The Index Buddhicus is the first classified comprehensive bibliography of Buddhist Studies. It describes secondary material ranging from articles, papers and chapters appearing in journals, proceedings and collections, through reference works, monographs, editions and theses, to digital resources. All entries are linked to an elaborate index of both proper names and thematic, and cross referenced to related material. The Index is available as an online resource.
Tibetan Studies Resources | UNC University Libraries
This guide is intended to assist researchers looking for information about Tibetan studies. It also provides links to some resources and information outside of the UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries' collections.
In this guide (and in the tabs above), you'll find:
Books and Articles: Find books, articles, and relevant databases about Tibet studies.
Internet Resources: Find internet resources about Tibet studies.
Primary Sources: Find primary sources about Tibet studies.
Morris Rossabi is a Senior Research Scholar, at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and an Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of History, Queens College, The City University of New York.
Professor Rossabi is a historian of China and Central and Inner Asia. He teaches courses on Inner Asian, East Asian, and Chinese history at Columbia. During the 2008–2009 academic year, he received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Mongolia. He and Mary Rossabi are involved in an oral history of 20th and 21st century Mongolia, which has led to the publication of Socialist Devotees and Dissenters; A Herder, a Trader, and a Lawyer; and The Practice of Buddhism in Kharkhorin and its Revival (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, 2010, 2012, and 2013).
In 2006, he was named chair of the Arts and Culture Board of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation). He is the author of Herder to Statesman (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010); The Mongols and Global History (W. W. Norton, 2011); The Mongols: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012); A History of China (Blackwell, 2013); Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists (University of California Press, 2005); Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (University of California Press, 1988), chosen as a main selection by the History Book Club; and China and Inner Asia (Universe Books, 1975). He is the editor of China among Equals (University of California Press, 1983), Governing China’s Multi-Ethnic Frontiers (University of Washington Press, 2005) and Eurasian Influences on the Yuan (NIAS Press, 2013), and a contributor to several volumes of the Cambridge History of China. A collection of his articles has been published as From Yuan to Modern China and Mongolia (Brill, 2014).
He has helped organize exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He was on the advisory board of the Project on Central Eurasia of the Soros Foundation. The author of numerous articles and speeches, he travels repeatedly to Central Asia and Mongolia, where he teaches courses on Mongolian and East Asian history.
Find the latest papers and research trends published in peer-reviewed journals across the social sciences (Political Science, Sociology, Law, Geography, History, Communication, and Area Studies).
This page provides access to some of the resources incl. bibliographies formerly hosted on the now-closed website of the AHRC-funded History of the Chinese Maritime Customs Project. You may have been redirected here from that site (www.bristol.ac.uk/history/customs) and its subfolders — so please rest assured that you are in the right place.
The Chinese Foreign Policy Database enhances the ability of contemporary observers and historians to gain broader perspectives on Chinese policies. Curating 1000s of documents from Chinese and international archives, it offers insights into China’s foreign policy since 1949 and its relationship to ideology, revolution, the economy, and traditional Chinese culture. The Database is generously supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation.
This website presents more than 4400 handwritten Tibetan legal documents with about 18800 images as results of two former research projects. I carried out these projects together with various colleagues between 1999 to 2005.
In the first project, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), we had labors carried out on a project dealing with legal documents originally stored at Kundeling Monastery in Lhasa in collaboration with the Archives of Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa. During two years, in 1999 and 2000, more than 2700 documents of various formats, from very small to very large, including paper sheets with a length of several meters and book formats with many pages, were digitally recorded and are presented here as digital copies. The shooting of such a large number of images by the specially trained staff within the time available to us was made possible by the establishment of a digitization workshop and a standardized procedure. The technical equipment at that time already guaranteed a high resolution, which allows sufficient image details and enlargements for many investigations afterwards, including paleographic studies. However, the standardized procedure based on a fixed camera position and focal distance did not allow for time-consuming close-ups. Most of the documents were recorded with a Leica S1 Pro, a scanner camera for stationary use with a resolution of 26 megapixels. The scanning time for a full scan was 185 seconds. To speed up the work towards the end of the project, a second camera, a Nikon Coolpix with a resolution of 3.34 megapixels, was installed. It was used exclusively for small formats. A great portion of the digitized material has been transliterated in a Tibetan dBu-can based typed form in text files. This was done by members of the archives in Lhasa. The archives provided us with up to nine local staff members who were then paid by the project, including personnel for the technical maintenance of the equipment. Two German project members, Gregor Verhufen and Joachim Karsten, as well as myself were repeatedly on site for longer stays to carry out various tasks such as material procurement, hardware and software installation, maintenance work, technical inspection of the new computers, setting up the database, training of the staff, adaptation of the software, etc. Joachim Karsten also acted as German-Chinese translator when dealing with authorities and Chinese colleagues. At Bonn university, the German project staff was busy entering short descriptions of the documents into the database. This work still went on in 2001 after the cooperation in Lhasa had come to an end. At that time, Namgyal Nyima and Gregor Verhufen were working for the project at Bonn University. Gregor Verhufen did all programming work based on HTML code as well as the design presentation of the original website. Moreover, he extracted all seals stamps so that they could be viewed separately and accessed through a separate database. All other programming work to structure the website, including the implementation of the search options for the annotated information, the full-text search in the Tibetan texts and the conversion of the Tibetan texts from the proprietary Word format to Unicode, was done by Jan Ischebeck.
Between 2002 and 2005 another project on Tibetan Legal Documents, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, was initiated to digitize various collections, foremost the holding of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) in Dharamsala, India. In addition, several German collections have been digitized: the private collection of the philatelist Kurt H. Dahnke † that contains correspondence between Nepal and Tibet mainly from the 19th century, the private collection of Andre Alexander (1965-2012) that contains private documents from Lhasa town, and documents of the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, which have been described in detail by Hanna Schneider (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 11, part 16‒17: Tibetischsprachige Urkunden aus Südwesttibet (Spo-rong, Ding-ri und Shel-dkar). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2012). In sum, through this project almost 1800 documents became easily accessible.
Several people contributed to the project. Saadet Arslan sifted through the documents and did the actual digitizing using a scan camera. Afterwards she did the graphical processing, numbering, labelling, corrections and so on. Namgyel Nyima extracted the essential information of the documents and transferred them to a database. Further he did some examinations on the terminology and the proverbs contained in the documents. Gregor Verhufen installed the digitization workshop, created the original design of the websites, looked for the technical equipment and extracted the seals imprinted on the documents for the separate database. Blo bzang skal bzang, Klu sgrub mang thos, and bsTan ’dzin bzod pa from the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala transliterated the Tibetan handwriting into the Tibetan dBu-can script to make the documents searchable.
The time and financial budget available and the personnel capacity of both projects did not allow the texts to be transliterated twice and independently by two different groups in order to keep the error rate as low as possible. It is therefore the responsibility of each user to critically review the transliteration and compare it with the document images. The same applies to the entries in the separate database, which contains a short description of the respective document.
For many years the database was used by colleagues all over the world. It always operated smoothly without problems. Nevertheless, the programming of a database must be updated after some time. It was not easy to obtain funding for this. But it was even more difficult to find someone who was able and willing to do the job. The only thing that could be done was to regularly back up the raw data. Towards the end of 2018, a security gap in the database was identified during a large-scale scan of university websites, which led to the University Computer Centre of the University of Bonn taking the server with the database offline. The attempt to solve the problem by awarding a contract failed. Therefore, I am very grateful to my sons Robert and Sebastian for taking on the task this year. Without their great commitment and extensive programming knowledge the database could not be put online now. Instead of trying to close the vulnerability, they reprogrammed the database from scratch. Not only was the structure of the database changed and brought up to date. They also unified and merged different tables and linked them to the rest of the database. A unified search was added. The text search now also works with Tibetan characters and is cross-collection. Furthermore, the option to edit both, documents and seals, was implemented, as well as the possibility to add new documents to the database. To allow for future changes and additions, a user-system was created that assigns individual writing permissions to users. Finally, I want to thank Elin Kanstinger for creating the background image of the website. During the next years the content of the database has to be checked carefully and many corrections and supplements have to be made. It is my great hope that this can now happen step by step. Moreover, I plan to edit selected documents and publish them in book form.
The China Biographical Database (CBDB) is a freely accessible relational database with biographical information about approximately 491,000 individuals as of May 2021, primarily from the 7th through 19th centuries. With both online and offline versions, the data is meant to be useful for statistical, social network, and spatial analysis as well as serving as a kind of biographical reference. The image below shows the spatial distribution of a cross dynastic subset of 190,000 people in CBDB by basic affiliations (籍貫).
The long term goal of CBDB is systematically to include all significant biographical material from China’s historical record and to make the contents available free of charge, without restriction, for academic use. That data is regularly being enriched and new biographical entries are being created for Tang, Five Dynasties, Liao, Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing figures.
CBDB originates with the work of Robert M. Hartwell (1932–1996). Professor Hartwell bequeathed his estate, including the first version of this database, to the Harvard-Yenching Institute which ceded its ownership. | Harvard University
The MCBD aims to collect biographical data on any individual active in China, both Chinese and non-Chinese, through systematic data mining in source books such as directories, biographical dictionaries, Who’s who’s, etc., in newspapers and periodicals, and in the academic literature. Building a comprehensive bibliography is the ultimate goal here.
Japanese Woodblock print search engine. Searches thousands of Ukiyo-e, Meiji, Shin Hanga, and Sosaku Hanga prints.
A database of Japanese woodblock prints collected from institutions around the world. Spans the 17th to 20th centuries. Includes a visual image search for finding prints.
The Online Resource for Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (ORJACH)
English-language interactive tool for teachers and students interested in incorporating the wonders of early Japan in teaching and learning across a range of subjects including history, geography, environment, cuisine and religious studies.
This is a podcast where we (hosts Amanda Shuman, Maggie Greene, and Alan Christy) discuss relevant projects and issues related to the digital humanities in East Asian studies. We appreciate your comments, suggestions, and other feedback.
The Chinese Text Project is an online open-access digital library that makes pre-modern Chinese texts available to readers and researchers all around the world. The site attempts to make use of the digital medium to explore new ways of interacting with these texts that are not possible in print. With over thirty thousand titles and more than five billion characters, the Chinese Text Project is also the largest database of pre-modern Chinese texts in existence.
LopLao (Easy Tibetan) was established to promote and advance Tibetan language and culture worldwide. It was founded in 2019 by Tenzin Choephel and Dr Rachael Griffiths, who were concerned by the lack of resources available to Tibetan language learners; especially members of the Tibetan diaspora, for whom this language provides a crucial link to their cultural heritage.
Moving beyond traditional tools like textbooks, LopLao hopes to expand opportunities to learn Tibetan through creating varied, rich, and engaging resources. We aim to offer a variety of learning experiences like bite-size social media content, one-to-one online lessons with native speakers, YouTube videos, and blog posts. These additional formats offer flexibility, help keep learners engaged, and improve conversation, reading, and listening comprehension.
Designed to support learners of all levels and backgrounds, including members of the diaspora, we believe our online provision provides the tools required for learning and sustaining engagement with Tibetan.
BuddhaNexus is a text-matching database with visualization capabilities that draws its data from Buddhist literary corpora in Pāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. It allows users to conduct intralingual searches (e.g. searching among texts in Chinese only) of individual volumes for textual matches across the collection in question. Additionally, users are also able to produce Sankey visualizations of connections within different collections in the same language, which offers an intertextual view across collections, sections within collections, and within single texts.
Harvard WorldMap started in 2008 with the aim of lowering barriers for scholars to create, analyze, and share geospatial information. To continue the legacy and expand the capabilities available, the project has moved to ArcGIS Online.
The Harvard ChinaMap project visualizes a huge variety and volume of modern and premodern historical and statistical data sets to create map overlays.
The Hachiman Digital Handscrolls project presents digital versions of Japanese illuminated handscrolls (emakimono) on the subject of the Hachiman deity created between the 14th and 19th century.
The Mongol Invasions of Japan website is devoted to understanding the Mongol Invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 through interactive maps, digitizations of handscrolls on the Mongol attacks, and guided views of the content.
A curated list of digital things related to the field of Chinese studies. - GitHub - fccsdigitalchina/digital-china: A curated list of digital things related to the field of Chinese studies.
The easy-to-use getaway to historical maps in libraries around the world.
OldMapsOnline developed out of a love of history and heritage of old maps. The project began as a collaboration between Klokan Technologies GmbH, Switzerland and The Great Britain Historical GIS Project based at the University of Portsmouth, UK thanks to funding from JISC. Since January 2013 is the project improved and maintained by volunteers and the team of Klokan Technologies GmbH in their free time.
The University of Texas Libraries collects and preserves the finest achievements of human knowledge in support of not only research and instruction needs, but also the exploration of ideas and intellectual innovation. We are proud to provide access to geospatial data from our collections as well as the shared collections of other universities for researchers, scholars, educators, and the general public through this portal.
You will find a wide variety of data types available for download including georeferenced scanned maps from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, vector datasets developed from collections in the Alexander Architectural Archives, geospatial data from the Benson Latin American Collection, and more. These datasets represent just some of the geospatial resources found in the UT Libraries’ collections. Additional datasets will continue to be added to this portal as they are processed.
The Texas GeoData portal has been developed with a mix of open source solutions and commercial off-the-shelf technology, including GeoBlacklight 2.0.0 for the front end framework, ArcGIS Server, PostgreSQL, and Apache Solr. We provide access to the vector and raster datasets made available through this portal in a range of downloadable formats and via web services to facilitate the use of the data in both GIS software and interactive web maps. All University of Texas datasets that are available for download through this portal are georeferenced and use the WGS 84 (EPSG: 4326) coordinate reference system by default to facilitate use in GIS software.
This portal has been configured to allow users to browse not only geospatial resources in the UT Libraries’ collections, but also raster and vector datasets shared by other universities that are utilizing GeoBlacklight and have shared the metadata for their resources through the OpenGeoMetadata collaboration. Since it is possible to find data from a variety of institutions through this portal you may notice some variations in the services and metadata that are available for particular datasets. This portal is built to conform to the standards set forth in the University’s Web Accessibility Policy.
HankerM·bibliographies.brillonline.com·
