Tibetan Purificatory Sel Rituals: Fragments of the Tradition from the Borderlands of the Tibetan Plateau
Abstrakt
Tibetan purificatory rituals called "sel" are rarely performed on the Tibetan Plateau in the present time but a number of references to them is available namely in the textual sources of the Bon religion. The paper focuses on brief description of the ritual as it appears in the 14th century influential text Mdo dri med gzi brjid.
Besides others, it contains references to animals sacrificed during the ritual. Although one of the animal mentioned has been assumed to be bat in the English rendering of the extract, it is argued that the expression bya ma byil stands for flying squirrel.
The texts then deals with recently resurfaced myth from Kham, which exposes origin of the sel ritual in the context of the mythical original Tibetan clans. The main character is wise bat and its role resembles that of mediator between the gods and original people.
The myth is presented in translation and it is argued that this myth represents reaction to the dominance of central Tibet by creating a myth on original tradition of the Tibetan clans stemming from the bordering regions of the Tibetan Plateau. The last section of the paper presents fragments of information on the performance of sel rituals among the so-called leu tradition from the north-eastern borderlands of the Tibetan Plateau.
It presents the steps of the ritual as described by the old surviving leu ritualist who performed the ritual before the times of Cultural Revolution in China. Various diverse influences are present in the ritual and these are discussed in the paper.
The flying squirrel plays crucial role in the ritual and it is concluded that the older Bon sources mentioning the sel ritual were probably inspired by this regional and very little known lay ritual tradition called leu.