The Buddhist epistemic complex: refiguring Buddhist territoriality in the Himalayan borderlands

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I draw attention to the refigured Buddhist networks in the Indian Himalayas that commenced after the closure of the Indo-Tibetan border, which previously afforded passage for traders, monks, peasants and pilgrims. As the new border regime restricted Himalayan Buddhist monks from travelling to Tibet for religious education, new Buddhist institutes came up with the support of the Indian state to fill the educational void. I argue that these modern Buddhist universities and their networks constitute a ‘Buddhist epistemic complex’, and conceptualise it as a border effect, since it followed in the wake of the deterritorialisation faced by Buddhist minorities in the Himalayas. Based on ethnographic work, this article offers a way to understand the strategies of accommodation of borderland Buddhists toward the Indian state that followed from historical and geopolitical factors.