John Vincent Bellezza. Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet. A Historical and Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Monuments, Rock Art, Texts, and Oral Tradition of the Ancient Tibetan Upland. Denkschriften der phil.-hist. Klasse 368. Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens 61. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
841 pp. € 129.20. ISBN 978-3-7001-6046-5 (Print), ISBN 978-3-7001-6150-9 (Digital).
There is more to this remarkable work than even the blurb suggests (“Based on a field survey project of twelve years duration, the morphological, constructional, mythological and cross-cultural traits of the region’s visible archaeological wealth are described in detail… Zhang Zhung has pioneered the application of empirical evidence to gauge the historicity and significance of Tibetan Bon sources.”) When I glimpsed it on a coffee table in Kathmandu last week, the owners volunteered the story behind the story.
Last year I had the fortune to cross paths with Mr. Belezza [pictured] at a slightly unusual event: the installation of a gilt pennant (patāka) atop the Kumari House in Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu. Unusual, in this case, because the sponsor of the whole shebang — the manufacture, inscribing, musically-accompanied delivery, consecration, and final hanging from the roof — was a non-Newar who is writing a book on the State (formerly: ‘Royal’) Kumari of Kathmandu. More on that later; for now, let’s just note that this was one occasion on which it was made clear, abundantly so, that Newar society and its Buddhism is by no means off-limits to all outsiders. And Mr. Belezza was among the numerous foreigners present on that day, along with some 300 kumārīs and their relatives, watching and asking thoughtful questions on the historical origins of tantric practice. The questions focused on the very earliest strata of tantrism; they were tied to his larger curiosity about the origins of Himalayan culture.
At the time I had little inkling of the vast scale of the project, the scope and detail of which is laid out elegantly in this dense book. But the coffee-table owners told me something that I had no idea about at all. You see, this field survey of countless remote corners of the Tibetan plateau was, apparently, done largely on foot. That’s right: walked. And while the benefits of this approach are plain — one simply sees and notices more — the book is all the more impressive for seeking results which are harder-won, but qualitatively superior.