The Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pill

The first historical study of the medicinal mani pill and its profound spiritual significance in Tibetan religion and culture

The maṇi pill is one of the most popular relic traditions in Tibetan Buddhism. Treasured around the globe, maṇi pills are small edible pellets formed from mixing the powdered bodily remains of buddhas and bodhisattvas with ingredients used in Tibetan medicine and sanctified through a tantric liturgy. Maṇi pills are today predominantly produced by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, who consecrates and distributes hundreds of thousands annually, but the tradition of producing and consuming maṇi pills stretches back more than a millennium.

Examining the broad cultural history of Buddhist tantra in Tibet through the lens of the maṇi pill, James Gentry illustrates how these pills have influenced Tibetan conceptions of the body, medicine, healing, collective identity, and shared past; how they have functioned as a point of interaction, contestation, and negotiation between different Buddhist sects and institutions; and how they have created and shaped social bonds and religious identity across Tibet and beyond to the present day.