved in marriage rituals and poison cults with their corresponding beliefs about poisoning. Another pattern of cultural organization that may help better understand the Bon tradition against its Himalayan background is spatial conceptualization. The comparative analysis of indigenous conceptualizations of space, as manifested by both linguistic and nonlinguistic fbrms and practices, suggests that there are two basic traditions in the Himalayan region, often superimposed onto each other or blended together in various ways (Bickel and Gaenszle 1999). One type of space construction rests on the Indic mapdula tradition but ultimately reflects the ancient Indo-European equation of the cardinal directions with a bodily space defined by left and right and front and back (e.g. Skt. uttara `north, left, up', dokpt'na. `south, right', pu-rva `east, in front, before', and pas'ca `behind, later, western'; Old Irish tuath `left, north, malign', dess `right, south, convenient'; Hertz 1909, Brown 1983, Gaborieau 1993, Bickel 1994). The body-based notion of space brings with it an upldown trajectory as well as an insideloutside distinction (Bickel, in press-b) notions that are also core aspects of the mapdula. An essential characteristic of the mapdelaic conceptualization is that the concept of space is in itself detached from the local environment, but can be projected onto the environment, indeed onto any environment. This is different from spatial concepts that dominate language and cultural practice in much of the Tibeto-Burrnan world of the Himalayas. Here, space is INTRINSICALLY linked to the local landscape, taking as its base the up and down of hills and mountains. Rituals, shamanic journeys, and mythology emphasize these directions and bring with them a strong