TY - BOOK ID - 134914105 TI - Long lives and untimely deaths : life-span concepts and longevity practices among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India PY - 2012 SN - 128339586X 9786613395863 9004217487 9789004217485 9004217037 9789004217034 PB - Boston : Brill, DB - UniCat KW - Tibetans KW - Longevity KW - Life span, Productive KW - Old age KW - Social conditions. KW - Religion. KW - Darjeeling (India : District) KW - Religious life and customs. KW - Social life and customs. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:134914105 AB - Longevity and long-life practices have been a pan-Tibetan concern for a very long time, but have hardly been studied by anthropologists. This book presents ethnographic accounts and textual material demonstrating how Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India, view the life-span and map out certain life-forces in various areas of knowledge. These life-forces follow daily, monthly, and annual cycles. Divinations and astrological calculations are widely but varyingly used by Tibetans to assess the strength of life-forces and forecast difficult periods in their lives. Loss, exhaustion, or periodic weaknesses of life-forces are treated medically or through Tibetan Buddhist practices and rituals. In all these events, temporality and agency are deeply interlinked in the ways in which Tibetans enhance their vitality, prolong their life-spans, and avoid ‘untimely deaths.’ ER -