Knowledge, Imagery, and the Treatment of Communicable Disease in the Vase of the Amṛta of Immortality: A Preliminary Analysis of a Nyingma Medical Corpus

This paper intends to historically and conceptually analyze selected pre-modern Tibetan sources, outlining the medical and religious descriptions of a hybrid class of diseases called nyenné (gnyan nad) and rimné (rims nad). Among these sources, this essay focuses primarily on the diagnostic and ritual sections of the Great Vase of the Amṛta of Immortality (’chi med bdud rtsi bum chen). This Nyingma “treasure text” (gter ma) is representative of the magic-alchemical tradition that became an integral constituent of scholastic medical literature in Tibet from the thirteenth century onwards. Drawing on the contents of the Vase of Amṛta, the paper aims at situating this medical-oriented text in the broader context of Tibetan medical and tantric literatures.