The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

The United Kingdom Association for Buddhist Studies

Richard Gombrich

Our readers may like to be reminded of the existence of UKABS, the United Kingdom Association for Buddhist Studies.  This small but active organisation is the professional body for those who teach Buddhist Studies in institutions of higher education in the UK; but in order to be a member one does not have to be active as a teacher or researcher, nor is membership confined to the UK.  We particularly welcome schoolteachers.  UKABS holds an annual conference, usually in July or September, somewhere in the UK, and publishes a journal under the editorship of Prof. Peter Harvey.

The subscription is modest and also entitles members to a much reduced fee for attending a conference.  UKABS belongs to its members and engages in other professional issues at their suggestion.  To join, go to:http://www.equinoxjournals.com/BSR/membership.

The devastation of Buddhist archaeological sites in Bangladesh.

Richard Gombrich

I would like to direct the attention of anyone interested in the history of Buddhism to the tragic neglect and ruin of many sites in Bangladesh which contain, or contained, one of the world’s richest stores of ancient archaeological remains, and therefore historical information, about Buddhism, spanning a period of well over a thousand years. The oldest remains are believed by excavators to go back to the 4^th century BC.

For further details please visit http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=174395, where you can read an article from the Bangladeshi newspaper, The Daily Star, dated 16 February this year. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the losses being sustained by scholarship and by the Buddhist tradition.

We are also aware of the attacks on Buddhists and Buddhist buildings which are being repeatedly sustained in eastern Bangladesh; these are of course a humanitarian matter which must concern organisations which are not purely academic, as we are.