The other side of the other: Gateways to awakening in the schisms of the Newar Buddhist identity politics of Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

The study of “Otherness” is not merely for the purposes of empowering marginalized peoples and perspectives through recognition of systemic injustices, but also to discover and document places of power that exist only in the margins, hidden powers or opportunities for power which can further the underlying progressive agenda of fields such as Queer and Feminist Studies. Within the South Asian context, these projects have focused on intersections of marginalized identity categories, such as caste, gender, and sexuality. While each of these characteristics can be a source for disenfranchisement within social, legal, and religious frameworks, they can also be grounds for supporting and legitimizing one another. Just as the compounding of these factors can lead to negative social feedback loops and the critical collapse of individuals and communities, so can their confluence become the foundations of counter-narrative that redefine “Otherness” as spaces of privileged perspective—the wisdom of the wounded healer, a perspective of which our dying human world is in desperate need. The voice of the marginalized can empower not only those in the margins, but all those whose lives are put at existential risk by ongoing systems of global power and exploitation. By putting the works of contemporary Queer and Feminist Buddhist Studies scholars into conversation with historical and religious accounts and understandings of non-normativity in Kathmandu Valley, we find that these tensions between oppression and salvation have long existed, with the societal “Other” standing always at the crossroads. In this thesis, we focus on the intersection of caste and sex/gender identities as our source of discourse, comparing and contrasting historical Buddhist understandings of personhood and enlightenment with contemporary developments in Queer and Feminist Studies. Doing so, we further a conversation of protection and empowerment for all peoples by asking for help from those most deserving and desiring of these considerations—the historical and living “Others.”