Quick Facts
Biography
Martin Brauen (born 1948) is an anthropologist from Bern, Switzerland who specialises in Tibetology and Bhutanese culture.
Martin Brauen studied ethnology and religious history at the University of Zurich and Buddhology at the University of Delhi. He earned a doctorate after defending a thesis in Zurich on Holidays and ceremonies in Ladakh. Since 1975 he has been head of the "Himalaya, Tibet and the Far East" department at the Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich, as well as becoming a lecturer within that subject. From 2008 to 2012 he was chief curator at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.
Brauen is the author of several books and exhibitions on Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh, and Japan. Among his books, Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism is best known to the general public and has been translated into six languages.
Martin Brauen has also produced several films and documentaries on Tibet and the Himalayas, and has worked in the areas of aid and development policy in an NGO.
He met the 14th Dalai Lama for the first time in 1970 during an interview, and has since been committed to the Tibetan cause. He is married to the Tibetan artist Sonam Dolma Brauen, with whom he had two children, actress and writer Yangzom Brauen and Tashi Brauen, teacher and artist.
The great-grandfather of Martin Brauen, Elie Ducommun who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902, was a notable pacifist.