SUMMARY:

The article by Anya Bernstein is based on field research conducted in post-Soviet Buryatia, focused on the history of the cohort of Buryat monks who left Buryatia in 1920 to achieve positions as grand lamas in Tibet. The author traces the lives of this cohort, which were complicated by reincarnation and tantric discipleship to the point of “return” of the cohort to post-Soviet Buryatia. Based on this research, the article attempts to conceptualize the institutions of Buddhist reincarnation and discipleship as practices of a certain kind of corporeal motion, which includes not only traversing vast Inner Asian territories, but also journeys and relationships between bodies across multiple lifetimes. The movements and relationships between two or more bodies produced by Buddhist corporeal technologies constitute extensive transnational somatic networks, where the meaning of individual bodies is shaped through their relationship with other bodies in the network. The author argues that such religiously inspired interbody movement has subversive implications that go beyond esoteric religious practices, as they challenge biopolitical regimes of mobility imposed by nation-states on their indigenous populations, complicating the issues of allegiances and loyalties. This article thus contributes to the growing field of studies of religion, transnationalism, and globalization by considering a previously neglected type of mobility – that between bodies and bodily substances – and its role and effects in transnational religiopolitical movements.