Life in Suspension with Death: Biocultural Ontologies, Perceptual Cues, and Biomarkers for the Tibetan Tukdam Postmortem Meditative State.

This article presents two cases from a collaborative study among Tibetan monastic populations in India on the postdeath meditative state called tukdam (thugs dam). Entered by advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioners through a variety of different practices, this state provides an ontological frame that is investigated by two distinct intellectual traditions-the Tibetan Buddhist and medical tradition on one hand and the Euroamerican biomedical and scientific tradition on the other-using their respective means of inquiry. Through the investigation, the traditions enact two paradigms of the body at the time of death alongside attendant conceptualizations of what constitutes life itself.

Tibetan medicine Liuwei Muxiang pills (LWMX pills) effectively protects mice from chronic non-atrophic gastritis.

Background: Chronic non-atrophic gastritis (CNG) is the most common type of chronic gastritis. If not actively treated, it may induce gastric cancer (GC). Western medicine is effective in CNG, but there are more adverse reactions after long-term medication, and it is easy to relapse after treatment, which affects patients' health and life.

Chasing spirits in Tibetan medical encounters: Transcultural affordances and embodied psychiatry in Amdo, Qinghai.

Although spirit possession is generally considered a psychiatric illness, the class of conditions designated as (Tib. gdon, "afflictive external influences," often glossed as "spirit affliction") in Tibetan medicine represents a distinctive paradigm for an etiology where physical and mental facets inhere in every illness. This study draws upon ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Tibet to examine two conditions that represent illness presentations at both ends of the spectrum: one that maps onto a biomedical etiology of stroke and another that presents in a way similar to schizophrenia.

Dataset of materia medica in Sowa Rigpa: Tibetan medicine botanicals and Gawé Dorjé's classification system.

This article provides the most updated dataset of Latin botanical identifications for the materia medica in Tibetan medicine, known as Bö Luk Sowa Rigpa (Tib. ), or the "Tibetan knowledge field of healing," often denoted in English simply as Sowa Rigpa. As one of the major scholarly Asian traditional medical systems, Sowa Rigpa is the principal health resource for populations across Tibetan regions of China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and culturally-related areas of Russia.

Dataset of illness classifications in Sowa Rigpa: Compilations from the Oral Instructions Treatise of the Tibetan medical classic ().

This article shares the comprehensive dataset and five visualized examples of disease categories in Tibetan medicine, or Sowa Rigpa (Tib. ), translated as the "knowledge field of healing." Sowa Rigpa is a scholarly Asian traditional medical system rigorously transmitted through canonical texts and oral teachings originating in Tibet with an extensive pharmacopeia, comprehensive treatment repertoire, and nuanced etiological explications of its nosology of diseases.

The transnational Sowa Rigpa industry in Asia: New perspectives on an emerging economy.

This article advances the hypothesis that "traditional" Asian pharmaceutical industries are rapidly growing in size and prominence in contemporary Asia, and identifies a lack of empirical data on the phenomenon. Addressing this gap, the article provides a quantitative outline and analysis of the Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan, Mongolian and Himalayan medicine) pharmaceutical industry in China, India, Mongolia and Bhutan. Using original data gathered through multi-sited ethnographic and textual research between 2014 and 2019, involving 232 industry representatives, policy makers, researchers, pharmacists and physicians, it assembles a bigger picture on this industry's structure, size and dynamics.

Tibetan medicine for cancer: an overview and review of case studies.

Introduction: Tibetan medicine (TM) is a whole systems medical approach that has had growing interest in the West. However, minimal research, particularly with cancer, has been conducted. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of TM and describe a clinical case review study to obtain preliminary evidence of TM's safety and effect on patients treated for cancer or hematologic disorders.