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Nechung: a Modern Parallel to the Delphic Oracle?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Geoffrey Arnott
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Extract

The definitive study of the Delphic Oracle by H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell published over thirty years ago assembled all the information then known about it and discussed the various theories both ancient and modern about its operation where reliable information was lacking. In the presentation and evaluation of these theories, however, Parke and Wormell take no account of the methods and practices of state oracles in other cultures, even though such oracles may still be functioning today at the end of the twentieth century and so be able to provide contemporary and authenticated evidence of their workings, power and credibility. In Tibet, for instance, the State Oracle has a history going back over 800 years. It was originally sited at the monastery of Nechung (‘Small Place’) some four miles west of Lhasa, operating there until the Chinese annexation of Tibet in the 1950's, when the monk who acted as the mouthpiece of the oracle followed the Dalai Lama in his flight to northern India. The Tibetan State Oracle now functions in exile at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh some 250 miles north of Delhi. Its operations show some striking similarities to those attested for Delphi, and although the distances in time and space (not to mention the differences in cultural and religious background) obviously preclude any links between Nechung and Delphi other than those of common human experience and psychology, the parallels may at times help to shed some illumination on a few darker or confused areas in our knowledge of Delphic practice. Analogy admittedly is not argument, and the individual reader must judge for himself the applicability of the evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , October 1989 , pp. 152 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

NOTES

1. The Delphic Oracle, i: The History; ii: The Oracular Responses (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar.

2. My interest in these Tibetan oracles resulted from a visit I paid in the summer of 1986 to Lhasa, where my eldest daughter was employed teaching English, and western Tibet. I append here a brief bibliography of accessible works, to which I owe much of the detailed information given in this article: Rock, J. F., National Geographic Magazine 68 (1935), 475ff.Google Scholar; Chapman, F. S., Lhasa, the Holy City (London, 1938), pp. 316ff.Google Scholar; Schäfer, E., Fest der weissen Schleier (Brunswick, 1949 1, 1952 3), pp. 190ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrer, H., Seven Years in Tibet (translated by Graves, R., London, 1953), pp. 180ff.Google Scholar; de Nebesky-Woikewitz, R., Oracles and Demons of Tibet (London, 1956), pp. 409ff.Google Scholar; Govinda, Lama Anagarika, The Way of the White Cloud (London, 1966 1, 1968 2), pp. 179ff.Google Scholar; Avedon, J. F., In Exile from the Land of Snows (New York and London, 1984), pp. 238ffGoogle Scholar. These works are cited hereafter by author's name only.

3. Especially Chapman (pp. 316ff.), Schäfer (pp. 149ff.), Harrer (pp. 180ff.), Govinda (pp. 179ff.), describing the ceremonies at Nechung; Avedon (pp. 238ff.), describing one at Dharamsala as recently as 1981.

4. Avedon, p. 238. Cf. Rock, 478.

5. The fullest account appears in Nebesky-Woikewitz, pp. 41 Off. For colour illustrations of a kuden in full dress, see especially Rock (plates I, II and IV, of a kuden outside Lhasa) and Avedon (plates Ib, II, Ilia and b). The photograph accompanying this paper is printed by kind permission of John F. Avedon ( = his plate II).

6. Harrer, p. 180.

7. Cf. Rock, 475 (‘animal-like grunts’); Chapman, p. 318.

8. Avedon, p. 267.

9. Nebesky-Woikewitz, p. 419.

10. Cf. Parke and Wormell, i. 19ff.

11. E. g. Diod, . Sic. 16.16Google Scholar; Plut, . Mor. 433c ffGoogle Scholar. Other passages are cited by Parke and Wormell, i.41 nn. 6, 7, 17.

12. E.g. Oenomaus in Eusebius, PE 5.244a; Lucian, , Bis Ace. 1, Hes.8Google Scholar.

13. Nebesky-Woikewitz, p. 440; cf. Rock, 475, 478.

14. Govinda, p. 183.

15. Cf. Rock, 477; Govinda, pp. 182, 186.

16. Harrer, p. 180; cf. Rock, 476; Govinda, p. 185; Avedon, p. 240.

17. Nebesky-Woikewitz, p. 440.

18. Cf. Harrer, p. 182; Avedon, p. 264.