Bon Medical Practitioners in Contemporary Tibet: The Continuity of a Tradition

This article examines forms of knowledge and medical practice in three generations of Bon medical practitioners in Tibet. A key component of the discussion is the way in which Tibetan medicine, and particularly the two principal texts of the Bon and Buddhist medical tradition, serves as a symbolic marker of social and cultural identity. Based on ethnographic data collected in the Ngari, Kham, and Amdo regions of Tibet, the author assesses continuity and change in notions of identity and forms of practice among Bon medical practitioners as they react to the forces of modernity in post-Imperial China.