Book
The golden yoke: the legal cosmology of Buddhist Tibet
Cornell University Press • Ithaca • Published In 1995 • Pages:
By: French, Rebecca Redwood.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
A masterful work on Tibetan law based on interviews and case studies from court archives. The author shows how law codes and practice is embedded in Buddhist cosmological and moral system, in which, for example, beliefs in Karma factor into a judge's decision making. The author discusses the history of the Tibetan law codes, the cosmology of law, the practice and process of law, the legal bureaucracy, law in the countryside, and Tibetan reasoning about crime and punishment. The author concludes that a world view based on cosmological integration, radical particularity and moral self-regulation profoundly shapes and affects legal practice in Tibet. FOr example, the legal code is used more as a guide to decision making, the arm of the law is short, and there is a lack of finality and closure in cases.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Legal norms
- Crime
- Sanctions
- Offenses against life
- Property offenses
- Trial procedure
- Cosmology
- Theological systems
- Prophets and ascetics
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Tibetans
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2010
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Central Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard; 2009
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1981-1994
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1940-1959
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- central Tibet
- NotesAdditional notes
- Rebecca Redwood French
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [371]-388) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 95019360
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Law--China--Tibet
- Customary law--China--Tibet
- Ethnological jurisprudence
- Tibet (China)--Social life and customs