Essai pour une typologie de la cloche tibétaine dril-bu

The ritual sceptre rdo-rje and the handbell dril-bu — with an internal clapper and a handle in the shape of half a rdo-rje — are indispensable accessories for the ritual celebration of Tibetan Buddhism. They appear among the attributes which iconography gives to a number of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, protective deities and spiritual teachers. Since the beginning of the XIth century, numerous canonical and extra -canonical texts have described precisely the characteristics of the rdo-rje and dril-bu, and simultaneously explained the symbolical value which could be attributed to each part of the two objects. A comparison between the textual prescriptions and a sample of some fifty bells kept in various museums and monasteries has showed how faithful was the treatment of the ritual bells till the contemporary period. This allows to put forward a typology of the Tibetan dril-bu which takes into consideration the criteria offered by the Tibetan tradition itself. Two tables — one concerning the handle of the bell, the other the various symbolical decorations of the skirt of the bell - show the various correlations which have laid to the available types of bells.