Abstract
The epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been in the headlines since December 2019. This Think Piece presents ethnographic vignettes from a recent (February 2020) field visit to Dharamsala, where the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and a Tibetan exile community reside in the northwestern Indian Himalayas. At that time there were no COVID-19 cases in India except in Kerala, South India, which had three confirmed cases. There were no cases in Tibetan communities in India, but they were considered vulnerable because of the influx of Buddhist pilgrims from China. My ethnographic focus is on traditional Tibetan medical responses of prevention and conceptions of contagion prior to any outbreak. I explore what counts as prevention, protection, and contagion in a Tibetan medical public outreach context during pre-epidemic days, and how politics and fear of ‘the other’ merge with the preventive aspects of traditional medicinal products and public health announcements in Dharamsala. Taken together, these ethnographic vignettes illustrate how local epidemic imaginaries draw on complex webs of potency. These combine, for example, substances and their smells with mantras, protective oils, and facemasks in varied ways, all in an effort to reduce anxiety and prevent contagion.
Highlights
These notes from the field cover a short window of twelve days (7–19 February 2020)
What counts as medicine, and why? Who is in charge of epidemic imaginaries? How does an emerging epidemic change medical or religious notions and definitions of efficacy? And from what platforms will traditional medical systems in Asia – and Tibetan medicine (Sowa Rigpa) in India – be permitted to contribute preventive and therapeutic measures based on their traditions? This Think Piece shows how contested traditional and biomedical knowledge systems merge together in public health efforts and how these processes may be curtailed and sidelined by biomedical hegemonies
Thubten Püntsok’s criticism, as such, is exceptional among Tibetan physicians in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), who in general are actively getting ready to alleviate symptoms of COVID-19 through their long-standing formulas, as well as through reformulations (Tidwell, forthcoming). This vignette ends on 19 February, when the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Kangra district ordered two clinics (MTK and Dr Kalsang Dhonden’s clinic) to stop distributing rimsung pills because they were causing anxiety and panic among the people at a time when there are no positive COVID-19 cases in the state, let alone in the district (Kelzang Chinpa 2020)
Summary
These notes from the field cover a short window of twelve days (7–19 February 2020). They document medical responses by Tibetans in Dharamsala to an unfolding epidemic at a time with no confirmed cases in the region. The combined use of mantras, amulets, strong-smelling pills to be worn around one’s neck, oilbased nostril applications, wearing facemasks, and (social) media presentations on public health measures based on World Health Organization (WHO) and Tibetan medical episteme of contagion and protection raise a number of questions.
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