Alice Millington, Mythical Beasts and Changing Climates: The Fulfilment of Buddhist Prophecies of Decline in Far-Eastern Nepal

Climate change is manifesting across the whole Himalayan range, with profound spiritual consequences for Buddhist communities. Degrading landscapes have become hostile to the magical and mythical animals they are believed to host. For instance, the changing climate has expelled the yeti, a signal that portends the end of the meritorious era (kawa sangbo), and the initiation of the degenerate time (kawa nyampa). Other creatures, such as the mystical snow frog, are angered by the declining ecological and religious conditions, and unleash their fury through swollen rivers and treacherous landslides. These signals not only tell stories of environmental risk, but the disenchantment of a sacred landscape. They also herald theKaliyuga, and the fulfilment of the Kauśambī prophecy which foretells the demise of Buddhism. In this talk, I track the disappearances and discontent of a menagerie of magical creatures residing near the Tibetan Buddhist community of Walung (Olangchung Gola), informed by ethnographic fieldwork in Nepal’s Taplejung District.

Alice Millington is a PhD student in Geography and Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her research considers how Tibetan Buddhist communities in the Eastern Himalayas explain the climate changes they have witnessed, and the role of spiritual non-humans (particularly local deities and mythical animals) as actors in meteorological events.