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Chan, ‘The Dharmatrāta-Dhyāna Sūtra’ (2013)

Chan, Yiu-wing 陳耀榮. ‘An English translation of the Dharmatrāta-Dhyāna Sūtra (達摩多羅禪經 T15, no.618) — With Annotation and a Critical Introduction’. PhD diss., The University of Hong Kong, 2013. ix+548 pp. [official site]

From the Abstract

One of the early texts translated from Sanskrit into ancient Chinese in around 411 C.E. is called the Dharmatrāta-dhyāna-sūtra (T15, no.618) which was a detailed account of the meditational methods of Buddhasena and Dharmatrāta who were the two most renowned dhyāna teachers in Kaśmīra around 400C.E. They may be regarded as belonging to the tradition of the Sarvāstivāda Dārṣṭāntika masters who were characterized by their active interest in meditation and popular preaching in which they excelled in communicating through poems and allegories. […]
This sūtra essentially preserves the ancient Sarvāstivādin meditation teachniques. But it importantly incorporates Mahāyānistic-Tantric elements, such as the maṇḍala and visualization. […] As a result, it came to exert a great impact on the subsequent teaching and practice of Chinese Buddhism, particularly those of Buddhist meditation.

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Steinkellner, Krasser & Lasic, Viśālāmalavatī 2 (2013)

Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Krasser, Horst Lasic (eds.) Jinendrabuddhi´s Viśālāmalavatī Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā Chapter 2. Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Vols. 15/1, 15/2. Beijing & Vienna: China Tibetology Publishing House Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013. 149+111 pp. ISBN-13: 978-3-7001-7134-8.

斯齐，卡热萨，斯坦因凯勒校勘 （編） 《吉年陀罗菩提《集量论》广大清净疏第二章：全二册 梵文、英文分享到》 中国藏学出版社 2013

[Publisher information updated from provided cover image, 2013/7/3. See also: Series’ official site]

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International Conference on Tibetan History &c. (2013-7-13)

四川大学中国藏学研究所（会议主办）、哈佛燕京学社（会议协办）： “7至17世纪西藏历史与考古、宗教与艺术国际学术研讨会”。 中国·成都·四川大学 2013年7月13-15日。

Center for Tibetan Studies of Sichuan University & Harvard-Yenching Institute (co-conveners). ‘International Conference On Tibetan History And Archaeology, Religion And Art (7th–17th c.)’. Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, July 13–15, 2013. [official site / 2nd circular w/ abstracts]

会议召集 人：霍 巍 教授（四川大学）、范德康 教授（哈佛大学）

Conference conveners: Prof. Huo Wei (Sichuan University) & Prof. Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp (Harvard University).

7至17世纪西藏历史与
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Jinajik at 8

Jinajik, which celebrated its 8th birthday this month, hasn’t changed much over its 7th year. The most popular (though not necessarily the most useful) tag is still Tantric Buddhism. One new thing: visits from China are up about 300% over the past year. Welcome, Chinese friends!

Random pedestrian photobombs signage in Chaoyang, Beijing (Photo © I.S.)
Random pedestrian, Chaoyang, Beijing (Photo © I.S.)
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Kragh ed., The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise (2013)

Ulrich Timme Kragh (ed.) The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet. Harvard Oriental Series 75. “Available 07/22/2013”. ISBN 9780674725430.

From the Summary

“The present edited volume, conceived by Geumgang University in South Korea, brings together the scholarship of thirty-four leading Buddhist specialists on the Yogācārabhūmi from across the globe. The essays elaborate the background and environment in which the Yogācārabhūmi was composed and redacted, provide a detailed summary of the work, raise fundamental and critical issues about the text, and reveal its reception history in India, China, and Tibet. The volume also provides a thorough survey of contemporary Western and Asian scholarship on the Yogācārabhūmi in particular and the Yogācāra tradition more broadly.”

(Contains, among others [updated, 2013-05-01]:

H. Sakuma 佐久間秀範, ‘Remarks on the Lineage of Indian Masters of the Yogācāra School: Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu’, pp.330–366.
M. Delhey, ‘The Yogācārabhūmi Corpus: Sources, Editions, Translations, and Reference Works’, pp.498–561.)

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Facsimile Edition of All Palmleaf MSS in the TAR (2012?)

བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་སུ་ཉར་ཚགས་བྱས་པའི་ཏ་ལའི་ལོ་མའི་དཔེ་ཆ་ཀུན་བཏུས་པར་མ།
《西藏自治区珍藏贝叶经影印大全》（共６１分册）
*Facsimile Edition of Palmleaf Manuscripts in the Tibet Autonomous Region: Complete Collection. 2012(?). 61 vols.

བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་སུ་ཉར་ཚགས་བྱས་པའི་ཏ་ལའི་ལོ་མའི་དཔེ་ཆ་ཀུན་བཏུས་ཀྱི་དཀར་ཆག་བསྡུས་པ།
《西藏自治区珍藏贝叶经影印大全简目》
*Facsimile Edition of Palmleaf Manuscripts in the Tibet Autonomous Region: Complete Collection. Brief Index. 2012(?).

བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་སུ་ཉར་ཚགས་བྱས་པའི་ཏ་ལའི་ལོ་མའི་དཔེ་ཆ་བྲིས་མའི་རྩ་བའི་དཀར་ཆག།
《西藏自治区珍藏贝叶经总目录》（共４册）
*Master Catalogue of Palmleaf Manuscripts in the Tibet Autonomous Region. 2012(?). 4 vols.

61-volume Facsimile edition of Palmleaf MSS in the TAR (via Tibet TV)
Palmleaf MSS in the TAR, 61 volumes (via Tibet TV)

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KL Dhammajoti, Reading Buddhist Sanskrit Texts (2012)

Kuala Lumpur Dhammajoti. Reading Buddhist Sanskrit Texts. An Elementary Grammatical Guide. Hong Kong: Buddha-dharma Centre of Hong Kong, 2012. ix + 361 pp. ISBN 978-988-16820-1-7 [available from Swindon Books]

A book that finds and almost fills its niche. Some weirdness is apparent, like the fact that sentences in romanized transcription do not appropriately add white space after finals. There are numerous typos and mistakes in sandhi, and there are no keys to the exercises — always a severe limitation. However, a patient and competent reviewer could easily detect, report and fix most of these problems. Any effort to knock down the high walls erected around the study of Sanskrit in ‘the West’ is, of course, worth encouraging.

From the Preface

“There are many excellent Sanskrit primers […] However, they all share the common feature of being based on non-Buddhist sources […]
many Buddhist students […] need to spend a large amount of time getting acquainted with those texts which are neither their concern proper nor source nor inspiration […]. It is out of this consideration that […] I had been thinking of producing an elementary manual totally based on the Buddhist texts” (p. v).

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Liu, On the Sanskrit Version of Dharmadhātustava (2012)

Zhen Liu (刘震). ‘On the Sanskrit Version of Dharmadhātustava‘. Paper presented at Buddhajayanti: The Celebration of 2600 Years of Buddha’s Enlightenment, Mahachulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2012. [PDF]

Dr. Zhen Liu tracks down the earliest dateable source for the Dharmadhātustava — a Chinese translation of preaching attributed to Kṣitigarbha, surviving in a unique Dunhuang manuscript — and concludes: “it is obvious that before the middle of the eighth century it was not thought that Nāgārjuna authored the text” (p.10).
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Schwartz, Re-enchanting China (2012)

Björn Schwartz. ‘Re-enchanting China: Private Religiosities in the Media Field in Beijing’. M. A. diss., Lund University, 2012. 120 pp. [official site / PDF]

Most of us are familiar with the official picture of tantric Buddhism as a quaint bit of old hat. But who among the determiners of the West’s cultural priorities can admit that right now, the Vajrayāna competes head-on with Christianity as the preferred religion of the world’s next elite? Schwartz pierces the unreal construction of Buddhist Asia as a ball of cuteness, unleashing a torrent of dissonant keywords:

VIP religion, guanxi-networking, post-socialist subjectivity, clubbing as networking and status affirmation, field analysis, status, the emerging structure of entitlement, social change in contemporary China, the private media field in Beijing, conversion, Vajrayana Buddhism, christianity, housechurch, religious revival, emergent social hierarchy, private religions, secret social movements, the Christian field in China, the Buddhist field in China.