བྱོན་པ་ལེགས།

My name is Anna Sawerthal. This website is based on a list I compiled for my Ph.D. thesis I defended at Heidelberg University. The study focuses on the influential Mirror of News from Various Regions of the World (also known as “Tibet Mirror”, 1925-1963), and analyzes media historical changes accompanying the introduction of newspapers to the Tibetan plateau. In order to assess these changes, I compiled a list of newspapers and other early periodicals in Tibetan language. Over the last years, I have encountered a divide between people who have access to academic discussions, literature and knowledge, and a  majority who do not, but might be interested in certain outcomes of this research. Therefore I decided to set up this homepage to share my work with anybody interested. I welcome feedback, criticism and particularly further information or material which could shed light on the numerous blind spots in the history of Tibetan-language newspapers. Through the generous funding of my institute at Heidelberg,  I was able to visit various archives around the world and meet numerous scholars at conferences and workshops. I express my sincere gratitude to all who shared their precious knowledge with me. I thank danubeweb.at for hosting this page and providing support.

Rob Mayer and Cathy Cantwell’s blog. We have been on the faculty here at Oxford since 2002, and we work together. In this blog, we share, discuss and debate some of our research discoveries.

Known affectionately as the "one who cracked the code". She's helped countless students start from zero to mastering the language. Author of a four-volume colloquial Tibetan language textbook, Franziska truly understands the elegance of the Tibetan language and generously offers everything she knows of the language to her students. Few people can make a difficult subject easy and Franziska through both her great love of the language and of teaching, makes learning Tibetan not only fun but relatively easy. Franziska is the Tibetan language teacher at SINI and has helped countless students go from zero to hero. She has taught at the University of Virginia, the FPMT Translation Program, Emory University, SIT in Nepal, the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, and has been invited to many institutions to share her ideas and views on learning Tibetan. She has opened the door to the Tibetan language for so many students from all over the world. Her commitment to preserving the Tibetan language is deeply inspiring. If you are interested in learning Tibetan, consider taking her class.

Elliot Sperling

DEBTELIN is a on- and off line journal for Manchu in translation.

The site for articles on all aspects of historical Manchu archery. For years I put heart and soul into this site, writing articles in weekends and after office hours. Since 2016 I quit my day job to dedicate myself full-time to antique arms at www.mandarinmansion.com. Most of my more recent writing is done there now, but I haven't forgotten about the subject yet!

Welcome to Opuscula Buddhologica et Tibetologica on the WordPress! Some of you who know me may think: “Oh no, not again!” This would be a justified reaction because I have several blogs (https://www.blogger.com), which are hardly consistently and continually maintained. Some entries there may be of some academic value but they were never meant to be academically valuable. They were meant to be mere hobbies and sandboxes. I play there whenever I can. But of course the nicest thing would be if work itself can be enjoyed as a hobby. As an academic, one might say that the best holiday would be when one can study and write petty academic works undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of bureaucratic works and other non-academic obligations. What one often ends up doing is stealing, whenever one can, a few moments between various commitments and obligations, and grabbing an academic book and taking down a few random notes (zin bris, brjed tho or brjed byang). But soon one would realize that these notes are like “drawings on the surface of water” (chu’i ri mo). Even if one had etched one’s notes on paper, which one believes is more tangible and durable, it is not easy to trace them again, for one is often on one’s way without any paper. Of course, I know that some people are so systematic and consistent that they can easily trace anything from anywhere. I respect and envy them! So blogs are solutions for people like myself. (a) One can easily write anything on blogs and easily access one’s writings. (b) One can easily delete, add, or change them whenever one wants. (c) It is surprisingly durable and tangible. (d) One can instantaneously share ideas with the interested readership. While none of my previous blogs were meant to be “academic,” this particular blog, lays some claim to being “academic.” I hasten to concede that all my academic writings are hypothetical and are prone to deletions or corrections. While I take full responsibility for the petty little things that I write here, I cannot be sure of their reliability. As my German professor is wont to advise, we cannot fully trust anybody’s work particularly not one’s own. These blog articles will be mostly very terse for they will often be written based on a few random notes and completed in just in one sitting. They would be imperfect. But they would provide me with a feeling of an instant success and fulfillment. If an article grows beyond its scope, I may close down it down and publish it elsewhere in a printed form. Last but not least, I sincerely apologize in advance to all those whose mother tongue is English and to those who write in perfect and elegant English. English is not my mother tongue, and even if it were, I am not so sure if I would have acquired the necessary talent to write in English with mastery, clarity, and beauty. I can only call on readership’s leniency with all the imperfections that bound these short blog articles.

༑སྟོང་ཉིད་སྙིང་རྗེ་ཟུང་དུ་འཇུག་པའི་ལམ།། ཆེས་ཆེར་གསལ་མཛད་གངས་ཅན་བསྟན་འགྲོའི་མགོན།། ཕྱག་ན་པད་མོ་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ལ།། གསོལ་བ་འདེབས་སོ་བཞེད་དོན་ལྷུན་འགྲུབ་ཤོག། ༑མཉེས་གཤིན་བྱམས་བརྩེས་འགྲོགས་ཐབས་འཚེ་མེད་ལམ། ། མཐའ་གཉིས་སྤངས་པ་གཉིས་སྨན་དབུ་མའི་ལམ། ། འཇིགས་རུང་དྲག་མཚོན་མ་མཆིས་ཞི་བདེའི་ཡུལ། ། བསྐྲུན་པའི་ཐབས་ཚུལ་འགྲུབ་པའི་མཐུ་དཔུང་སྐྱེད། ། བྱང་ཆུབ་ལམ་སྒྲོན་གྱི་ཁྲིད་ལུང། སྤྱོད་འཇུག་ཆེན་མོའི་བཀའ་ཁྲིད།

An academic website of Michael Stanley-Baker focused on Buddhist and Daoist medical sources in China.

The Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC) is a multidisciplinary Research Centre of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 2014. Building on the School’s deep academic and historical connections with Southeast Asia, SEAC seeks to foster world-leading academic and policy research with a focus on the Southeast Asian social and political landscape, guided by the Centre’s core intersecting research themes of urbanisation, connectivity and governance. SEAC’s blog is a platform for analysing and debating the Southeast Asia region’s critical and pressing issues as LSE’s gateway to Southeast Asia. The blog will introduce academic research of LSE faculty, fellows, students and alumni as well as external researchers and SEAC’s Southeast Asia early career researcher network members.

Translations and Commentary from Tibetan Social Media

Lhakar Diaries is a blog dedicated to Lhakar, or, "White Wednesday," a non-cooperation movement in Tibet based on non-violent strategy, where ordinary men and women actively resist China's occupation by supporting Tibetan businesses, eat Tibetan food, wear Tibetan clothing, speak Tibetan language and celebrate the Tibetan identity. We are a team of young Tibetans around the globe, highlighting these examples of civil resistance inside Tibet. Lhakar Diaries serves as a platform to promote similar actions on the outside, showing our solidarity with Tibetans in Tibet. Each Wednesday we share our personal journeys with our essays, artwork, music and exploration of our shared cultural heritage and identity.

This website provides fonts, software, and other additional resources covering various areas of Asia.

Until relatively recent times the Bon religion of Tibet was poorly understood by the majority of Tibetans and Westerners alike. Although our general knowledge has advanced greatly in the past few decades thanks to the work of a few pioneering scholars, misconceptions still abound, and many areas of this fascinating religion remain obscure. While most of the secondary literature on Bon has dealt with the history, philosophy and meditative systems of the religion, the domain of ritual is still substantially unexplored. Some of the most important contributions to this subject that have so far been published are presented here. [link] Understandably, students of Bon ritual have tended to favour the literary component: after all, where the rituals in question are obsolete, this is the only option available to the researcher, except in the rather unusual cases where the surviving texts are supplemented with illustrations. But ritual, by definition, includes an important performative element. In addition to the various accoutrements and effigies that feature in any performance, there are gestures, processions and interactions that are generally described in only the vaguest terms in the liturgical sources, where they are mentioned at all. Some of the most interesting aspects of ritual performances have no place whatsoever in the sources. These would include a lama’s idiosyncratic interpretation of text prescriptions, his exchanges with the other participants (such as his assistant and his patrons), the occurrence of errors (an assistant pouring red dye onto an effigy what should remain uncoloured), and solicited or spontaneous commentaries on procedures. If the text is just one – albeit an essential – component of a ritual, observing an actual performance can be a hopelessly confusing experience. Behind the noise, the chaotic activity and the protracted chanting it is often far from clear what is going on. One of the main purposes of this site is to render Bonpo rituals more accessible by combining the textual and performative dimensions. A detailed explanation of how this works is given [here], but the general idea can be explained in simple terms as follows: The site hosts several dozen Bonpo ritual texts. The texts are presented in facsimile form as well as romanised transliteration, and, in many cases, with a full English translation and notes. The performative aspect is represented by video recordings of a number of rituals, to which access can be had via links on the site’s pages. The videos are subtitled in English, and range in duration from approximately ten minutes to eight hours. Each ritual is also covered by an article that is divided into two main parts: 1. a general discussion of that category of rituals; and 2. a detailed description of a particular performance. The articles are illustrated with photographs, diagrams and tables, and contain numerous links. The links are of two kinds: 1. to texts; and 2. to video footage. The links will take you to precisely that point in the text or the video that is relevant to the part of the performance that is being described. (It is also possible, of course, to see the texts or watch the videos in their entirety.) The transcriptions of the texts also contain links that will take you to the point in the video where any given passage is being recited. This will enable you to see exactly what is going on when the lama is reading that section of the text. We hope, in time, to establish reciprocal links. This means that it will be possible to go from a point in a video to the corresponding point in a text (assuming that a text is being used at that moment) or to the description furnished in the accompanying article. While this website is dedicated mainly to ritual it also offers resources that are relevant to other areas of the Bon religion. These resources include: paintings (tsaklis and thangkas); texts not directly connected to ritual (such as biographies and canonical works); Tibetan periodicals and other publications related to Bon; scholarly contributions to Bon studies in Tibetan and in European languages.

A visualization of testimonials from the Japan Disasters Archive (JDArchive.org)

A visualization of interviews with atomic bomb survivors collected in the Hiroshima Archive

Statues & Art of 400+ Deities, 4,000+ Photos. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and Shintoism in Japan.

Explorations and experiments in visual representations - ethnographic film, photography and visual media

Ancient Wisdom from the Yungdrung Bön Tradition by Raven Cypress Wood.

Translator of Tibetan Buddhist Texts. Adam S. Pearcey is the founder-director of Lotsāwa House, a virtual library of translations from Tibetan. His publications include (as co-translator) Mind in Comfort and Ease by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Wisdom Publications, 2007); Ga Rabjampa’s To Dispel the Misery of the World (Wisdom Publications, 2012), which he translated at the suggestion of the late Khenchen Appey Rinpoche; and Beyond the Ordinary Mind: Dzogchen Advice from Rimé Masters (Snow Lion, 2018). A complete list of the many translations he has published online can be found here. Adam first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in 1994 when he taught English at two monasteries near Darjeeling in India. He went on to study at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London; the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where he also taught Tibetan and served as an interpreter; the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala; Oxford University, where he earned a Master’s degree in Oriental Studies; and again at SOAS, where he completed his PhD with a thesis entitled A Greater Perfection? Scholasticism, Comparativism and Issues of Sectarian Identity in Early 20th Century Writings on rDzogs-chen.

Cindy Nguyen is a UC Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Literature Department at University of California, San Diego. She previously worked at Brown University. She earned her Ph.D. in History at University of California, Berkeley (2019). She specializes in the history of Vietnam, Southeast Asia print culture, and libraries. Her book manuscript, "Misreading: Social Life of Libraries and Colonial Control in Vietnam, 1865-1958" examines the cultural and political history of libraries in Hanoi and Saigon from the French colonial period through to the decolonization of libraries.

I am a web developer, translator and theatre researcher who has lived in Mexico, The Netherlands, Singapore and Indonesia. I work as Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore and Academic Advisor on Digital Scholarship at the NUS Libraries. I also convene Digital Humanities Singapore. My main research interests are Indonesian theatre and the digital/computational humanities.

We are those six students (we know there are only five photos, we promise there are six of us!) and this is our little space on the Internet dedicated to curating Indian children’s literature. We’ve lived and breathed children’s literature for the past two months; all of this enthusiasm has been exhibited on this blog. Whether it’s a database of close to a thousand children’s books from India (yes, really), articles discussing trends in Indian children’s literature or academic papers questioning the discipline itself, we have something for everyone! We do hope that this site will be helpful to anyone and everyone interested in children’s literature in India, thank you so much for stopping by!

A website dedicated to the study of 5th to 18th century Buddhist Art of the Himalayas (mostly sculpture).

Scholar, explorer, writer and pilgrim John Vincent Bellezza is widely recognized as one of the foremost specialists in the archaeology and ancient cultural history of Tibet. He has lived in the high Himalaya for over a quarter of a century. Explore these pages for information about his work.

Notes, thoughts and fragments of research on the history of Tibet. Written by Sam van Schaik.