Tuesday, May 12, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

Reader's Guide to Bon and Old Tibetan Traditions

✦ ─── ⟐ ─── ✦

Begin with Bon/Introduction to Bon and Old Tibetan Traditions for the shelf boundary.

Quick Paths

Divination and Oracles

Funeral and Mortuary Rites

Cosmology and Decline Prophecies

Ritual, Healing, and Bon-Gshen Traditions

Myths, Tales, and Sayings

Law, Contracts, and Administration

Royal Inscriptions and Imperial Buddhism

Reading Order

Read Bon/Cosmology and Decline Prophecies/The Age of Decline first if you want the widest ritual and mythic frame. It shows decline, remedy, sacred materials, and the catalogue of kingdoms.

Then read Bon/Funeral and Mortuary Rites/The Paths of the Dead and Bon/Funeral and Mortuary Rites/The Royal Funeral Rituals to enter the mortuary world: roads of the dead, animal offerings, underworld passage, and royal burial.

Read Bon/Divination and Oracles/The Great Divination Manual for the everyday texture of omen, deity voice, household risk, illness, travel, marriage, and loss.

After that, use the law and inscription rooms to see the same world from the state side: contracts, penalties, tribute, royal oath, Buddhist patronage, diplomacy, and imperial memory.

For terms, see Bon Glossary, a shelf-specific slice of the central Good Works Glossary.