Introduction: Medicine and Healing in Tibetan Societies

This introduction to the special issue of EASTS begins with a survey of recent social scientific work on medicine and healing in Tibetan and Himalayan societies. The author considers the specificity of the Tibetan encounter with biomedicine in comparison with that experienced by other traditions of Asian medicine and introduces both the traditional Tibetan medical system (Sowa Rigpa) and the wider context of approaches to healing of which it forms part. He discusses the significance of Sowa Rigpa’s religious dimension and its techniques of pulse and urine examination, suggesting that these open up important questions for medicine in general regarding the relationship between “subjective” and “objective” aspects of the healing process. The political economy of Sowa Rigpa is considered, including questions of access, of the production of medicines, and the impact of new regulatory regimes. The article ends with an introduction to the remaining articles in the special issue.