Andrew Quintman

Wall mural of Shakyamuni Buddha seated in the earth-touching gesture, surrounded by bodhisattvas and human disciples. Photo from Zhalu Monastery by Andrew Quintman (2011)

For Saga Dawa Duchen, the Tibetan commemoration of Buddha Śākyamuni's birth, enlightenment and parinirvāṇa.

📷 from Zhalu Monastery, Tibet

Kayaking near Old Saybrook, CT at the breakwater marker

Red NDK Romany Sea kayak on the beach

Sunset over the CT River

Busy end of semester so haven’t really posted at all. But had dinner at the mouth of the CT River last night and now cleaning off kayak gear listening to Patrick O’Brian, so it must be summer right?

Latimer Lighthouse, Fishers Island Sound, NY

Stonington, CT beach launch with 3 NDK kayaks

#SeaKayakSunday

Stonington, CT to Fishers Island, NY playing in the tide races at Latimer Light and the cans. Winds 15-20 kts, seas 3-4 ft. Gonna be sore tomorrow. (No action shots for obvious reasons.)

#seakayak #seakayaking

The image shows a vintage postcard depicting a man dressed in traditional clothing, wearing a warm, earth-toned robe with intricate patterns in shades of brown and orange. His head is covered with a matching pointed hood, giving him a weathered appearance. The man is holding a prayer wheel in his right hand, which is cylindrical and decorated with red and white bands. He hold Buddhist mala beads in his left hand held up to his chest.The border of the postcard is simple and white, with some text at the top and bottom.

Identified as a "Buddhist priest" and holding a prayer wheel, a figure such as this would have passed for a generic Tibetan lama in the visual language of the early 20th century.

In this case, however, we also know this monk's name: Sherab Gyatso. 🧵
🗃️ 📜 #Tibet

Luna the white mini husky after rolling around in the mowed grass so she is sporting a very green tint

Took a little social media break but now I'm back. So here's Luna after enjoying the freshly mowed lawn.

Slide with images of the king of Religious Studies JZ Smith and early Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo

In the final formal presentation of the conference, Lewis Doney brings early Tibet back to the study of religion.

Matthew Kapstein beginning his keynote lecture

Keynote lecture by Matthew Kapstein

“Wisdom and Tradition in Imperial Tibet: Apropos of Gtsug lag once more”

Conference program cover

Friday, May 2 12:00pm - 1:00pm 1:00pm - 1:10pm Lunch Opening Remarks Panel 1: Assimilating the Dead Chaired by Eric Greene, Yale University 1:10pm - 1:50pm Mark Aldenderfer, The Archaeology of Mortuary Contexts of Near/Early Imperial Tibet University of California, Merced, and University of Arizona 1:50pm - 2:30pm Joanna Bialek, Over Their Dead Bodies: Taming Tibetan Souls in the Name of the Buddha Trinity College Dublin 2:30pm - 2:50pm Coffee Break Panel 2: Missionaries and Maps Chaired by Meghan Howard Masang, Yale University 2:50pm - 3:30pm Ai Nishida, Early Buddhist Propagation in Tibetan Manuscripts from Dunhuang Kyoto University 3:30pm - 4:10pm Brandon Dotson, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhist Moral Cosmology Georgetown University 4:10pm - 4:30pm Gyatso Marnyi and Yu Yan, Cosmologies in Tibetan Oral Traditions: A Digitization and Visualization Project Yale University; USC-SJTU ICCI, Shanghai Jiaotong University 4:30pm - 4:40pm Break 4:40pm - 5:40pm Keynote by Matthew T. Kapstein, Wisdom and Tradition in Imperial Tibet: Apropos of Gtsug lag Once More École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL Research University, Paris, and The Divinity School of the University of Chicago

Saturday, May 3 8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast Panel 3: Buddhism between Tibet and Dunhuang Chaired by Gyatso Marnyi, Yale University 9:00am - 9:40am Kazushi Iwao, A Secret Ceremony of Buddhist Precepts Brought from Central Tibet to Dunhuang Ryukoku University, Kyoto 9:40am - 10:20am 10:20am - 10:40am Channa Li, Revisiting the Formation of the Tibetan Don mchog brtsegs pa chen po (Mahãratnakütasutra): Hybrid Translation Theory and New Insights from Dunhuang Manuscripts IKGA, Austrian Academy of Sciences Coffee Break Panel 4: Translation and the State Chaired by Jacob P. Dalton, University of California, Berkeley 10:40am - 11:20am Yi (Allan) Ding. The Making of Standards: The Lankavatara and the Ratnamegha as Two Pre-Mahävyut patti Exemplars DePaul University 11:20am - 12:00pm Meghan Howard Masang, Institutions and Practices: Buddhist Translation in a Social Frame Yale University 12:00pm - 1:00pm Lunch Panel 5: Tantric Buddhism and Imperial Prestige Chaired by Andrew Quintman, Wesleyan University 1:00pm - 1:40pm Jacob P. Dalton, Technologies of Power: Tantric Buddhism and The Tibetan Empire University of California, Berkeley 1:40pm - 2:20pm Xiaotian Yin, Mirroring the Crowned Buddha(s): Intervisuality and Intertextuality of the "Vairocana" Imageries in Dunhuang, 9th-11th Century Harvard University 2:20pm - 3:00pm Lewis Doney, Mapping Imperial and Early Post-Imperial Representations of Tibetan Religion University of Bonn 3:00pm - 3:30pm Coffee Break 3:30pm - 5:00pm Amanda Goodman, Concluding Reflections

Spending the next few days thinking about Buddhism in Imperial Period Tibet. Meghan Howard has put together a stellar lineup to discuss work on and from Dunhuang.

macmillan.yale.edu/eastasia/eve...

#TibetanStudies

The film-maker, who wrote a piece for Sotheby's about his family's custodianship of the gems, said they had considered donating them to temples and museums but this proved to be problematic. "An auction [in Hong Kong] seems the fairest and most transparent way to transfer these relics to Buddhists and we are confident that Sotheby's will achieve that," he added.

This cracked me up: “we thought abt donating them to Buddhist groups but decided it was more fair to sell them to Buddhists instead…”

Coconut Religion - Wikipedia

Pretty sure this is the best Wikipedia page you’ll have read this week.

Live at Pitt: CMU's Benno Weiner on the Evolution of China's Minzu Policy This week on Sinica, in a show recorded at the University of Pittsburgh, I speak with Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, about how China's policy toward its mi...

Appearing on the Sinica podcast was a bucket list sort of thing. Thanks to @kaiserkuo.bsky.social for having me on to talk about ethnopolitics in China. There's more I wish I had said, and some things I wish I had said differently, but give it a listen!

www.sinicapodcast.com/p/live-at-pi...

#Andor obvs

black and white photo of dancers at Woodstock

this was the second thing

Mon Mothma and wedding guests amidst ecstatic dancing, Andor 2.3

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and followers in ecstatic dance

Watching Mon Mothma dance in that wedding scene, this is pretty much the first thing I thought of, ngl.

I often poll my students: is Buddhism a philosophy, a religion, or a way of life (choose only one)? They increasingly choose religion, and if they don't at the start of class, they definitely do by the end. 👏 👏 👏

DOGE is a way of life. Like Buddhism,” Mr. Musk said. Pressed again, he said: “Is Buddha needed for Buddhism?”

One of my main teaching goals lately is to show that Buddhism is indeed a religion and not just a way of life, and that the Buddha is actually kinda central to it…

Compassionate Light: Stories of Tibet by Pema Tseden : a complete retrospective in Vancouver at VIFF May 16-19

I'm happy to announce that the complete retrospective of films by Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden that I've curated will be showing in Vancouver: Compassionate Light: Stories of Tibet by Pema Tseden. May 16-19. At the VIFF Theatre @viffest.bsky.social
Details here: viff.org/series/pema-...

The image features a photograph of a large Buddhist statue, known as the Kamakura Daibutsu, with a serene expression and adorned with distinctively stylized hair and earlobes. A group of about two dozen people are gathered in front of it, with many standing in its lap or on the stone pedestal supporting it. The people are dressed in early 20th-century attire.

Tales of Tourist Photos, Pt. 1: If photography changed the way people viewed the world, the Eastman Kodak camera transformed the late Victorian practice of tourism.

The handheld Kodak made photography available to casual amateurs, creating the vernacular form of snapshot photography. 🧵
🗃️ 📜 #Japan

Painting of Tibetan landscape together with this month's translations totals

📚 We added 33 new translations in April, incl. texts by Garab Dorje, Śrī Siṃha, Jigme Lingpa (1730–1798), Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820–1892), Khenchen Ngawang Palzang (1879–1941), Drimé Özer (1881–1924), Sera Khandro (1892–1940), Gendün Chöpel (1903–1951), Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910–1991)...

"Gutenberg woodblock" is not a phrase I had imagined

A Bhutanese traditional vertical format painting of Buddhist deities and masters. The main figures, a deity pair, are largest in scale at center and are flanked by a series of smaller lineage figures. A yellow seated deity is above their heads, and a buddha, a bodhisattva, and a meditational deity are below.

From the Yum Chenmo above to the trio of figures below, this Dorje Sempa yab yum is atypical. At least 2 artists contributed, with a steadier hand rendering the main deity pair as compared to the flanking Kagyu & Drukpa Kagyu lineage figures.

📷: NMB

#ThangkaTuesday #himalaya #bhutan #buddhistart

The image is a richly detailed black and white engraving depicting a scene inside a grand architectural space. A large central statue of the Buddha is elevated on a platform, surrounded by a pair of smaller figures (arhats/luohan) who are also seated. The main figure is the focal point, sitting in a meditative posture with a serene expression. The platform is ornately decorated, featuring intricate carvings and drapery. In the foreground, a group of people in robes, presumably Buddhist monastics, are shown bowing or kneeling, their heads lowered in reverence. Tall columns with detailed arches support the high ceiling adorned with decorative elements. The background includes additional figures and architectural details, indicating depth and adding to the scene's grandeur.

The Atlas Chinensis by Olfert Dapper (1636–1689) is among the most visually embellished European treatments of China from the late 17th century.

Never traveling to Asia, Dapper used reports from the 2nd and 3rd Dutch embassies to China and consulted older Jesuit accounts. 🧵
🗃️ 🀄️📚 #China

Detail from the page of a 15th century vellum manuscript with text in Latin and a hand added in to indicate an important section.

Exquisite nails & cuff on this manicule! From the life of St Mochóemóc founder of Leighmore, Co. Tipperary, in The 'Codex Kilkenniensis', our 15th century collection of the lives of Irish saints #ManiculeMonday #ManuscriptMonday

🎉📜Happy #ManuscriptMonday with this wonderful illumination that depicts the Siege of Antioch (1097-1098)

BnF, Français 779, fol. 37v

#sscle #middleages #medieval #crusade #crusades #latineast #manuscript #medievalmanuscript #art #antioch #illumination

Main body text of a sutra written in Chinese in black ink on brownish paper. Hōryūji Canon stamp to the right.

"Our temporary bodies are like floating clouds, and our grasslike lives resemble a flash of lightning." Words written after the passing of Gyōshin, a monk near the top of the 8th-c. Japanese monastic order, preserved in the colophon to this sutra #ManuscriptMonday colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_i...

More on the Kangyur that Needham arranged (@babelstone.co.uk beat me to posting it)

bsky.app/profile/babe...

Wesley Needham's notes on the Tibetan bell & dorje. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library collection.

Wesley Needham's notes on the Tibetan bell & dorje. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library collection.

Needham was interested in all sorts of things, and took copious notes. He helped Tsepon Shakabpa come to New Haven and publish A Political History of Tibet. He also worked with the Mongolian reincarnate lama Dilowa Hetukhtu to study various elements of Tibetan Buddhism.

3/

Kind of adorable he wrote that