A Hidden Valley in Iron Mountains: the Nyingma Tradition in Spiti's Pin Valley

Abstract

The Pin Valley in Spiti is a western Himalayan region predominantly adhering to the Nyingma sect of Buddhism. Although Spiti is currently part of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, the region is situated along the historically shifting political and cultural borders of Tibet, India, and China. Literature on Spiti and the Western Himalayas articulates a particular relationship between the Pin Valley and the Nyingma tradition, in which Pin’s geography and its sectarian affiliation are perceived as mutually constitutive. This framework characterizes Pin as an isolated periphery, and the Nyingma (as the “old” or “ancient” sect) as predating other Buddhist sects prevalent in Tibet and the Himalayas. Such a spatiotemporal logic articulates sectarian affiliation in Spiti as determined not by contingent historical processes but rather by a teleological view of religious development. I examine the ways this connects a rhetoric of Buddhist authenticity to a spatial relationship between an authoritative center and isolated periphery. Pin’s shifting status within these frameworks points to changing Buddhist landscapes within which those authoritative centers are positioned.

This dissertation establishes the history of the Nyingma tradition in Pin Valley from the seventeenth century to the present. I argue that in Pin the category of texts, practices, traditions, and ideas encompassed under the framework of “the Nyingma tradition” is historically variable and nuanced, not monolithic, attesting to both a diverse body of distinct Nyingma traditions and also to the prevalence of widespread Buddhist practices that are not particularly sectarian in nature. Although two particular Nyingma traditions are predominant today—the Pema Lingpa Terma and the Dudjom Tersar—what it means to be Nyingma in Pin has changed over time. Pin remained Nyingma from the seventeenth century on, not because it was isolated from the outside world, but rather through ongoing interactions with other Buddhist regions and traditions. The Dudjom Tersar in particular developed in Tibet during a period of political upheaval, widespread mobility, and the hardening of contested international borders. These conditions contributed to the tradition flourishing in the Pin Valley when it was isolated or threatened elsewhere. The Dudjom Tersar and Pema Lingpa Terma traditions form the backbone of the recently established Urgyen Sangnag Chöling Monastery in Pin, which in the last decade emerged as the primary Buddhist authority in the region. The monastery’s rise consolidated an historically diffuse and diverse body of ritual practices, institutions, and authorities in the Pin Valley under the auspices of a single Nyingma institution. Alongside this consolidation within Pin, contemporary Nyingma are expanding their presence throughout Spiti and developing ties to international Nyingma institutions and networks. These new connections signal a larger shift in the global Buddhist landscape and Spiti’s changing status within it. This project elucidates the Pin Valley’s position as a Nyingma center emerging on the margins and the ongoing processes by which Buddhist authority and authenticity are constituted and contested.