Andrew Quintman, "The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the Biographical Corpus of Tibet’s Great Saint Milarepa," (Columbia University Press, 2013)

Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052--1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre's most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the "Madman of Western Tibet." Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin's corporeal relics. Jetsun Milarepa biography Andrew Quintman Tibetan studies Milarepa life story and legacy Buddhist poet-saint in the Himalayas Tsangnyön Heruka Madman of Western Tibet Tibetan literary tradition and biography Milarepa's spiritual journey narrative and aesthetic representation in Tibetan texts Milarepa's influence on Buddhist practice physical relics vs. literary representation 15th-century Tibetan Buddhist literature yogin Milarepa’s spiritual legacy Madman of Western Tibet biography analysis Milarepa’s life as a model for Buddhist practice Tibetan hagiography and religious devotion East Asian Studies Podcast AAR Book Award Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhist History Biographical History