In February 2026, the book Crafting Potency: Sowa Rigpa Artisanship across the Himalayas was released by Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing. We invite the audience to join this celebratory presentation, in which we discuss our metadisciplinary approach to writing the book. It is conceived as a co-authored “monograph,” based on our long-term collaboration and the FWF-funded project “Potent Substances in Sowa Rigpa and Buddhist Ritual” (2018–2024) at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB), University of Vienna. We will discuss our varied voices based on our different academic and Sowa Rigpa backgrounds, the co-writing process, and the outcome—a tribute to the artisanship of Sowa Rigpa medical practitioners, their skills, and our ethnographic and theoretical approaches to understand and analyze what potency (Tib. nus pa) means and how it is crafted in Sowa Rigpa.
Zoom link: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/69355717971?pwd=w53VEITviKtZJ9WB1G7MqPWj7QVlVp.1#success
