Geoff Childs: Social Uses of the Words of the Buddha

Prof. Geoff Childs photographed villagers of Nubri, an ethnically Tibetan enclave in the highlands of Nepal, carring volumes of the Kanjur (Tib: bKa'-'gyur; the spoken word of the Buddha) on their backs. Membership in the community requires entrance into a tax system through the assumption of debt at the time a new household is formed. The annual interest on the cumulative household debts is used to fund rituals such as the Kanjur Festival. Each spring members of the community read all 108 volumes from cover to cover. Afterwards, they circumambulate the entire village, including the fields and communal pastures. One purpose is to symbolically secure the borders of the village from malevolent forces that lurk throughout the natural environment. In addition, the ritual is meant to enhance the growth of crops and the proliferation of cattle, as well as ensuring that the village will be free from disease and households will prosper in the coming year.

The photograph was taken while conducting ethnographic and demographic fieldwork in April, 1997.
For more details, see the following:

Childs, Geoff. Forthcoming. How to Fund a Ritual: The Social Usage of the Kanjur (bka'-'gyur) in a Tibetan Village. Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 8th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, ed. E. Sperling. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Childs, Geoff. 2001. Demographic Dimensions of an Inter-Village Land Dispute in Nubri, Nepal. American Anthropologist 103(4):1096-1113.