Potent Substances in Sowa Riga and Buddhist Rituals

Potent substances are used in surprisingly similar ways in both Tibetan medicine (Sowa Rigpa) and in Buddhist ritual: they can be processed into multi-compound pills, consecrated, and ingested as powerful healing substances. This suggests a fascinating yet underexplored overlap between Tibetan medical and ritual practices, based on their entangled histories and the potency of materials. In this project we explore for the first time how specific (largely herbal and mineral) substances are considered potent and why. How do practitioners enhance potency during processing and ritual consecration? Given the importance of the senses in ritual, and especially taste and smell in Sowa Rigpa pharmacology, our aim is to assess how practitioners know and/or perceive substances to be potent by using their senses, and how they modulate potency in practicethrough the processing, compounding, and consecration of substances as described in both specific classical Tibetan texts and when orally transmitted. Based on Tim Ingolds theoretical approach on substances-in-becoming, which proposes skilfully working with the properties of materials as a source of their agency and power, we will test the following hypothesis: Both medical and ritual practitioners approach potency as a potential inherent in substances, but one that must be actualised and enhanced through skilful intervention (e.g. processing and/or consecration) in order to become active. Potency thus emerges in fields of practice as substances are transformed, becoming enmeshed in human-centred lifeworlds. We uniquely combine methods of Tibetology, Ethno-biology and Medical Anthropology, which enable us to investigate a hitherto unrecognised yet foundational common ground between Sowa Rigpa and Buddhist rituals, and the entangled histories of their substances. We will audio-visually document three particularly insightful events, carried out by both institutionally trained Sowa Rigpa physicians (in north-western India) and in a Dudjom Nyingma community (north-eastern India and Bhutan): (1) the processing of calcite, frequently used in both accomplished medicines (mendrup) and Sowa Rigpa medicines; (2) specific consecration rituals; and 3) a comparative case study on the potency of poisonous substances used in both Nyingma expelling rites and Sowa Rigpa medicines. Besides extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with practitioners, we combine methods of textual analysis and translation, taxonomic identification of key substances and processing techniques. The special focus of this project is on the interface of materiality and the senses in the processing of potent substances. Our original results will elucidate to what extent early Nyingma Buddhist rituals shaped ideas of potency in Sowa Rigpa, while also contributing a novel take on efficacy studies, moving beyond clinical trials or conventional socio-cultural interpretations by considering how the direct engagement of practitioners with substances impacts potency in fundamental ways.

This project developed a nuanced anthropological and practice-based understanding of potency in Tibetan medicine, known as Sowa Rigpa. Based on extensive fieldwork with amchis (Sowa Rigpa practitioners) in India and Nepal, our main finding is that the "potency" (nüpa) of Tibetan medicines is crafted by practitioners through a highly skillful combination of artisanship, material processing, and Buddhist ritual practice. We interviewed several amchis, describing and also participating in the making of medicines, often by hand, using methods such as grinding, cooking, trituration, and burning. Despite modern developments, these craft-based processes remain essential, demonstrating that potency emerges from both material properties and the amchis' embodied expertise. To better understand how amchis acquire, practice, and transmit these skills, we drew on the ideas of scholars such as Tim Ingold-who emphasizes the importance of learning through hands-on engagement with materials-and historian of science Pamela Smith, who examines how artisans develop knowledge through practice rather than solely relying on written texts. By applying these perspectives, we explored how religious ritual activities are interwoven with practical techniques in the making of Sowa Rigpa medicines. Our team documented medicine-making processes in various locations, including Ladakh and Dharamsala (India). We studied and wrote about detoxification procedures for poisonous ingredients like aconite and mercury, the processing of minerals and precious stones such as limestone, coral, pearl, turquoise, as well as the making of medicinal butter. We also examined the use of consecrated substances known as papta, which are believed to carry blessings that enhance potency. Here, our findings reveal that papta acts as a carrier of blessings and power, transferring potency not just among medicinal ingredients but also into ritual and religious practices, in which amchi communities are actively involved. Furthermore, we looked at how future amchis are educated in different institutional and lineage-based settings in Nepal, where modern forms of professionalization interact with long-standing beliefs about lineage purity, textual learning, and ritual empowerment. We show through case studies how the path to becoming a Sowa Rigpa practitioner is shaped by changing social, political, and economic factors. Overall, our research confirms that potency in Sowa Rigpa is skillfully woven into the medicines themselves through a lively interplay of substances, body, mind, environment, spiritual cosmologies, and ritual practices. By highlighting these various dimensions, our research offers a deeper understanding of how Sowa Rigpa medical knowledge and techniques continue to thrive and adapt in the modern world. The findings are published in "Taming the Poisonous: Mercury, Toxicity and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice" (Heidelberg University Publishing 2021) and in "Crafting Potency: Sowa Rigpa Artisanship across the Himalayas" (Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishers 2025), which contribute insights to medical anthropology, the material culture of Tibet, Himalayan artisanship, and Buddhist rituals.