Divinity Secularized: An Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama.

• Author: Guenther, Herbert
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

Divinity Secularized: An Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama. By PER K. SORENSEN. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, vol. 25. Vienna: ARBEITSKREIS FUR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITAT WIEN, 1990. Pp. 446. OS 480.

This meticulously researched study is devoted to one of the most remarkable personages in the history of the internecine strife between the secular and ecclesiastic factions of the Tibetan religious-political system of the seventeenth century, aided and abetted by internal and external forces. This person was the short-lived Sixth Dalai Lama Blo-bzang Rin-chen Tshangs-dbyangs rgya-mtsho (1683-1706), of whom it is unknown whether he died a natural death (after some illness) or was murdered. Similarly, his famous love songs may have been genuine poetic works by him or popular songs ascribed to him in a commonly used and politically motivated ruse to get rid of him.

After a short survey of the types of Tibetan songs, their stylistic forms and contents, largely modelled after the Indian kavya genre, the author lists the various editions of the sixty-six songs as a preamble to...