Sanskritic civilization · Tantric studies · Newar & Nusantaran Buddhism
Holten Pind, Ole. Dignāga’s Philosophy of Language – Dignāga on anyāpoha. Pramāṇasamuccaya V: Texts, Translation, and Annotation. PhD diss., Universität Wien (Philologisch Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät), 2009. [abstract; PDF]
Supervised by Ernst Steinkellner; contains a Sanskrit restoration of Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti V vv.1-66.
Finnegan, Damchö Diana. “For the sake of women, too”: Ethics and Gender in the narratives of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009. (PDF.)
Cohen, Richard S. Setting the Three Jewels: The Complex Culture of Buddhism at the Ajanta Caves. Ph.D. diss., The University of Michigan, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures: Program in Buddhist Studies. 1995. (PDFs of chapters available on the publications page of Richard Cohen’s website.)
The role of religion in fomenting conflict in the late twentieth century period is the focus of a new dissertation by Mark Yeisley:
Yeisley, Mark Owen. The End of Civilizations: The Role of Religion in the Evolution of Subnational Conflict, 1946-2007. PhD diss.: Duke University, 2010. PDF: D_Yeisley_Mark_a_201005.pdf.
Continue reading “Yeisley, ‘The End of Civilizations’ (2010)”
Here we go again. Any questions?
Ekai Kawaguchi (26.3.1866–24.3.1945) Collection 「河口慧海請来チベット資料」. Tohoku University: http://webdb2.museum.tohoku.ac.jp/data_base/tounitibi/ekai/.
NB: A detailed catalogue of the collection was published by Kimiaki Tanaka 田中公明: 『詳解河口慧海コレクション―チベット・ネパール仏教美術』, 佼成出版社, 1990) [OCLC: 673702954; amazon.co.jp].
A series of events is being organised to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Kumari-house in Kathmandu. The anniversary will be celebrated with several worship programs, the renovation of a number of items and furnishings, the issue of a commemorative stamp and publication, and of course the iconic rathayātrā.
The festivities last for about a week starting from September 24, 2007. (Thanks to I.T. for the lead.)
A 12th-century meditation cave with Buddhist sculptures was recently discovered (or rather publicised) near the hamlet of Jireg in East Java. It seems that its contents have already been looted. There is little information about how the dating was reached (the few available images are of the Majapahit style). Offerings appear to have been regularly made by pilgrims.
The Buddhist affiliation of the site is similarly not made clear in news reports. But then there is mention of the “1,500 Buddhists in Bondowoso” — a surviving village of Majapahit Buddhists? Fascinating.
It is predictable that comment on this find fell automatically to Theravādin groups, who of course have no connection whatsoever to the Majapahit era or any other aspect of Indonesia’s Buddhist heritage.
* In other news, Burmese Theravādin monks recently released their hostages.
Some 30,000 books and manuscripts, including nearly 2,000 considered to be of “exceptional historical value”, have gone missing from the Bibliothèque Nationale, France.
The BNF contains important collections of Sanskrit manuscripts, including those gathered in Nepal and originally donated by Brian Houghton Hodgson. So much for the view that priceless South Asian artifacts, including manuscripts, are better off in European hands.
One of the BNF’s Buddhist MSS: the Udānavarga.
– Article: ‘Curator suspected of looting library’, The Guardian, June 28 2005.
Christian Luczanits. 2014&ndash. ‘Homepage of Christian Luczanits’ [before 2014: Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Art (ITBA) at the University of Vienna]. http://www.luczanits.net.
NB: a large and well-documented collection of photographs from sites in the Himalayas and South Asia including Alchi, Ladakh, Kanganhalli, Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti.