1 - Achieving Peace through Timely Violence: Tantric Rituals during Ladakh's Royal New Year

Orientalist and philological discourses idealize Buddhism as an inherently passivist worldview rooted in solitary meditation and intellectual reflection.  Buddhist violence problematizes these stereotypical representations.  It is common for ethnographers working in Tantric Buddhist societies to observe collective rituals invoking violent actions, symbols, and material objects.  We find that ritualized violence plays a vital role in how Buddhists view conflict resolution and strive to maintain cordial relations with non-human spirit agents.  In my paper, I examine a case study of wrathful rituals Buddhists in Ladakh enact during the tantric ceremony of Dosmoche held during the Royal New Year.  Drawing on fieldwork data I gathered combined with textual sources, I focus on the monastic production of thread-crosses (mdos) during Dosmoche.  Monks ritually produce thread-crosses to capture, purify, and slay nefarious spirits of human and non-human origins. These thread-cross traditions employ ritualized violence to establish peaceful foundations for the new year.  Based on my ethnographic work with ritual actors and participants, I argue that these practices are time-indexed.   The timing of violence is not arbitrary.  Instead, cultural and religious views of temporality—articulated by intersecting narrative, astrological, and medicinal traditions-—inform the mechanics of and rational for ritualized violence.  Specific times necessitate the use of violence for the sake of maintaining social solidarity, fostering harmonious relations with spirt beings, and ensuring personal health and longevity.  This case study demonstrates how ethnographers of Tantra must remain attentive to how and why violence is time-indexed within the context of collective rituals.