The Tibetan gCod Ḍamaru —A Reprise: Symbolism, Function, and Difference in a Tibetan Adept's Interpretive Community

Abstract

In the 1979 special Tibet Issue of Asian Music , a unique article featured a traditional master's written commentary on the symbolic elements and attributes of a drum that is almost exclusively associated with the Tibetan gCod ritual musical-meditation practice. Thirty years later, I pay homage to Rinjing Dorje and Ter Ellingson's original work, expanding upon it following a multisite ethnographic study. I show how practitioners link the gCod ḍamaru' s "outer" musical performance with its "inner" meditational performance through symbolic meaning, and how practitioners' meditative experiences and insights about symbolism are shared dynamically within an interpretive community.