Long-time readers might remember this – now in print:
Yoshizaki, Kazumi (吉崎一美). The Kathmandu Valley as a Water Pot: Abstracts of research papers on Newar Buddhism in Nepal. Kathmandu: Vajra Books, 2012. 172 pp. ISBN: 9937506743. EAN: 9789937506748. USD$12.95. [official site]
Marylin M. Rhie; Robert A. F. Thurman, contrib.; Maria R. Heim, contrib.; Paola Zamperini, contrib.; Camille Myers Breeze, contrib. Picturing Enlightenment: Tibetan Tangkas in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Amherst: Mead Art Museum, August 2012. 152 pp. 71 color illus. USD$34.95. ISBN 978-0-914337-34-8. [official site]
“This lavishly illustrated book with an extensive catalogue and three essays by noted scholars, [sic] introduces the outstanding collection of eighteen Tibetan paintings in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College.” (Exhibition Catalogue.)
Bhagavān Kālacakra. 18th c. Mead Art Museum 1952.33.
N. Sihlé. Rituels bouddhistes de pouvoir et de violence: La figure du tantriste tibétain. Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses (BEHE 152). Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. 300 p. ISBN: 978-2-503-54470-0. €70. [official site]
“Cette contribution importante à l’anthropologie du bouddhisme tibétain apporte un éclairage nouveau pour penser la violence de l’exorcisme et, à travers la dualité du moine et du tantriste, les champs religieux marqués par la présence de différentes formes de spécialisation religieuse.”
Nancy Grace Lin. ‘Adapting the Buddha’s Biographies: A Cultural History of the Wish-Fulfilling Vine in Tibet, Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries’. PhD diss., University of California at Berkeley, 2011. 319 pp. ISBN 9781267228482, ProQuest ID 928450843.
From the Abstract
The Wish-Fulfilling Vine of Bodhisattva Avadānas (Skt. Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā, Tb. Byang chub sems dpa’i rtogs pa brjod pa dpag bsam gyi ’khri shing) by Kṣemendra is an eleventh-century Sanskrit anthology of stories about the previous existences of the Buddha and his disciples, along with events from the Buddha’s final life. Translated into Tibetan circa 1270 and incorporated into the Tibetan Buddhist canon, by the seventeenth century the Vine occupied a place of high prestige in Tibet. I argue that adaptations of the Vine—condensed literary digests, paintings, and woodcuts—constitute sophisticated forms of commentary that reveal the ingenuity and concerns of their producers. […]
In Chapter One I trace how the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) and his court popularized the Vine through public instruction, paintings, and literary activities. These conspicuously cultured displays promoted renewed interest in Sanskrit and the Indic origins of Buddhism, while contributing to broader projects of knowledge production and state-building. In Chapter Two I demonstrate how the lay Pho lha dynasty (r. 1728-1750) appropriated the Vine, sponsoring two large-scale multimedia productions while developing models for lay kingship and patronage. In Chapter Three I argue that Si tu Paṇ chen Chos kyi ’byung gnas (1700-1774), an influential monk of Sde dge in eastern Tibet, articulated his vision of the ideal monastic through the design of Vine paintings and other literary and visual productions on the Buddha’s life. In Chapter Four I study Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen (1697-1774), court chaplain of Sde dge, and his work on the Vine as commentaries on cultural production.
The Asian Classics Input Project recently announced the “complete distribution of the long awaited Kangyur (བཀའ་འགྱུར་) and Tengyur (བསྟན་འགྱུར་) etext collections in Tibetan unicode script”. Big up to the ACIP: this is quite an achievement. It’s old news for some, but when I recently asked some colleagues about this, none had any inkling that etexts of the full bKa’ ’gyur were available.
Using the ACIP etexts requires working in Tibetan script and registration — the latter possibly encouraging lying (it’s doubtful that most registrants will have anything like formal permission to read the entire tantric corpus).
However, there is alternative online access to the same body of scripture — though not necessarily the same electronic corpus (THL’s bKa’ ’gyur is specified as sDe dge, rather than ACIP’s Lha sa) — at the Tibetan and Himalayan Library: http://www.thlib.org/encyclopedias/literary/canons/kt/catalog.php#cat=d/k. Type Wylie or Tibetan Unicode text in the search box and you’re away. (Thanks to J.)
Peter Oldmeadow. Rimé: Buddhism without prejudice. Carlton North: Shogam Publications [facebook], 2012 [forthcoming]. ISBN 9780980502220.
Buddhism without prejudice? That would be the Sanskritic tradition, surely.
But as Dr. Oldmeadow informs me: “I’ve attempted to bring together available material on the Rime movement and its context and present it in an accessible fashion which, hopefully, also throws some light on present-day Tibetan Buddhism.”
Fan, Muyou. Advayasamatāvijaya: A Study Based upon the Sanskrit Manuscript Found in Tibet. Series of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature 2. Shanghai: Zhongxi Book Company. 10+356+13 pp. 2011. ISBN 978-7-5475-0303-4. [English introduction]
(Via RISM)
Nice to see this new publication. Pardon me, though, if part of it seems just a little too familiar. Compare page 4ff of the front matter, on the parallels between the opening of the Advayasamatāvijaya (missing in Fan’s Sanskrit MS) and the STTS, presented as the author’s own work:
with the beginning of a document prepared for Dr. Fan in 2008:
Kālidāsa; Hong Luo (Ch. tr); Lha Byams rgyal (Tib. ed. & tr.). Jiālítuósuō “Shílìng zhī huán” Hàn-Zàng yìzhù yǔ yánjiū [Kālidāsa’s Ṛtusaṃhāram: Annotated translation and study in Chinese & Tibetan]. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House, December 2010. ISBN 978-7-80253-294-6. [official site]
《时令之环》
迦梨陀娑(著), 罗鸿 (译者)〈云使〉北京大学出版社 29元
Kālidāsa; Hong Luo (Ch. tr). Yúnshǐ [Meghadūtam]. Beijing: Peking University Press, June 2011. ISBN 978-7-301-18795-1. [official site]
DiValerio, David Michael. ‘Subversive Sainthood and Tantric Fundamentalism: An Historical Study of Tibet’s Holy Madmen’. Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 2011, 727 pp. ProQuest document ID: 2516363731.
From the Abstract
This dissertation is an historical study of Tibetan Buddhists generally referred to as “madmen” (smyon pa), whose “madness” carries a positive valuation more often than a negative one. Technically they are referred to as “mad siddhas” (grub thob smyon pa) or “mad yogis” (rnal ‘byor smyon pa). […] This study views this eccentric behavior as strategic, purposeful activity, rather than being the byproduct of a state of enlightenment. This study also considers how these holy madmen have been understood by Tibetans and Euro-Americans, with the purpose of highlighting certain lines of thinking that have become commonplace within those respective discourses.
This study takes into consideration “madmen” living from the 12th century to the present, but with a special focus on the three most famous exemplars of the tradition: Sangyé Gyeltsen (better known as the Madman of Tsang, 1452-1507), Drukpa Künlé (better known as the Madman of the Drukpa, 1455-1529?) and Künga Zangpo (better known as the Madman of Ü, 1458-1532).
Long-time readers might remember this – now in print:
