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Yang (2018), Bukong 不空 aka. Amoghavajra

Yang, Zeng. 2018. ‘A biographical study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705-774): networks, institutions, and identities’. PhD diss., University of British Columbia. DOI:10.14288/1.0363332. URI: hdl.handle.net/2429/64506

Note: This dissertation is distinguished by its use of Japanese scholarship and secular historical sources in Chinese. However, the back-Sanskritization of Chinese jingang ding 金剛頂 as Vajroṣṇīṣa adopted here (p. 4, n.1) is doubtful. Continue reading “Yang (2018), Bukong 不空 aka. Amoghavajra”

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Mayer et al (2017), Ancient Tantra Collection from Sangyeling

Robert Mayer and Ngawang Tsepag. 2017. ‘The Ancient Tantra Collection from Sangyeling (Sangs rgyas gling rNying ma’i rgyud ‘bum)’. Digital dataset (JPG, .txt, doc, PDF; 500GB). University of Oxford: ORA. 🔓

Abstract: This project successfully photographed all surviving 41 volumes and 16,071 pages of a rare and endangered early 18th century manuscript edition of Tibetan ‘Old Tantras’ located at Sangs-rgyas-gling dgon-pa, Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India.

Sangs rgyas gling rNying ma rgyud 'bum dkar chag first folio
Sangs rgyas gling rNying ma rgyud ‘bum dkar chag first folio: oṁ svadhi(sti)siddhaṃ |jā(jñā)najayāpariketu mitāyur | āmalaśra(śrī)karuṇatrijatoman || (sic)
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Wollein (2017), The Mūl Dīpaṅkara shrine

Andrea Wollein. 2017. ‘An ethnographic study of the Mūl Dīpaṅkara shrine in Bhaktapur (Nepal): the relationship between people and place’. University of Vienna: M.A. thesis (Masterstudium Kultur u. Gesellschaft des neuzeitlichen Südasiens). 189 pp., 87 figures. URN: nbn:at:at-ubw:1-20536.38953.228466-1 [official notice] [author: facebook]

Mul Dipankara
Wollein (2017:165) fig.74: The tilted face of the Mūl Dīpaṅkara. Photo by the author (August 2016).

Abstract: This thesis presents locality specific research in the form of an ethnography that draws both from fieldwork and published scholarly literature. The inter-disciplinary research is contextualized within the wider field of South Asian Studies and pertains to Himalayan, Buddhist and Newar Studies as well as to Tibetology. It is specifically concerned with the socioreligious dimension of Newar Buddhist monasteries (Skrt. vihāra, New. bāhā and bahī), the Buddhist deity Dīpaṅkara and the configuration of the relationship between the two of them as found in the setting of the Mūl Dīpaṅkara shrine in Bhaktapur. Continue reading “Wollein (2017), The Mūl Dīpaṅkara shrine”

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Walravens & Zorin (2017), The Āli-kāli

Hartmut Walravens, Alexander Zorin. ‘The Āli-kāli Trilingual Syllabary Brought by D. G. Messerschmidt from Siberia and Edited by G. S. Bayer in 1728’. Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies Vol. XXI, 2017 (国際仏教学大学院大学研究紀要 第 21 号 平成 29 年), 183–241. [official repo] [PDF]

Ālikālivijahāra a.k.a. Dbyangs gsal bzhugs a.k.a. Lingva Tangutica prima Elementa (Walravens & Zorin 2017:235)
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Dina Bangdel (1965–2017)

Dr Dina Bangdel (5.12.1965–25?.7.2017) is well known among Nepal specialists as a historian of religious art. Her 1999 dissertation, Manifesting the Mandala, and co-authored 2003 exhibition catalogue, Circle of Bliss, emphasised the visual culture of the Cakrasamvara cycle in Newar Buddhism, which is traditionally kept secret. Dr Bangdel had been planning to show a selection of this and related art on a world-travelling exhibition and was scheduled to speak at the “New Research on Newar Buddhism” panel at IABS. This week Dr Bangdel passed away, reportedly after complications following surgery. She is survived by her husband Bibhakar Shakya and two children.

(Added 2018/1/20:) ‘Remembering scholars of Nepalese Art Mary Slusser and Dina Bangdel’ (Rubin Museum of Art)

Aryatara
Tamang, ‘Green Tara’ (Bangdel 2016, fig.6)

Continue reading “Dina Bangdel (1965–2017)”