Janet Gyatso is Associate Professor of Religion at Amherst College. She is the editor of In the Mirror of Memory:
Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.
Review
"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 selfadmitted complexity and ambiguity.... Lucid and literate....
Significant points to ponder, and subtle arguments to which to respond."
--Journal of Asian Studies
"Gyatso surveys this landscape from a host of perspectives, adding to her Buddhalogical expertise a sensitivity
to literary theory and comparative studies. Her sharp intelligence and thorough consideration are evident on every
page. This book will attract readers from as many disciplines as Gyatso herself so effectively musters."
--Religious Studies Review
"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."
--Choice
"In this ambitious book, Janet Gyatso breaks new ground in the field of crosscultural comparisons of autobiography.
. . . Providing clear, poetic translations of very difficult material, Gyatso offers a glimpse into an unusual
genre of autobiography. . . . [She] has accomplished a difficult task at rendering the translations of Jigme Lingpa
into clear, readable, English poetry and prose and elucidating their meaning in Western theoretical terms. Her
use of Western theories of autobiographical selfrepresentation and dissimulation shed valuable light on a heretofore
impenetrable subject of Tibetan literature. . . . This book provides an important contribution to Buddhist studies
and to autobiographical studies."
--The Journal of Religion
Submitted by Publisher, January, 2004
Summary
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 (17301798), whose poetic and selfconscious writings are as much about
the nature of his own identity, memory, and the undecidabilities of autobiographical truth as they are narrations
of the actual content of his experiences. Their translation in this book marks the first time that works of this
sort have been translated in a Western language. Gyatso is among the first to consider Tibetan literature from
a comparative perspective, examining the surprising fitas well as the misfitof Western literary theory with Tibetan
autobiography. She examines the intriguing questions of why Tibetan Buddhists produced so many autobiographies
(far more than other Asian Buddhists) and how autobiographical selfassertion is possible even while Buddhists believe
that the self is ultimately an illusion. Also explored are Jigme Lingpa's historical milieu, his revelatory visions
of the ancient Tibetan dynasty, and his meditative practices of personal cultivation. The book concludes with a
study of the subversive female figure of the "Dakini" in Jigme Lingpa's writings, and the implications
of her gender, her sexuality, and her unsettling discourse for the autobiographical subject in Tibet.