Samten Karmay

Samten G. Karmay (* 1936 in Amdo ) is a Tibetan author, Tibetologist and Emeritus Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS ). His special interest is Tibetan myths, the Bon religion and history.

Life

Samten G. Karmay spent the time between his eighth and the age of fourteen in a Bon monastery in Amdo. Then he made a three-year Dzogchen Retreat. At the age of twenty he became a Geshe degree and continue his studies he went to the Drepung Monastery. In 1959 he and his family fled from Tibet to India, where he worked for a time in Delhi before he was invited by David Snellgrove to England in the wake of a Rockefeller scholarship. From 1961 to 1964 Samten G. Karmay attended the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and received the degree of Master of Philosophy. With his work on the history of the Bon religion and the origins and development of Dzogchen in Tibetan Buddhism, he obtained a doctorate degree. In 1980, Samten G. Karmay to France and became a member of the CNRS. From 1996 to 2000 he was president of the International Association of Tibetan Studies ( IATS ), 2005 he was Numata Visiting Professor at the International Institute for Asian Studies ( IIAS ).

Works

• As editor with Jeff Watts: Bon, the Magic Word. The Indigenous Religion of Tibet. RMA, Rubin Museum of Art, among others, New York NY, inter alia, 2007, ISBN 978-0-85667-649-9.
• As Publisher: New Horizons in Bon Studies ( = Senri Ethnological Reports 15, ISSN 1340-6787 = Bon Studies 2 ). National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, 2000.
• The arrow and the spindle. Studies in history, myths, rituals and beliefs in Tibet. 2 vols. 1998-2005; Volume 1: Mandala Book Point, Kathmandu Kantipath 1998;
• Volume 2: Mandala Publishing, Kantipath Kathmandu 2005, ISBN 99946-5501-9.