Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary

Apparitions of the Self is a groundbreaking investigation into what is known in Tibet as “secret autobiography”, an exceptional, rarely studied literary genre that presents a personal exploration of intimate religious experiences. In this volume, Janet Gyatso translates and studies the outstanding pair of secret autobiographies by the famed Tibetan Buddhist visionary, Jigme Lingpa (1730-1798). Gyatso’s translation marks the first time that works of this sort have appeared in a Western language. It is only one of the many virtues of Janet Gyatso’s Apparitions of the Self that it gives us, at last, a full portrait of a Buddhist saint in all his self-admitted complexity and ambiguity-lucid and literate-significant points to ponder and subtle arguments to which to respond. This exceptional volume combines concise and felicitous translation with clear commentary and insightful analysis. What lends considerable interest to this work is the comparison Gyatso makes between Tibetan literature and Western literary theory. Apparitions of the Self serves as a model of innovative scholarship.