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The Monastery Rules discusses the position of the
monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan Buddhist societies and how that
position was informed by the far-reaching relationship of monastic
Buddhism with Tibetan society, economy, law, and culture. Jansen
focuses her study on monastic guidelines, or
bca’
yig. The first study of its kind to examine the genre in
detail, the book contains an exploration of its parallels in other
Buddhist cultures, its connection to the Vinaya, and its value as
socio-historical source-material. The guidelines are witness to
certain socio-economic changes, while also containing rules that
aim to change the monastery in order to preserve it. Jansen argues
that the monastic institutions’ influence on society was
maintained not merely due to prevailing power-relations, but also
because of certain deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs.