Rediscovering Western Tibet : Gonpa, Chorten and the continuity of practice with a Tibetan Buddhist community in the Indian Himalaya

The thesis studies the continuity and revitalisation of Tibetan Buddhism of the Drukpa Kargyu tradition in the district of Karzha in Lahul, Himachal Pradesh (India). The study is centred on the religious community of Kardang Gonpa and on the associated village of Kardang. Chapter 1 presents Karzha and Lahul as seen by the Indian administratration. This 'external' description is further developed in Section I of the thesis, with the historical survey and presentation of the perspective of the outside observer. After this 'external' description, Section I introduces the 'internal' perspective, the sacred geography of Karzha Khandroling ('Karzha, Land of Dakinis'), and considers the relationship between the two perspectives. Section II presents descriptions of the village, the households which make it up, and the cycle of agricultural and calendrical rituals which are performed there. Attention then turns, in Chapter 5, to the gonpa and the links between its practitioners and the village households from which they come. The origins of the gonpa early this century, in a period of religious revitalisation stemming from the activity of the East Tibetan teacher, Shakya Shri (1853-1919), and his Karzhapa disciples, Kardangpa Norbu (1885-1947) and Kardangpa Kunga (18837-1967), are narrated. A more recent period of revitalisation, associated with the ritual and teaching activities of Shakya Shri's refugee grandson, and continued after the latter's death by his teaching assistant, Gegan Khyentse Gyatso, and his son, Se Rinpoche, is explored in Section III. Chapter 7, which focuses on the building of a chorten (stupa) in Kardang village during the period of fieldwork, is both indicatative of this revitalisation and demonstrates the relationships between village and gonpa. Section IV considers the stories told about the origins of Kardang Gonpa in the light both of stories about earlier religious teachers in Karzha, particularly the early Drukpa teacher Gotsangpa, and of the general Tibetan tradition of namthar or hagiography. Such narratives play a vital part in maintaining Karzhapa ways of thinking and behaving and so validate the continuity of the Drukpa Kargyu tradition of Buddhism, which allows the people of Kardang to respond in a positive and constructive way to processes of change, 'development' and incorporation into the modem state of India

Fine Art Pattern Extraction and Recognition

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Journal of Imaging (ISSN 2313-433X) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jimaging/special issues/faper2020)

The gilded Buddha - The traditional art of the Newar metal casters in Nepal

This book celebrates in words and images the traditional metal crafts practised for over a thousand years by the creators of religious Buddhist statues in Nepal. The skills of these artisans are nurtured with deep respect for tradition, regarding religion, iconography and technology. Wax modellers, mould makers, casters, fire-gilders and chasers are among the specialists of the Newar ethnic group, whose work is characterised to this day by a melding of age-old technology, great skill, religious observance and contemplation. There are numerous books and exhibition catalogues dedicated to Buddhist art and iconography but little was available about the craft of the artists who turn the religious imagery into metal casts. This book fills this gap, with a thoroughly documented and historical account of the development of this “archaic” technology. The well-informed text and comprehensive photographic coverage constitute the only up-to-date account and full documentation of an art that is 1300 years old but dying out: the “ritual” production of Buddhist statues in the lost wax casting technique. The author, Dr. Alex Furger, is an archaeologist who has studied ancient metallurgy and metalworking techniques over the past four decades. He spent twenty-five years at the head of the Roman site of Augusta Raurica and lives in Basel (Switzerland). He is the author of over 130 articles in scientific journals and twelve books in the field of culture history. The fieldwork for this book led him repeatedly to Nepal, where he met and interviewed dozens of craftsmen in their workshops. This book is addressed to readers interested in culture history, travellers to Asia, collectors of statues of Buddha, (avocational) metalworkers, historians of technology, Buddhists, ethnologists, archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Asia and to libraries and museums

Figurations of Time in Asia

The experience and the ensuing structuring of time forms a constitutive part of human cultures. There are many ways of coming to terms with time, calendars and historiographies being its most common cultural representations. The contributions to this volume deal with lesser known figurations that result directly from the various perceptions about time and phenomena related to time. Diachronous investigations in various parts of Asia (predominantly South Asia) reveal a broad spectrum of such visual and literary figurative manifestations. While Hinduism recognizes a divine personification of time and allocates the ominous factor time in an ontological proximity to death, other cultures of Asia have developed their own specific concepts and strategies. This collection of essays combines perspectives of various disciplines on figurations in which time congeals, as it were. These figurations result from local time regimes, and beyond demonstrating their diversity of forms this volume offers coordinates for a comparison of cultures. The topics include chronograms as well as early Buddhist topoi of the vastness of time, the Indian Jaina representation of both temporality and non-temporality and the teachings of a Mediaeval Zen master hinting at the more stationary aspects of time

The Border Came Between Us: Securing Development, Surveillance and Securitization, and Refugee Memory and Placemaking in Nepal

The dissertation focuses on Chinese economic development and geopolitical influence in Nepal, with particular emphasis on how increased Chinese influence disrupts everyday lives of Tibetan refugees. While Nepali state administrators see the need to move away from Indian dominance in the Nepali economy and trade, this occurs in tandem with seeking and receiving economic development from China. I argue that in sustaining Nepal&rsquo;s interests in securing Chinese development, the Nepali state agrees to secure Tibetan refugees by following the One China Policy, among other geopolitical expectations including greater surveillance and policing of exiled Tibetans in Nepal. In doing so, I discuss how Tibetans, and increasingly Himalayan Indigenous peoples, are brought into the security apparatus based on ethnic and caste hierarchies that are foundational to the discursive construction of the Nepali nation based on Hindu cosmologies and hierarchies that privilege Bahun-Chhetri populations while politically marginalizing Indigenous peoples. Through ethnographic fieldwork, I study how sovereignty is felt in the everyday. Tibetans in Nepal experience extensive surveillance and rigid security measures that condition Tibetan subjectivities through restrictions on religious festivities and commemorations of Tibetan political events. The Nepali state uses visual markers to identify and categorize the seemingly illegible forms of Tibetan-ness into neatly understandable and legible categories through forms of surveillance and policing. Tibetan refugees make do in these securitized and surveilled spaces through forms of placemaking that counter, navigate, and ignore securitization by reimagining their presents and futures alongside Himalayan Indigenous communities. However, while previously Tibetan and Himalayan Indigenous communities shared a form of solidarity with one another, in recent times there have been many calls from within the community for place-based politics of indigeneity that mark Himalayan Indigenous identities as distinctly non-Tibetan identities. To negotiate with these politics in flux, Tibetan refugees carve out and sustain a territory for themselves through memory and placemaking.</p

Tibetan Printing: Comparison, Continuities, and Change

Tibetan Printing: Comparisons, Continuities and Change is the first publication that brings together leading experts from different disciplines to discuss the introduction of printing in Tibetan societies in the context of Asian book culture. Readership: All interested in Tibetan Studies, in Asian Book Cultures and the history of printing as well as in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of books as artefacts

Collecting En Route: An Exploration of the Ethnographic Collection of Gertrude Emily Benham

Included at the back of the thesis is a publication on a review of an exhibition: 'Connecting with Gertrude' Journal of Museum Ethnography Vol 25 (2012)pp.183-188In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century the collecting of objects from colonized countries and their subsequent display in western museums was widespread throughout Western Europe. How and why these collections were made, the processes of collection, and by whom, has only recently begun to be addressed. This thesis is an exploration of the ethnographic collection of Gertrude Emily Benham (1867-1938) who made eight voyages independently around the world from 1904 until 1938, during which time she amassed a collection of approximately eight hundred objects, which she donated to Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in 1935. It considers how and why she formed her collection and how, as a an amateur and marginalised collector, she can be located within discourses on ethnographic collecting. The thesis is organised by geographical regions in order to address the different contact zones of colonialism as well as to contextualise Benham within the cultural milieu in which she collected and the global collection of objects that she collected. An interdisciplinary perspective was employed to create a dialogue between anthropology, geography, museology, postcolonial and feminist theory to address the complex issues of colonial collecting. Benham is located within a range of intersecting histories: colonialism, travel, collecting, and gender. This study is the first in-depth examination of Benham as a collector and adds to the knowledge and understanding of Benham and her collection in Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. It contributes to the discourse on ethnographic collectors and collecting and in doing so it acknowledges the agency and contribution of marginal collectors to resituate them as a central and intrinsic component in the formation of the ethnographic museum. In addition, and central to this, is the agency and role of indigenous people in forming ethnographic collections. The thesis offers a foundation for further research into women ethnographic collectors and a more nuanced and inclusive account of ethnographic collecting

TECHNART 2017. Non-destructive and microanalytical techniques in art and cultural heritage. Book of abstracts

440 p.TECHNART2017 is the international biannual congress on the application of Analytical Techniques in Art and Cultural Heritage. The aim of this European conference is to provide a scientific forum to present and promote the use of analytical spectroscopic techniques in cultural heritage on a worldwide scale to stimulate contacts and exchange experiences, making a bridge between science and art. This conference builds on the momentum of the previous TECHNART editions of Lisbon, Athens, Berlin, Amsterdam and Catania, offering an outstanding and unique opportunity for exchanging knowledge on leading edge developments. Cultural heritage studies are interpreted in a broad sense, including pigments, stones, metal, glass, ceramics, chemometrics on artwork studies, resins, fibers, forensic applications in art, history, archaeology and conservation science. The meeting is focused in different aspects: - X-ray analysis (XRF, PIXE, XRD, SEM-EDX). - Confocal X-ray microscopy (3D Micro-XRF, 3D Micro-PIXE). - Synchrotron, ion beam and neutron based techniques/instrumentation. - FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy. - UV-Vis and NIR absorption/reflectance and fluorescence. - Laser-based analytical techniques (LIBS, etc.). - Magnetic resonance techniques. - Chromatography (GC, HPLC) and mass spectrometry. - Optical imaging and coherence techniques. - Mobile spectrometry and remote sensing

Atlas of Religion in China

This atlas maps religious sites and describes social and demographic characteristics of religious believers in contemporary China.; Readership: All people interested in religion in China; academic libraries; research institutes on China