Dr. Amelia Hall, associate professor of Buddhist Studies at Naropa University, has long explored the rich terrain where ecology, ritual, and imagination converge. In her recent research, she turns to the world of klu—serpentine beings of Himalayan cosmology often known as nagas—to examine how traditional Tibetan understandings of unseen beings and sacred landscapes can inform our modern ecological consciousness. I recently interviewed Dr. Hall to discuss her fieldwork in the Eastern Himalayas, the intersections of myth and environment, and the potential of interspecies reciprocity as a guide for healing in the Anthropocene.
BDG: The year 2020 started off with promise for you, as you returned to your beloved Bhutan, yes?
Dr. Amelia Hall: Yes, I began the year as visiting faculty at the Royal University of Bhutan, College of Natural Resources, in Punakha, and intended to work with faculty there on water conservation and how localized spiritual beliefs make their way into government planning and local conservation efforts. Unfortunately, as COVID closed in around the world, I was unable to do fieldwork and had to return to the US. So, the focus of this presentation is a combination of theoretical considerations and some of the work I have done from 2016 to 2019 in Mechuka, Arunachal Pradesh, India.
BDG: Your work and practice have long been concerned with magical beings, spells, and their interaction with our so-called ordinary world. Is this so? You have been working to translate Tibetan Buddhist ritual texts called lu bum?
AH: Klu ‘bum are spell-books containing ritual instructions and magical formulae employed to mitigate disturbance to the realm of klu, (aka nagas in Sanskrit), the chthonic serpentine inhabitants of Himalayan cosmology. Klu are agitated by the harm done to the natural world and angered by pollution caused by disruptive human behavior. Their wrath manifests in punishing planetary disasters such as drought, famine, floods, earthquakes, and pandemics. Ecological and societal stability is re-established by a ritual apology to them, which ensures sustainable interspecies “reciprocity.” My study highlights a klu ‘bum employed by a Tibetan Buddhist community located in Arunachal Pradesh, in the Eastern Himalayas. The work is part of a co-created community-based research project that explores approaches rooted in recognition and recuperation.
Lama performing a Naga Puja in Mechuka. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Amelia Hall
My work is based around the recognition of a marginalized element of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition; supernatural or what are known as “unseen” beings, and their place within interdependent ecosystems, as well as a recuperation of relational approaches that may serve to alleviate this exclusion, and how we restore balance in the natural world.
BDG: What is your primary purpose in studying unseen elemental beings and their ways, as well as their interrelationship with the seen human world?
AH: My work examines human relations with these beings in our collective dwelling places. The proposition is to understand them via interdependence with humans rather than as discrete entities and ontological systems operating independently and supernaturally. So this, for me, elicits curiosity about how relational ontologies crack open alternative lifeways and expand our range of possibilities of being in the world.
BDG: I imagine this exploration pushes the edges of scholarship as well as the Eurocentric normative worldview of what is considered “real” and “unreal”?
AH: I offer this perspective with the acknowledgement that it likely stretches the normative boundaries of dominant cultural belief systems. The community with whom I collaborate addresses sustainability concerns in a way mostly disregarded by Euro-American scholarship and conservation efforts. The work privileges indigenous models of spiritual resources, conservation, and sustainability and aims to encourage an inclusive dialogue concerning the implications of climate change in this eastern Himalayan region and, more broadly, in a new and uncertain geological era.
BDG: It is a fascinating field of study of magical beings within the context of Western educational scholarship, to go beyond proving or disproving their reality, to seek the utility of exploring their potential involvement in climate and ecological systems.
AH: Indeed, yes! I am not so concerned with whether these beings are real or not, but how our relationships with them are meaningful. I consider the wisdom encoded within these relationships, and how that wisdom has, for the past 11,700 years or so, contributed to keeping our planet’s biodiversity stable and thriving.
Natural, sacred sites as abodes of non-human interlocutors are a global, transcultural phenomenon, present on every continent where human beings dwell and have dwelled in the past. These sites all function in some way as a convergence of ecological and spiritual practice. Studying these places requires a healthy respect for the sites and beings from my own culture. This respect translates into knowing how to behave in documenting and understanding the sites in Mechuka (Arunachal Pradesh, India)correctly.
BDG: How are you sourcing your study with a reference point of your own culture then?
AH: It has been helpful to note examples of Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism—which I practice—and additionally, recognizing some of the non-human beings of my country of origin, the British Isles.
For example, the fairy hill and klu stupas at Samye Ling in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, honor both fairy and naga beings, that is, the local territorial beings, who also live there. Incidentally, a nun of that sangha performs Naga offerings on the shore of Loch Ness. Thanks here to Natasha Mikles and Joe Laycock’s article: “Is Nessie a Naga?”*
BDG: Your work posits that if we drop the labels of entirely symbolic or unquestionably real, we can open ourselves to reflexive and imaginative possibilities by interpreting the world relationally. Could you say more about this?
AH: It means directing our focus on what happens in between realities, revealing alternate horizons, casting this whole terrain of coherence differently. Eco-theological scholars point to how sacred natural places serve as regenerative sites for local flora and as reservoirs for high-value trees and seed deposits, which are crucial for sustainability. When considering the importance of fresh, potable water, one begins to see how crucial it is to maintain the integrity of this resource and prevent pollution. Klu and beings intimately associated with pure water resources have significant environmental importance as mediators between natural resources and people. Thus, understanding these relational ontologies allows us to recognize agency in a full range of beings within a landscape; these places as sites of continued reciprocal negotiation—and the eco-wisdom embedded within spiritual beliefs and practice.
BDG: This sounds like an interspecies alliance to preserve natural resources and prevent further decay and destruction, for the benefit of all— seen and unseen beings of all kinds?
AH: Yes, I love that idea of an interspecies alliance! If we re- learn to navigate these realms, they illuminate bio-cultural resilient strategies. In the case of my research, I explore how the recitation and performance of the klu ‘bum practicesrepresent a marshaling of religious resources as a response to troubling environmental issues. Klu demonstrate and perform consequences; they manifest in myriad forms. They are a constant reminder of unpredictability and instability. They embody the consequences of our actions. Their health and well-being intertwine with our own.
BDG: To sum up, it sounds very much that our reverence for and honoring of klu (nagas) and other unseen beings, whether natural or supernatural, behooves us to pay attention to, to preserve, and restore harmony in the natural world. Thank you for this elucidation and the timely reminder.
AH: Thanks! As an offering to your readers, here is a short prayer from the Tibetan tradition that we can do to keep our relationship with unseen beings in good standing. In this prayer, specifically the gnyan spirits dwelling in/protecting the soil, inhabiting stones and rocky places, residing in water sources, and living in trees and forests. This confession and apology acknowledge that human activities inevitably disturb these beings. It seeks to make amends for these transgressions, both intentional and unintentional, across all generations:
A Condensed Confession to the Earth Lords
Listen! We and any sponsors who have supported this offering
Confess to you three types of beings—the lha, nāga, and gnyan:
Whatever deeds were done by our parents and ancestors of past generations,
And whatever deeds will be done by our children and descendants of future generations—
For digging up the earth gnyan, taking stones from the rock gnyan,
Disturbing the water gnyan, and cutting trees of the wood gnyan,
For building on burial grounds and whatever was done to the dead,
For whatever has been done through the power of ignorance—
We confess! We acknowledge! May it be purified!Written by the learned and accomplished Rāga Asya (Karma Chagme)
Tributes are offered at a faerie hill at Samye Ling Monastery in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Nearby, A klu cairn has been made at the river Esk. Photo courtesy of Dr. Amelia Hall.
This conversation is based upon a longer presentation made by Dr. Amelia Hall of Naropa University on the mystery and importance of the nagas (klu) of Tibetan Buddhist lore, entitled: A Grimoire for the Anthropocene, Klu ’bum as a Guide to Interspecies Reciprocity in the Eastern Himalayas.
* “Is Nessie a Naga?”: The Changing Face of Buddhism in the West. The Bulletin for the Study of Religion 43.4 (2014): 35-40. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276914610_Is_Nessie_a_Naga_Buddhism_in_the_West_and_Emerging_Strategies_of_Importation
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Amelia Hall, DPhil (Naropa University)
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