Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine

Martin Saxer received a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford and is currently a Marie Curie Fellow at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Since 2003, he has worked on the history and contemporary practice of Tibetan medicine in Russia (Buryatia) and Tibet. He is the director of the documentary film ‘Journeys with Tibetan Medicine’ and runs the visual ethnography blog theotherimage.com.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Notes on Transliteration and Transcription

Acronyms

Map of Tibet

Cast of Main Characters



Chapter 1. Introduction





Perspectives on Tibetan medicine

Aku  Jinpa

Official Views

The Topic of Inquiry

Industrial Modernities

Tibetanness and the Moral Space of Tradition

The Industry as Assemblage

Language and Terminology



Chapter 2. The Creation of an Industry





Sowa Rigpa and TCM – Different Trajectories

Interference and Non-Interference

The Making of TCM

Tentative Integration of Sowa Rigpa

Textbooks, Standardised Practice and Pharmacy

From Pharmacy to Factory

Reform and Revival

Socialist Market Economy

Founding Shongpalhachu

Tibetan Drug Standards and Chinese Pharmacopoeia

The Introduction of Good Manufacturing Practice

Ownership and Investment

Relations Between GMP Factories and Hospitals

The SFDA and National Drug Registration

The Size of the Industry

Forces at Work



Chapter 3. Manufacturing Good Practice





GMP in China

The Steps of Production

Sourcing and Storage of Raw Materials

Simple Pre-Processing: Washing, Trimming, Sorting

Complex Pre-Processing: Tsothal

Grinding, Mixing, and Making Pills

Sterilisation

Drying

Rationales, Practicalities

Validation

Self-Inspection



Chapter 4. Raw Materials, Refined





Domestic Sourcing Strategies

Long-term Relations to Village Collectors

Cultivation

Commercial Traders

Transnational Trade and Border Regimes

Import licences

Trader Tactics

Taxonomy and Legibility

Business Cultures

CITES and Nepalese Authorities

Baru

Gyatig

Back to Tibet

Tactics and Strategies



Chapter 5. Knowledge, Property





Owners and Pirates

The Problem of Patents

Precious Pills, Precious Properties

Filtering Knowledge

‘Old’ and ‘New’ Knowledge

Randomised Controlled Trials

The Knowledge Commodity

Decoupling Forms of Knowledge

Property, Knowledge



Chapter 6. The Aesthetic Enterprise





Disenchantment, Enchantment

Mendrup

Rituals of GMP

Packaging Remedies

Design

Materiality

Advertisement

Three Campaigns

Visual Themes

The Buddhist Company

Yuthog

Spiritual Spa

Arura’s Museum

Enchanting Whom?



Chapter 7. The Moral Economy of Tibetanness





The Tibetanness Economy

Preservation and Development

Civilisation, Culture

Theme Parks: Manufacturing Minzu

Exhibiting Sowa Rigpa and a Farewell to GMP

Morality and Spectacles of Authenticity

Real and Fake

Profit and the Ethics of Being a Doctor

The Problem of Trust

Balancing Profit with Altruism

Morality at Large

Building a Harmonious Society, Resisting Culture

The Moral Economy at Large



Chapter 8. Conclusions





Fallacies

One – Industry and Modernism

Two – Globalisation and Sinicisation

Three – Knowledge

Assemblage, Revisited

Contemporary by Assemblage

Territorial by Assemblage



Bibliography

Glossary