Abstract: Despite its emergence as a crucial crossroads between the Tibetan cultural area and China, the history of Eastern Tibet (Khams) before the 17th century remains little explored. Based on a group of Buddhist shrines from Minyak, a region at the easternmost section of Khams, this presentation will begin with a presentation of their murals and the way they inform the situation of Buddhism in the area during the late 15th-early 16th century. The discussion will then turn to the physical context of these paintings located in inordinately large buildings appended to houses or related to families. If these images probably do not differ significantly from those that could have been found in temples, it can be argued that the construction within the domestic sphere of such inordinately large rooms, the development of conspicuous structures and the adhesion to a strict Tibetan iconography and a conservative style may testify to the wish of their owners to portray themselves as authentic Tibetans and devout Buddhists.
About the Speaker: Jean-Baptiste Georges-Picot is an historian of images whose work focuses on the Buddhist murals and religious traditions of Eastern Tibet. He holds a PhD from the École Pratiques des Hautes Études / École des Hautes Études en Sciences sociales (EPHE-EHESS, Paris) and currently teaches Tibetan history at the Institut des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco, Paris).