The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

OCBS Lectures / Seminars  - Trinity 2011

Tue 3rd May  Prof. Max Deeg "Show Me the Land Where the Buddha Dwelled ..." - Xuanzang's "Record of the Western Regions": A  Misunderstood Text?"

Tue 10th May Dr. Eve Mullen Tibetan Buddhism and dying

Tue 17th May  Dr. Antonello Palumbo Knowledge of Buddhism in early China

Tue 24th May  Mr. Suren Raghavan Buddhism and ethnicity in the civil conflict in Sri Lanka

Tue 31st May  Dr. Susan Conway Shan Buddhist protective practices

Tue 7th June  Dr. David Marsh Does physics today bear any relation to Buddhist ideas, or theories of consciousness?

Tue 14th June  Prof. Torkel Brekke Relics and the sacralization of space in modern Buddhism

All lectures take place in the Wolfson Private Dining Room.  They begin at 5.30 and will, we hope, be preceded by tea and cake.

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Lecture Series - Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy

Fridays - Trinity Term, 12pm

This lecture series covers the doctrines of early Buddhism and of the two major schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism, namely Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, dealing among others with the idea of non-self, the doctrine of momentariness, emptiness and the “store mind”.

Week 1: The Buddha and His Doctrine

Week 2: Philosophical Concepts of Some Early Buddhist Schools

Week 3: The Self and the Person (NB: room 12 at Examination Schools)

Week 4: Functions of the Mind

Week 5: The Madhyamaka School and the Concept of Emptiness

Week 6: The Yogācāra School and the Theory of Mind-Only

Week 7: Nirvāṇa and Buddhahood

Presented by Dr. Jowita Kramer

All lectures take place in Balliol Lecture Room 23

Talk by Dr Amy Heller at the Oriental Insitute

Dr Rob Mayer, one of our Fellows, has asked us to pass on details of this talk.  It is open to all and promises to explore some very exciting and important new information about the Tibetan Empire

Preliminary remarks on Painted Coffin Panels from Tibetan Tombs

Oriental Institute, Oxford, May 10^th, 2011

LR1, Oriental Institute, 10:00 am.

This presentation will discuss research in progress on painted panels recovered from Tibetan tombs in Qinghai. In 2002 Xu Xinguo, director of the Qinghai Archeological Institute, excavated two tombs with several painted coffins panels in Guolimu county. The principal themes painted on these panels show hybrid creatures - animals and birds - as well as several hunting scenes of reindeer and wild yak, ceremonial banquets taking place in tent encampments, amorous scenes and a commercial caravan. Subsequently, several other painted panels have been discovered which are now conserved in private collections and museums. All these panels will be presented here. Their comparison is fruitful. On the whole, there is correspondence in terms of the themes illustrated on the panels, notably the hunt of the yak, which has great relevance in the context of the famous passage from the Old Tibetan Chronicle, Tibet’s first narrative history of its imperial period (c.618–866), where Princess Sad mar kar sings of a yak killed in the course of the hunt. Additional literary and cross-cultural references will be explored in this presentation. These painted panels yield concrete documentation of the mobile habitat of the btsan po and his entourage during the sPu rgyal dynasty. The study of the women and men portrayed on these panels – their activities, weapons, cooking utensils and drinking vessels, costumes, jewelry and face make-up, and the accoutrements of their habitat - yield clues to better understanding of daily life in ancient Tibet while simultaneously relating to customs prevailing among nomads of western Tibet during the 20^th century and rituals observed today in Qinghai, Lo (Mustang) and Ladakh.

Dr Amy Heller, Research collaborator, UMR 8155, CNRS Paris

(see Xu Xinguo, “New Discoveries in Qinghai” in China Heritage Newsletter, No. 1, March 2005: http://chinaheritagenewsletter.org/articles.php?searcherm=001qinghai.inc&issue=001