Eric Haynie

I am a historian of religion focusing on the literature and history of Tibetan Buddhism. My current research project examines the formations of the Nyingma branch of Tibetan Buddhism in early modern Tibet and the contentious political, geographic, and ritual discourses that influenced them. I use the seventeenth century founding and history of Dzokchen Monastery, an important eastern Tibetan institution, as a topical focus for demonstrating how a diverse set of Buddhist actors and socioreligious dynamics shaped the assemblage of Buddhist tradition. Investigating the literary productions of a network of monks, lamas, and their patrons, I reveal how debates about ritual propriety, sacred geography, religious conflict, and expanding empires and kingdoms forged an institutionalized Nyingma in eastern Tibet. I scrutinize this historical moment by analyzing an archive of religious biographies, Tibetan historiographies, epistles, and ritual and liturgical compendia.

I am fascinated by debates about renunciation and asceticism both in the Tibetan Buddhist world and in a comparative religious frame. I have previously written about Buddhist contemplative retreat practices, their place in the Tibetan social milieu, and the rhetorics in which they are written in didactic and historical literature. I am also interested in the history of sectarianism in Tibet, Tibetan-Chinese frontier religion, eastern Tibetan history, and questions about the usage of the category of religion in Buddhist and Tibetan Studies. I work primarily in the Tibetan and Chinese languages, as well as in Sanskrit.

Languages (other than English):

• Tibetan (Classical and Modern)
• Chinese
• Sanskrit
• Nepali
• German