Lamas and Followers: Doing Tibetan Buddhism in Contemporary Chengdu

This thesis investigates the contemporary practice of Tibetan Buddhism in Chengdu, a major Han Chinese populated city in southwestern China. Rather than viewing Tibetan Buddhism as a tradition passively received or consumed by Han Chinese, this ethnographic study examines how Chengdu-based followers and Tibetan lamas actively co-produce the space, authority, and affect of Tibetan Buddhism in urban life. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2023 across domestic, monastic, and communal settings, the thesis analyses three key dynamics: the spatial transformation of Tibetan Buddhist practices from monasteries to urban homes; the reconfiguration of religious authority through the ambulation of Tibetan lamas and hosting practices of both lamas and followers; and the cultivation of affect through embodied, material, and sensory engagements termed “heartscape.” Framed through a processual lens of “do-ing religion,” this study foregrounds the relational, spatial, and affective mechanisms that sustain and transform Han–Tibetan religious interactions. By centring Chengdu as both a religious and social landscape shaped by economic growth, population movement, infrastructure development, and state policy that reconfigures religious and cultural industries as developmental resources, the thesis contributes to broader debates on religious revival, ethnic relations, and urban religiosity in post-reform China. This study challenges conventional binaries of modernization versus tradition and moves beyond analytical frameworks centred on the sinicization of religion. It instead shows the contemporary practice of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese followers emerges as a process of spatial, relational, and experiential reconfiguration that responds to China’s specific socio-political conditions while maintaining recognizable continuity with Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Overall, this thesis contributes to current scholarship by conceptualizing how Han Chinese followers and Tibetan Buddhist masters (re)make and (co)produce Tibetan Buddhism in Chengdu. It offers a practice-oriented, spatially attentive, affectively informed analysis of the contemporary Han Chinese engagements in Tibetan Buddhism.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Luo, Fuyuan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chau, Adam Yuet

• Tibetan Buddhism
• China
• Religion
• Sichuan

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/09873b93-1f75-4e58-9c36-393751b221fa/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.125262

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/395913