How to Cite

Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Amy: Sacred Economies of Kalimpong: The Eastern Himalayas in the Global Production and Circulation of Buddhist Material Culture, in Viehbeck, Markus (Ed.): Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands: Kalimpong as a “Contact Zone”, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2017 (Heidelberg Studies on Transculturality, Volume 3), p. . https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.301.c4112

License (Chapter)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Identifiers (Book)

ISBN 978-3-946054-56-6 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-946054-58-0 (Softcover)
ISBN 978-3-946054-57-3 (Hardcover)

Published

12/14/2017

Authors

Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa

Sacred Economies of Kalimpong: The Eastern Himalayas in the Global Production and Circulation of Buddhist Material Culture

Abstract The eastern Himalayan region has long been associated with its commodities, including tea, timber, flowers, and tourism. However, as these commodities have ebbed and flowed with broader socio-political changes, one form of economy has remained constant: Kalimpong’s sa­cred economies, based around its institutions and production and trade of sacred objects. This article will sketch out the contours of the materiality of Kalimpong’s Buddhist material culture by outlining the processes of pro­duction and distribution attached to religious objects produced and pro­cured in Kalimpong. The communities who participate in these networks of circulation and consumption are far from homogeneous, as manufac­turers, merchants, and consumers are not always Buddhist; and Buddhists have eclectic tastes that are not always based on concepts of authenticity. Instead, ritual transformation is the key element that determines the function and value of an object, and new technologies that facilitate mass pro­duction and dissemination do not inevitably lead to the disappearance of the sacred. These key themes are highlighted through the study of the in­teraction between Buddhism, trade, and material consumption in this local setting, which is made possible by Kalimpong’s key historical position as a center for cultural and economic exchange between empires and nations.