Despite several works published by foreign and Bhutanese authors over the past two decades, Bon practices in Bhutan remains an understudied subject. Here we are not talking about the Yundrung Bon, or “organized Bon,” with its monastic setup, but about what the Bhutanese call Bon, or Bon chos, a series of beliefs and rituals directed to propitiate mundane gods and spirits that inhabit the landscape and, if pleased, bring prosperity to a community. In the Himalayan world, this Bon has been defined by scholars as “nameless religion,” “folk religion,” or “pagan religion.” Because of the contempt and even hostility in which these practices have been held by the official clergy in Bhutan, they have rarely been talked about, much less studied, and are generally confined to remote areas of the country. However, over the last twenty years, the importance of Bon beliefs, also called “local beliefs,” in the preservation...

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