Guest Editor's Introduction

Abstract

For Westerners, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau on which Tibetan herders live has always been surrounded by a unique aura of mystery. They are drawn, almost to the point of intoxication, by this "summit of a thousand mountains and source of ten thousand waters" in the heartland of Asia, and a good many Westerners are in tacit agreement in regarding this "barren" plateau as virgin soil for anthropology, as a target for exploration, and as a rich garden for research. One after another, they have barged into this "last stretch of Sukhavati [pure land] unsullied by modern civilization."