A decade after publishing Historical Research on the Tibetan Buddhist World, Waseda University professor Yumiko Ishihama presents another exceptional work contributing to the ongoing discussions on Qing China in relation to the Tibetan Buddhist world. Ishihama has consistently focused on the Tibetan Buddhist world, including Tibetans, Mongols, and Manchus (p. 331), a “network transgressing geographical and ethnic boundaries that took shape at the turn of the eighteenth century” (p. 253).1 Consulting comprehensive sources in Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian, and Manchu, she offers refreshing insights into eighteenth-century Qing China from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective.
The book challenges conventional approaches to the Qing-Tibetan Buddhism relation. Those approaches center on Qing court activities and consider Tibetan Buddhism as merely a political tool to mollify the Mongols. Ishihama focuses on the Tibetan Buddhist world instead, including stupas (chapter 1), monasteries (chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6), rituals (chapter 7), and the production of...
