Gurmeet Kaur

The article investigates the possibility of Buddhist ethical principles in addressing modern environmental issues as observed and documented in India and Thailand. It examines how interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda), nonviolence (ahiṃsā), and compassion (karuṇā) doctrines are reinterpreted and enacted in environmental activism and ritual practices in Ladakh, India, using field observations, scholarship, and institutional reports as interpretive texts. The findings show that Buddhist ethics and cosmology provide an adequate foundation for raising environmental consciousness by combining religious principles with social and political activity. Despite institutional and political limits, grassroots activities demonstrate unique approaches, such as merit-making related to sustainability and tree-ordination rituals, that highlight Buddhism's evolving environmental responsibility ethic. The article contributes to multidisciplinary scholarship by conducting a thorough comparison of Indian and Thai Buddhist ecology. It also emphasises the importance of intersectional inclusivity and ethical concerns in future Buddhist environmentalism.

This article examines the spiritual–ecological system of agrarian Ladakh through a multi-archival, hermeneutic analysis. It interprets Ladakhi agriculture not merely as a subsistence economy but as a historically sedimented system of cosmological negotiation, ecological adaptation, and socio-ritual organisation. Drawing on frameworks of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and Spiritual Ecology (SE), the article foregrounds how ritualised agricultural initiation, calendrical coordination, and hydraulic cooperation cohere within a moral ecology populated by Yul Lha, Sa bDag, kLu/lu, and Chös sKyong. Methodologically, the article uses text-based cultural hermeneutics and digital visual ethnography to interpret ceremonial timing, propitiatory rites, labour-sharing systems (Pha sPun), and cultural symbols such as the shöl plough and the ibex talisman. The findings indicate that, despite mechanisation, commodification, and demographic out-migration, ritual temporality, moralised hydraulic commoning, and reciprocal landscape governance continue to support ecological resilience. Adaptive tactics such as ritual compression, ceremony relocation to monastic courtyards, legacy festivalisation, and digital mediation of ritual knowledge all reflect deliberate re-articulation rather than abandonment of holy agro-ecology. The article thus contributes to scholarship on spiritual ecology, Himalayan environmental humanities, and critical heritage studies, offering culturally embedded insight for sustainability praxis under conditions of climate instability and socio-economic transition.

This study assesses the impact of COVID-19, and the mitigation strategies adopted by the Tibetan community in exile. Narratives were collected from two settlements i.e., Delhi and Dharamshala in North India between January 2021 and January 2022 using snowball sampling. Respondents reported deteriorating socio-economic conditions due to partial and full lockdowns. The restrictions adversely affected both physical and mental health. At the same time, the crisis tested individuals’ capacity to cope with adversity. Among the few stabilising forces during this period, religion played a central role. For the Tibetan community, Buddhist teachings disseminated by religious leaders offered psychological and emotional support. The study reveals that the Buddhist emphasis on collective well-being helped the refugee population endure the crisis both mentally and physically. Furthermore, the Buddhist ideal of becoming a compassionate sentient being was enacted through community actions that supported both Tibetan and local populations. The community demonstrated resilience and transformed adversity into opportunity.

This article theorizes voice and silence as co-constitutive practices of communication and method in mini-ethnographic fieldwork. Drawing on a 4-week immersion with Tibetan women living in exile in Dharamshala, India, I examine how withholding, redirection, gesture, and paced pauses operate as deliberate strategies in gendered and politically sensitive settings. Rather than treating silence as a deficit, I argue that it can mark agency and narrative sovereignty where disclosure entails social or political risk. The article advances three contributions. First, it repositions the researcher’s task from “giving voice” to recognising refusal and withdrawal as forms of voice. Second, it specifies a micro-analytic procedure that makes nonverbal and withheld cues methodologically tractable in short, iterative engagements. Third, it reframes the “limitations” of mini-ethnography as a temporal horizon, clarifying what extended time might reveal and what strategic silences will rightly continue to protect. The argument speaks to qualitative methodology at the intersection of reflexivity, decolonial ethics, and research with displaced communities.

Tibetan women in exile face the dual challenges of patriarchy and nationalism, where the collective needs of an exiled community often overshadow women’s individual rights, health concerns, and aspirations. These challenges thus reinforce gender-based marginalisation. This article critically examines the intersection of nation-building, family planning, reproduction, and body politics, focusing on the relationship between the exiled government and Tibetan women. Based on a survey of 204 female participants in five settlements across India spanning three generations, and in-depth interviews with 10 laywomen, the study finds that governance structures and policies formulated by the Central Tibetan Administration directly impact women’s positionality in exile at both the macro and micro levels. The under-representation of women within the Tibetan Parliament in Exile directly influences the bio-political landscape, shaping policies and power dynamics that govern the regulation and control of bodies, health, and population within the exile community. The article contributes to academic discussions on gender, governance, and nation-building, providing nuanced insights into the lived experiences of Tibetan women in exile. It critically analyses the effects of exile governance on women and the gendered impacts of nationalist policies in displaced communities. Les femmes tibétaines en exil sont confrontées à une double contrainte: celle du patriarcat et celle du nationalisme, où les besoins collectifs de la communauté exilée tendent souvent à occulter les droits individuels, les préoccupations de santé et les aspirations des femmes. Ces dynamiques renforcent ainsi la marginalisation fondée sur le genre. Cet article examine de manière critique l’intersection entre la construction nationale, la planification familiale, la reproduction et la politique des corps, en mettant l’accent sur la relation entre le gouvernement en exil et les femmes tibétaines. Basée sur une enquête menée auprès de 204 femmes réparties dans cinq camps de réfugiés en Inde, couvrant trois générations, ainsi que sur des entretiens approfondis avec dix femmes laïques, l’étude révèle que les structures de gouvernance et les politiques formulées par l’Administration centrale tibétaine influencent directement la position des femmes en exil, tant à l’échelle macro que micro. La sous-représentation des femmes au sein du Parlement tibétain en exil a un impact direct sur le paysage bio-politique, en influençant les politiques et les dynamiques de pouvoir qui régissent la régulation des corps, de la santé et de la population au sein de la communauté exilée. L’article contribue aux débats académiques sur le genre, la gouvernance et la construction nationale, en apportant un éclairage nuancé sur les expériences vécues des femmes tibétaines en exil. Il propose une analyse critique des effets de la gouvernance en exil sur les femmes et des impacts genrés des politiques nationalistes dans les communautés déplacées.

Tara is both a Buddhist and Hindu deity. She is widely worshipped in the esoteric branch of Buddhism: Vajrayana. Even in the exile, Tibetan refugees follow the practice and rituals associated with Tara. Lamentably, she has been given an auxiliary and secondary role in comparison to male deities. Various feminist scholars have begun to look at aspects of society through the lens of gender. They have been at the forefront of studying gender roles and its psychological consequences for those who try to abide by them. In religious studies, especially in Asian context, many of these discourses are difficult to perceive because they were unconsciously appropriated as truth by the people of the society in which they circulated as an inviolable aspect of the worlds or as nature. This study is an attempt to examine the representation of Goddess in various ancient texts as essential to the study of the divine feminine. This hybrid study merges traditional Indology with feminist studies, and is intended for specialists in the field, for readers with interest in Buddhist, and for scholars of Gender studies, cultural historians, and sociologists.

The literary sources reveal that Buddha left his wife and child at home to find enlightenment, which implies that he saw women, and domestic life in particular, as an obstacle in the path of liberation (nirvana). This article is an attempt to question the social norms concerning women accepted by the Buddha and Buddhism through the lens of gender. In addition, it throws a critical light on the eight garudhammas (rules to be observed by fully ordained Buddhist nuns). Buddhism was introduced by the Buddha as a tradition that changed the extant Vedic way of life to his own “way of life,” known as Buddhism in the contemporary world. It cannot be said that the Buddha converted people from the Vedic religion to Buddhism. Instead, the Buddha used the debate to figure out higher truth through logic and attract people to Buddhism. Thus, the roots of Buddhism lie in denouncing the obsolete practices of the Vedic system that promoted any kind of nobleness/righteousness established by birth. In contrast, he promoted righteousness and nobleness based on action and logic. Unfortunately, an important and often overlooked aspect of Buddha and Buddhism, in general, is about women’s place.