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Lusos BELKA The importance of Jisl’s work is evidenced also by a critical evaluation of his conception of “Tibetan art” in the book of Donald Lopez Jr. Prisoners of Shangri-la.” The taxonomy of Tibetan Buddhist pantheon created by Jisl is undoubtedly interesting also from the viewpoint of methodology of Buddhology and visual studies, because it introduces an entirely original conception. Its primary intention was to identify figures and scenes of the Tibetan Buddhist (= Lamaist) pantheon. His task as a researcher was to identify and describe the discovered canvas wall paintings, miniatures made for scapularies (Tib. tsakli) and clay offerings tsha-tsha.” Because he only had a few iconographic aids, such as books by Alice Getty and Antoinette Gordon, he had to devise his own identification key. For this purpose he first had to restore the above mentioned pantheon. It was not indispensable for creation of the key to identify the figures, but with the pantheon, the work was clearer and more logical. This taxonomy has never been published in extenso, but forms a basis for his partial studies. The estate also contains Jisl’s preparatory works on the religious dance tsam with extensive visual material (including original photographs from 1934 donated by the Mongolian photographer Gombozhav) and excerpts from literature; it is clear that he identified the tsam masks in cooperation with Mongolian colleagues. Had he been able to finalize the ¢sam project it would have been a fundamental publication reaching far beyond the scope of Czechoslovak research. That much is clear from materials in the archive of Lumir Jisl. The study of tsam well met his research approach, where he viewed the Mongolian art as something “old,” something antiquated. It suited him or at least he did not mind that he could not study the live tsam (the last dance was organized for Soviet filmmakers in 1937, then it was banned and revived at the turn of the 20" and 21* centuries). The case study illustrating Jisl’s field research in Mongolia concerns the ceremony of stupa consecration in Gandantegchinling. We shall describe the event first; then its documentation by Czechoslovak researchers and publication and other outcomes. Let us quote from a book on the history of Buddhism in Mongolia written by monks themselves (authorship is not specified), published in English in Ulaanbaatar in 1979: “Skillful lamas of the Gandantegchinling Monastery reconstructed old monasteries and temples of historic value and now they are engaged in repairing the functioning Lopez, Donald: Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. University of Chicago Press, Chicago — London 1998. L. Jisl brought a lot of them from his travels in Mongolia; a part of his collections is deposited in Naprstek Museum in Prague; for more details see Berounsky, Daniel — Sklenka, Lubomir: Tibetan 7sha-tsha. Annals of Naprstek Museum Vol. 26. No. 1. (2005), pp. 59-72. 3 It was no coincidence that his book is entitled in Czech: Umeni stareho Mongolska [The Art of Old Mongolia]. 418
