Terror in Namthar: Reframing Violence in the *Lives* of Tibetan Buddhist Women

This paper argues for sustained critical attention to the instances of violence that pervade the life stories of exemplary Tibetan Buddhist women. In doing so, it challenges frameworks that interpret scenes of cruelty, abuse, and assault primarily in ways delimited by the spiritual progress achieved *in spite of* them. The hagiography of Yeshé Tsogyal (fl. 8th century) serves as a case study, both for illuminating what scholars talk about when they talk about violence in eminent female practitioners' *lives* and for rethinking analytical approaches to violent stories about accomplished women. The goal of this approach is to better equip scholars to evaluate the role of enlightenment narratives in normalizing gender-based forms of suffering and oppression.