Karma Ura, PhD
President
Centre for Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Studies, Thimphu
from February to June 2026
Born in 1961 in Bumthang, Bhutan
BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Oxford University, MPhil in Economics, University of Edinburgh, PhD in International Development, Nagoya University
Project
Well-Being in Art
Through surveys and statistical analysis, I have explored the issues surrounding happiness and well-being. On an occasional basis, I have also been engaged in artistic creations of spiritual murals, paintings, and the design of secular objects and performances. I have endeavoured to integrate social science research and aesthetic pursuits for a balanced experience in my life.But I have never been blessed with an opportunity to immerse myself in drawing and painting for any continuous period. In this blessed five-month fellowship, I want to use drawings as a means of exploring the conditions of happiness and well-being and their manifestations as subjective experiences. Such visual representations might be better at triggering public discourse on happiness than texts and graphs that appeal more to literate audiences. Drawings and paintings bring the whole and the parts together and create sensory and cognitive experience much faster for a broader audience.
I would like to depict in about 10 drawings the multifaceted conditions of happiness that emerge from (1) mental health and emotions; (2) personal relationships and communitarianism; (3) the environment and aesthetic experiences of nature (for example, as elucidated by Humboldt and Goethe); (4) the relationship to time and the life cycle; (5) health and vitality; (6) the senses, knowledge, and education; (7) politics, rights and freedoms; (8) identity and culture; and (9) wealth, possessions, and living.
Recommended Reading
Ura, Karma. The Hero with a Thousand Eyes: A Historical Novel. Karma Ura, 1995.
Ura, Karma, Sabina Alkire, Tshoki Zangmo, and Karma Wangdi. An Extensive Analysis of GNH Index. Centre for Bhutan Studies, 2012.
Ura, Karma. The Unremembered Nation. 2 vols. Oxford University Press, 2023.
Colloquium, 15.04.2026
Drawing a Life in the 8th-Century Himalayas: Dakini Yeshey Tshogyal
The presentation is a series of drawings expressing the biography of an eighth-century Tibetan woman named Khando Yeshey Tshogyal. She was part of an enlightenment revolution in the Himalayas when Tibet transformed from engaging in militaristic conquests to a spiritual reorientation. Although she is the foremost female figure in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, visually she is represented in a single, unvarying portrait. Tshogyal’s life was recorded by her two contemporaries, the masters Namkhai Nyingpo and Gyalwa Changchub, and I use the biography in the original Tibetan, although two translations of it exist. Her biography can be considered a multidisciplinary source text that speaks to historical as well as contemporary questions in history, myth making, patriarchy, the feminine principle, ordeal, psychosomatic transformation, gender, companionship, politics, sacred geography, travel, consciousness, the subtle body, the rainbow body, etc.
Publications from the Fellow Library
Ura, Karma (Thimphu, 2026)
Decline in concentration and attentional capacity
Ura, Karma (Oxford, 2023)
Bhutan ; Vol. 2 ; Art and ideals Bhutan ; Vol. 2
Ura, Karma (Oxford, 2023)
Bhutan ; Vol. 1 ; Community and livelihood Bhutan ; Vol. 1
