ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, I described the combination of incarnate lama, geshe and oracle as an important nexus for the production of accepted Buddhist truths within the Gelukpa ecclesiastical matrix. Regardless of the interdependence between these figures, however, the products of this nexus- religious and ritual authority – are primarily interpreted in Tibetan Buddhist culture as the words of Buddhahood itself, and thus most clearly reified in Tibetan Buddhist cultures in the figure of the tulku, the ‘manifestation-body’ of the Buddha.
