Continuity as Care: Devotional Maintenance, Renewal, Accumulation, and Disposal in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist Material Religion

This paper draws from the author’s direct experience with material care, adaptation, renewal, and disposal made while working within Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist practitioner communities as a museum professional, conservator, and object-based researcher. It considers the function and utility of Buddhist tantric religious objects in terms of their care and capacity for practitioner engagement. In addition to exploring specific examples of what is referred to here as ‘devotional maintenance’, this paper will discuss how these strategies for object custodianship are related to Tibetan and Himalayan religious life and the specific epistemological and soteriological paradigm in which these actions are performed. Working from the perspective of a non-practitioner and material specialist, this research builds on observations of material care-taking to engage with local concepts of continuity, value, and longevity, including practices of accumulation, renewal, or disposal. Thinking critically about the methods and standards of heritage preservation provokes a discussion of how they can be interpreted as acts of care. At the same time, this paper will explore material custodianship through the cultivation of merit and an object’s capacity to transmit ‘blessings’ or the gift of beneficial influence (byin rlabs).