Buddhism – Jinajik

2018-03-132018-03-31

Trần, Võ & Sharrock eds. (2018), Vibrancy in Stone

Trần Kỳ Phương, Võ Văn Thắng, Peter D. Sharrock (eds), Paisarn Piemmettawat (photographs). Vibrancy in Stone: Masterpieces of the Đà Nẵng Museum of Cham Sculpture. Bangkok: River Books. 288 pp. + 324 photographs. ISBN 978 616 7339 99 3. 2,000.00 ฿ (within Thailand). [official site] [official launch] [co-editor Peter D. Sharrock: academia.edu]

Description
The collection of the Đà Nẵng Museum of Cham Sculpture, mostly in sandstone, was gathered from the Champa monuments that were collapsed covered by dense tropical flora for centuries. Only in the late 19th century did the ruined mounds began to attract collectors of antiquities and researchers of cultural heritage. The large undertaking of surveying, recording, clearing and scientifically excavating them took place in the first thirty years of the 20th century, when sculptures from this hitherto little studied culture began to be transferred to the Đà Nẵng Museum of Cham Sculpture, then referred to as the ‘Musée Čam’ or ‘Musée de Tourane’. Continue reading “Trần, Võ & Sharrock eds. (2018), Vibrancy in Stone”

2017-05-082017-05-09

Khentrul Rinpoché (2015), A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity

Shar Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö (ཤར་མཁན་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་འཇམ་དཔལ་བློ་གྲོས); Joe Flumerfelt, ed. 2015. A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity: An unbiased summary of views and practices, gradually emerging from the teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions (སྣ་ཚོགས་ནོར་བུའི་རོལ་མཚོ། །རིས་མེད་འཛམ་གླིང་རིག་པའི་གཞུང་ལུགས་བྱུང་རིམ་ལྟ་གྲུབ་ཉིང་བསྡུས།།). Belgrave, Australia: Tibetan Buddhist Rimé Institute, ISBN: 9780994445308. US$24.95.

OCLC: 978641292. Official site: rimebuddhism.com

Contents:
Acknowledgments … vii Editor’s Preface … ix Introduction … 1


PART ONE: WORKING WITH DIVERSITY

1 The Nature of Belief … 15

2 The Rimé Philosophy … 29

PART TWO: THE WORLD'S BELIEF SYSTEMS Systems with an Extrinsic Focus 3 Ancient Wisdom Traditions … 49 4 Hinduism … 67 5 Judaism … 89 6 Christianity … 107 7 Islam … 129 Continue reading “Khentrul Rinpoché (2015), A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity”

2015-04-202015-04-20

Di Castro & Templeman (eds), Asian Horizons (2015)

Angelo Andrea Di Castro and David Templeman (eds). Asian Horizons: Giuseppe Tucci’s Buddhist, Indian, Himalayan and Central Asian Studies. Serie Orientale Roma CVI / Monash Asia Series. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, April 2015. xxvi+613 pp. AUD$99. ISBN (pb): 978-1-922235-33-6; (epub): 978-1-922235-34-3.

Contributors …… vii

Preface …… xi

Introduction …… xix

Gustavo Benavides. Giuseppe Tucci, Anti-Orientalist …… 3

Francesco D’Arelli. A Glimpse of some Archives on Giuseppe Tucci’s Scientific Expeditions to Tibet: 1929–1939 …… 16

Ruth Gamble. The problem with folk: Giuseppe Tucci and the transformation of folksongs into scientific artefacts …… 45

Alex McKay. ‘A very useful lie’: Giuseppe Tucci, Tibet, and scholarship under dictatorship …… 68

Francesco Sferra. The ‘thought’ of Giuseppe Tucci …… 83

II Continue reading “Di Castro & Templeman (eds), Asian Horizons (2015)”

2013-07-162013-07-16

Bentzen, ‘Origins of Religiousness: Natural Disasters’ (2013)

Nepal has earthquakes; Java has volcanoes; the United Kingdom has dreary weather. Is there a geographic correlation between religiosity and catastrophe?

Jeanet Sinding Bentzen. ‘Origins of Religiousness: The Role of Natural Disasters’. University of Copenhagen Department of Economics Discussion Paper 13-02, 2013. [official site / PDF]

From the Abstract

[…] Natural disasters are a source for adverse life events, and thus one way to interpret my findings is by way of religious coping. The results are robust to various measures of religiousness, and to inclusion of country fixed effects, income, education, demographics, religious denominations, and other climatic and geographic features. The results hold within Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, and across continents. […]

2013-05-082013-05-08

Viehbeck, Ju Mi pham vs. Dpa’ ris Rab gsal (2012)

Actual title:

Viehbeck, Markus. ‘The case of ‘Ju Mi pham (1846–1912) and Dpa’ ris Rab gsal (1840–1912): a study in Dgag lan Debate’. Dr. phil. Dissertation, Universität Wien, 2012. xxx+357 pp. [official site / PDF]

From the Abstract

The present dissertation is a case study in dgag lan debate, a specific form of debate that developed in Tibet, conducted through the exchange of texts. The dispute that is investigated evolved between the Rnying ma scholar ‘Ju Mi pham (1846–1912) and his Dge lugs opponent Dpa’ ris Rab gsal (1840–1912) and centres on the correct interpretation of the ninth chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, an Indian work (7th–8th ct. CE) that is of pivotal importance to the understanding of Madhyamaka thought. Polemics were exchanged over a period of about 27 years and involved the composition of six treatises, which makes this particular debate one of the most extended cases of its kind.

2013-05-062013-05-07

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).

Continue reading “International Conference on Tibetan History &c. (2013-7-13)”

2013-04-062013-04-06

Emms, Two Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya Traditions (2012)

Christopher D. Emms. Evidence for Two Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya Traditions in the Gilgit Prātimokṣa-sūtras. M.A. thesis, McMaster University, 2012. 127 pp. Open Access Dissertations and Theses, Paper 7337. [URI/PDF]

From the abstract

The Sanskrit prātimokṣa-sūtras contained in the Gilgit Buddhist manuscripts have been identified as belonging to the Mūlasarvāstivāda school. However, the identification of these manuscripts as Mūlasarvāstivādin texts is problematic. A key factor for determining the school affiliation of a prātimokṣa is the rule order. The Gilgit prātimokṣa-sūtras, however, differ in their rule order. In this thesis, I explore the relationship of these Gilgit prātimokṣa-sūtras to Mūlasarvāstivādin literature. […] I argue that we have evidence for two distinct Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya traditions within the Gilgit prātimokṣa-sūtras.

2013-03-192013-03-19

Park, Korean-Chinese-Sanskrit-English dictionary (2012)

박 종매 (Pak Chong-mae). 현대 한·영 불교용어사전 (Hyeon-dae Han-yeong Bul-gyo yong-eo sa-jeon). 푸른 향기. 2012-05-19. 28,000원 [official announcement]

Jongmae Kenneth Park. Modern Korean-Chinese-Sanskrit-English Buddhist dictionary. Seoul: Prunbook Publishing, 2012. 642 pp. ISBN 9788992073929.

The Sanskrit terms are typeset without diacritics, unfortunately. A scholarly Buddhist dictionary of Korean and Sanskrit is yet to be produced.

2012-09-052012-09-05

Pandey’s Siddham Script in Unicode proposal (2012/8)

Anshuman Pandey. ‘Proposal to Encode the Siddham Script in ISO/IEC 10646’. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4294 L2/12-234R. PDF. 2012/08/01.

Mr. Pandey’s proposal – now no longer preliminary – promises to fill yet another gaping hole in the standard encoding of important Indic scripts. Now would be an appropriate time to comment, if you haven’t already commented.

(I would hope, at minimum, for the addition of a full set of ten digits in the final proposal. Often such basics fall through the gaps because the corpus of readily available primary material is so limited. Here‘s a nice “7-8th century” bilingual manuscript with a varṇamālā (no digits, though) which is both in good condition and readable online, thanks to the care of its Japanese custodians. Incidentally, this clearly confirms that two of the “Punctuation and ornaments” in Pandey’s Fig. 33 are ornamental final anusvāra [अं字].)

Comments should be emailed to Anshuman Pandey, whose address is given in the N4294 proposal (link above) and at the bottom of his personal website (link).

n4294-p15 — ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4294 Fig.1. Proposed code chart.

2012-09-012012-09-01

Fletcher, Hunter, Supomo & Worsley, ‘Sumanasāntaka’ (2013)

Fletcher, Margaret; Hunter, Th.; Supomo; Worsley, Peter. Sumanasāntaka – Death by a Sumanasa Flower: An Old Javanese Epic Poem, Its Indian Source and Balinese Illustrations. KITLV Press: January 2013. 1,000pp. USD$125.00. ISBN: 978-90-6718-394-9. [distributed in the United States by UH Press].

Blurb

“This five-part study of a previously unpublished Old Javanese Kakawin contributes to the history of a narrative that had its origins on the Indian subcontinent and was reworked in the form of epic poems and paintings in Java and Bali.”