by Prof. Dr. Jan-Ulrich Sobisch

Copenhagen University

I want to discuss a few of the Tibetan concepts of authority in connection with their transmission. That is, looking at cases of transmission of authority by authoritative persons, and authorization of persons through authoritative transmissions, I want to show how some of the particular Tibetan forms of authority come into play in the context of bhikshuni ordination. I furthermore want to consider the question whether the vinaya-lineages are similar to other Tibetan forms of the transmission of authority, and in which way they are different. Finally I will try to show how, with a refined concept of authority, one could in fact argue in favor of reestablishing bhikshuni ordination.

Jan-Ulrich Sobisch has studied Tibetology, Indology, and Philosophy at Hamburg University, where he received a Dr. phil. in 1999. In the following years he worked at Hamburg, Munich, and finally Copenhagen University, where he is associate professor for Tibetan Studies since 2006. He has researched and published on Tibetan theories of harmonizing pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and mantra vows (sdom pa gsum), documents of transmission (gsan yig), manuscripts, and the literature on Hevajra and the Path with Its Fruit (lam 'bras) teaching. He presently works on Tibetan handwritten scripts, indigenous tantric theories, and the reception of Indian Buddhism in Tibet between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.