ABSTRACT
We now know that religious Tibet experienced devastating material losses during the period of Chinese control from 1959 onward, a process that gradually intensified until the culminating orgy of violence that constituted the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). In addition to the many bodies of Tibetans sacrificed to the revolution’s chaotic agenda, the body of Tibet herself was stripped of its web of stupas, temples, and other architectural markers, and even the memories of her sacred caves, groves, and mountains were at times eradicated through the human loss.1 Wooden and metallic bodies of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and lamas situated within these residences were destroyed or shipped off in amazing quantities to the illicit markets of Hong Kong and else where, often to reappear in museum and private collections in Europe and America in a deanimated form as art dealers emptied their interiors of the sacred contents that give them life. Finally, the immense corpus of religious texts constituting the teaching bodies not only of the Buddha2 but also of the myriad Indian and Tibetan masters who followed in his footsteps was devas-
tated. Thus the bodies of religious Tibet were sacrificed and resacrificed on multiple fronts for a three-decade period which resulted in the literal decon struction of an entire civilization. The sacrifice was not total, however, for not only were the essential elements of Tibetan religiosity preserved in memories and emotions buried within the individual bodies of Tibetans-and even partially in hidden valleys where Tibetans continued to practice Buddhism throughout the period-but Tibetans also concealed in the earth of Tibet an unknown quantity of buddha bodies in statuary and painting, associated ritual items, and, most important, the literary corpus of Buddhism. With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the gradual easing of restrictions on religious expression, these buried realities of Tibetan culture have slowly been re-excavated and brought into the light of day. These excavations have played an important role in the explosion of temple building and scripture printing that has ensued in Tibet since the end of the Cultural Revolution, as well as in the equally explosive growth in the often-illicit international art trafficking that has thrived there.3 It is this phenomenon that I would like to examine, particularly in light of how Tibetans and Tibet have been slowly trying to heal their multiple damaged bodies and reconstitute some semblance of health, despite continuing oppressive realities.
