In brief

about the project

In the project “Buddhism in the Himalayan Deserts: The Tradition of Yogis and Yoginis in Ladakh” (J6-50211), funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARiS), we study the still largely unknown tradition of Buddhist hermits and hermitesses, yogis and yoginis (Skt. yogi, Skt. yoginī; Tib. naljorpa) in vajrayāna Buddhism, a tradition that has been continuously preserved in Ladakh, in the Indian Himalayas, since the 11th century.

While institutional monasticism in vajrayāna Buddhism, including in Ladakh, has been studied relatively extensively, the tradition of Ladakhi yogis and yoginis has not yet received systematic and in-depth attention, as shown by the modest corpus of scholarly studies, which deal primarily with different aspects of institutional monasticism and mention eremitism only in passing.

The project addresses two interrelated research problems: the lack of systematic and comprehensive scholarly investigation into the historical and contemporary aspects of the hermitic tradition in Ladakh, and the endangerment of its material heritage.