caa a22 4500 386344493 CHVBK 20180307111806.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198910 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0017383500029727 doi S0017383500029727 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0017383500029727 Arnott Geoffrey Nechung: a Modern Parallel to the Delphic Oracle? [Elektronische Daten] [Geoffrey Arnott] The definitive study of the Delphic Oracle by H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell published over thirty years ago assembled all the information then known about it and discussed the various theories both ancient and modern about its operation where reliable information was lacking. In the presentation and evaluation of these theories, however, Parke and Wormell take no account of the methods and practices of state oracles in other cultures, even though such oracles may still be functioning today at the end of the twentieth century and so be able to provide contemporary and authenticated evidence of their workings, power and credibility. In Tibet, for instance, the State Oracle has a history going back over 800 years. It was originally sited at the monastery of Nechung (‘Small Place') some four miles west of Lhasa, operating there until the Chinese annexation of Tibet in the 1950's, when the monk who acted as the mouthpiece of the oracle followed the Dalai Lama in his flight to northern India. The Tibetan State Oracle now functions in exile at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh some 250 miles north of Delhi. Its operations show some striking similarities to those attested for Delphi, and although the distances in time and space (not to mention the differences in cultural and religious background) obviously preclude any links between Nechung and Delphi other than those of common human experience and psychology, the parallels may at times help to shed some illumination on a few darker or confused areas in our knowledge of Delphic practice. Analogy admittedly is not argument, and the individual reader must judge for himself the applicability of the evidence. Copyright © The Classical Association 1989 Greece and Rome Cambridge University Press 36/2(1989-10), 152-157 0017-3835 36:2<152 1989 36 GAR https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500029727 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500029727 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Arnott Geoffrey NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Greece and Rome Cambridge University Press 36/2(1989-10), 152-157 0017-3835 36:2<152 1989 36 GAR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge