CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Yeshi, Samten |
|---|---|
| Title | Sumtrhang Monastic Landscape: Ruins in Bhutan, their Socio-Cultural Values and Sustaining the Significance in Modern Times |
| Summary | As socio-economic activities gain speed in Bhutan, cultural heritage sits at a critical cross roads while at the same time, cultural heritage management in Bhutan is only at a very early stage at the moment. It is because Bhutan’s readiness to implement cultural heritage protection and preservation is so far behind the rush to socio-economic development. The rich cultural heritage of Bhutan is something to be proud of, a treasure preserved by its late opening to modernity. However it was only recently that some degree of heritage conservation has gotten underway but these initial developments are still fully dependent on external expertise for government projects. The non-government custodians of much of the still living heritage lack either the support of external expertise or heritage experience in their restoration and rebuilding efforts, especially in the centuries old traditional monastic heritage. This precarious state of cultural heritage in Bhutan calls for a holistic understanding of the cultural heritage and its preservation as well as development of a basic academic guide to proper research and conservation methods. This thesis presents the complex nature of monastic heritage in Bhutan’s past and present, what these structures mean from a socio-cultural point of view and best approaches to sustain these religious institutions in the present circumstances. In this thesis, I undertake a comparative analytic approach to understanding the historical and religious narratives connected to landscapes with the focus on masonry remains and especially ruins. The complexities of heritage from the past are presented through study of the history of masonry monuments; landscape in context with the historical narrative and a complex local understanding of the landscape, especially as concerns religious sites through a case study of monastic landscape and its associated masonry remains that began its development in the thirteenth century. |
| Supervisor | Choyke, Alice |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/yeshi_samten.pdf |
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