Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia

How does place and environment shape the practice of Buddhism? This project considers this question by examining the history of Buddhism in the northeast Indian state of Sikkim. The environment of Sikkim historically inspired mountain deity cults, forest medical traditions, and agriculture that provided the resources for powerful monasteries that were part of the government. In 1975, Sikkim was absorbed into India, but Buddhism has remained central to Sikkimese life even as relationships with the landscape changed due to the introduction of new forms of development such as hydroelectricity. Patterns of land and water resource management and local conceptions of ecology provide a rich avenue for exploring the interaction between Buddhism and the environment in the era of the anthropocene.

When L.A. Waddell, the famous Buddhist studies scholar, was based in the Darjeeling district as a colonial officer, he purchased a Sikkimese Buddhist temple. What happened to that temple? This book traces the history of Waddell’s purchased temple as a way to explore the legacies of colonialism in Sikkim and how they have influenced the representation and practice of Buddhism in scholarship and the public sphere. "Returning the Temple" will examine the practice of repatriation beyond physical objects as an intellectual and emotional act of care and repairing of relations. In doing so, it will consider ideas and traditions that have been displaced by colonialism, along with objects and bodies, not to rediscover lost traditions, but instead to consider multiple narratives and layers of cultures and histories. "Returning the Temple" draws on primary sources from across multiple languages and ethnographic research to center Indigenous and Buddhist perspectives and critically deconstruct colonial misrepresentations of Sikkim.