How do we make sense of suffering and illness? How can renunciation be understood in the midst of illness in the Tibetan Buddhist context? This thesis argues that according to the hagiographies and ritual texts of the Nun Palmo tradition, written and compiled by the lineage-holders of the practices of a tenth or early eleventh century Kashmirian or Indian Buddhist nun who contracted leprosy, and the canonical texts attributed to her, struggle is necessary for liberation. Struggle in the form of illness results in renunciation and reconceptualization of worldly identity, setting a course (through a fasting ascetic-devotional practice) of a healing and teaching within the world associated with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Findings from ethnographic work in Nepal and Tibet and works by Simone Weil, Ariel Glucklick, David Bakan, and others supplement textual analyses.; The Introduction discusses how the texts are a source of understanding some of the patterns of doctrinal concerns and practices, especially in terms of illness, ritual, and gender, throughout the late eleventh century to the present day. Chapter One discusses the possible identity of Nun Palmo, the historiographic value of the texts, and provides a synopsis of the hagiographies. Chapter Two examines the language of illness in the texts. Illness was a religious experience and a metaphorical tool in order to transmit Buddhist teachings about impermanance and renunciation. Leprosy revealed its karmatic etiology, the sexual connotation of the condition, the connection between the body and societal ideas of purity, gender biases, and perhaps pre-Buddhist concerns about "demons." Through fragmentation, leprosy violated several boundaries with its excrescences, its de-genderizing, and de-humanizing effects and yet, in the texts, it was a step forward in the direction of purification and redemption. It acted as a catalyst for transformation of old ways of thinking and being, a deconstruction of the conception of a permanent self and attachment to sam&dotbelow;sara.; Chapter Three examines the structure of the rituals in the texts and contemporary practices in Nepal and Tibet. Chapter Four discusses the goal of the texts as aversion (nges `byung) or renunciation, an ascetic process. Asceticism is one of both denial (of old ways of thinking) and affirmation (re-embodiment). The re-embodiment of Nun Palmo (shedding her leprosy) as a bodhisattva and other figures also reinforces a positive view of the female body, an idea valued in modern practices in Nepal and Tibet with the majority of Tibetan women performing and organizing this ritual, and retelling her story. Hymns of praise and visualizations directed to Avalokitesvara draw attention to the process of transformation, healing, and compassion.; On the whole, rituals and the experience of illness act together to complete the process of transformation. When transformation and the stigma that results are so graphic and extreme, does illness become a medicine. Reminiscent of tantric ideas of transformation, poison is transformed into a nectar.
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