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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

For Saga Dawa Duchen, the Tibetan commemoration of Buddha Śākyamuni's birth, enlightenment and parinirvāṇa. 📷 from Zhalu Monastery, Tibet

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)

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

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?

Kayaking near Old Saybrook, CT at the breakwater marker

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

#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

Latimer Lighthouse, Fishers Island Sound, NY

Stonington, CT beach launch with 3 NDK kayaks

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

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

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.

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

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

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

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

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

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

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Patricia Sauthoff 司徒雛菊 @sauthoff.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

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

en.wikipedia.org

Coconut Religion - Wikipedia

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Benno Weiner @bennoweiner.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

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...

sinicapodcast.com

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...

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

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

Mon Mothma and wedding guests amidst ecstatic dancing, Andor 2.3

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and followers in ecstatic dance

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

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. 👏 👏 👏

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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

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…

DOGE is a way of life. Like Buddhism,” Mr. Musk said.

Pressed again, he said: “Is Buddha needed for Buddhism?”

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

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

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.

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Lotsawa House @lotsawahouse.org · 30/04/2025

📚 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)...

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

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Ariana M @arianam.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

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

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.

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

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

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.

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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

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

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

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Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East @latineast.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

🎉📜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

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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

"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...

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

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

#ManuscriptMonday Writing to the Dalai Lama edition. A letter & envelope dated March 18, 1946, addressed to the Regent of Tibet (perhaps Takdrak Rinpoche) on behalf of the 14th Dalai Lama, written by Wesley Needham, librarian at the Beinecke Rare book & Manuscript Library. 1/

Letter written to the regent of Tibet in both English and Tibetan, copied by Wesley Needham himself. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Tib.mss.64, box 12

Envelope addressed to "His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lhasa, Tibet" from Wesley Needham. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Tib.mss.64, box 12

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Late #SeaKayakSunday posting. Exciting big-water day around Jamestown, RI on Sunday: winds gusting to 25 kts and swell at about 4 ft. Got to work through some incident management in the rocks & luckily everyone was okay with just a broken paddle in the end. #seakayaking #seakayak

view off the bow of a red ndk sea kayak from Ft Weatherill, Jamestown RI

view off the bow of a red ndk sea kayak near the rocks, Jamestown RI

view of a red ndk sea kayak, Jamestown RI

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Wonderful evening yesterday with the 5-College Buddhist Studies faculty group to discuss the late Peter Gregory’s last unpublished essay on the autobiographical writing of Zongmi. Thanks to @protass.bsky.social for his moving opening remarks.

Meeting of the 5 college Buddhist studies faculty at Smith College.

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Also this: "The disciplines of American studies and religion saw the largest declines in the number of institutions awarding degrees in these disciplines over that time period" www.amacad.org/sites/defaul...

Chart of Institutions Awarding Humanities Degrees, by Discipline, 1997-2022, covering the disciplines of English, History, Communication, Lang. and Lit. Other than English, Philosophy, Religion, Art History, Classical Studies, American Studies, Musicology. Most show a decline, accept for Communications, Art History, and Musicology.

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aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

whoa religion is halving itself

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Ariana M @arianam.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Generosity is the theme of this #ThangkaTuesday. This charming Vajradhara (རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་།), Holder of the Indestructible, is in a private collection shown to me years ago. I adore its simplicity & beauty, and that little extra head tilt. My gratitude to those who have shown me so much. #himalaya #bhutan

Two hands hold up a small embroidered thangka for the camera. The fabric ground is black and torn in places, while the figure, stitched in golden thread, depicts a cross-legged, two-armed, crowned deity sitting on top of a lotus.

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Before nickelodeons and cinema halls, “magic lantern” shows were an important part of popular American entertainment. Hand tinted glass slides were used by children’s story tellers, stage magicians, and traveling public lecturers in town and cities across the United States. 🧵 🗃️ 📜 #Japan

The image shows a glass magic lantern slide depicting a row of multi-armed golden colored Buddhist statues of Kannon inside Sanjūsangendō in Kyoto, Japan. These statues are intricately detailed, each depicting a figure with elaborate headdresses and richly adorned garments. They stand in a line, creating a sense of depth and continuity. In the foreground is a traditional Japanese lantern with a green and white frame. The ceiling and walls of the temple appear dimly lit, adding to the statues' striking appearance.

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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

It's #ManuscriptMonday! The Irk Bitig, a Book of Divination from the 9th–10th centuries CE was probably written in Old Turkic in Turkic Runes and was found in the Dunhuang cave complex in western China! You can read more about it here: idp.bl.uk/blog/an-omen...

Book with black and red ink written in Old Turkic in Turkic Runes

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

#ManuscriptMonday Jesuits in Tibet edition. First page of Jesuit Missionary and early Tibetologist Ippolito Desideri's fascinating early 18th-c treatise _Inquiry concerning the Doctrines of Previous Lives and Emptiness, Offered to the Scholars of Tibet by the Star Head Lama called Ippolito_ 1/

First page of Ippolito Desideri's treatise Inquiry concerning the Doctrines of Previous Lives and Emptiness, Offered to the Scholars of Tibet by the Star Head Lama called Ippolito (Mgo skar gyi bla ma i po li do zhes bya ba yis phul ba’i bod kyi mkhas pa rnams la skye ba snga ma dang stong pa nyid kyi lta ba’i sgo nas zhu ba). Image published as frontpiece in Lopez & Jinpa's _Dispelling the Darkness : A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet_ (2017). Image reproduced with kind permission of the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Rome. Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu (ARSI), Goa 75.

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

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Brother K @konchognorbu.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

“His Holiness Pope Francis dedicated himself to the service of others, consistently revealing by his own actions how to live a simple, but meaningful life. The best tribute we can pay to him is to be a warm-hearted person, serving others wherever and in whatever way we can.” ~The Dalai Lama~

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

That map on the cover is amazing, and I'm not surprised to see the Potala Palace used as a metonym for both Lhasa and Tibet as a whole. Worth taking a moment to follow the link below.

Colorful map of Asia on the cover of a catalogue of cards created by Chocolat Pupier

Card illustrating the Potala Palace as a representation of Tibet and "Lhassa, Capitale et Ville Sainte"

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

It certainly could provide insight into a popular "visual lexicon" of Asia at the time! There's some albums available for sale online, but I've just posted a partial catalogue held by a French university. bsky.app/profile/pete...

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

The beta version of the BDRC archive search is a major improvement. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

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Buddhist Digital Resource Center @buddhistarchive.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

BDRC’s collection of searchable etexts was just increased by 900,000 pages! The full-text contents of this massive store of Tibetan literature will enhance your experience finding information and relevant passages. These 900k pages of etexts were generated by applying OCR to 3k vols of Tib. books.

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Buddhas in the West Material Archive @buddhasinthewest.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

European and American chocolatiers were among the businesses that embraced the use of beautifully illustrated advertising trade cards. To inspire collection, the cards often depicted romantic, if not highly stereotyped, imagery. 🧵 🗃️ 📜 #Japan

The image shows an chromolithographed illustration of a large Buddha statue (the Kamakura Daibutsu) sitting in a meditative pose against a warm yellow and green background. The Buddha is depicted with a serene expression, wearing a robe draped over both shoulders. In the foreground, two small figures wearing hats stand observing the statue from below. Surrounding the Buddha are trees, hinted at by the green color to the right and left sides of the frame. The overall tone of the image is warm and inviting, suggesting a tranquil and historical setting.

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84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha @translate84000.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Buddhist traditions typically hold three-month retreats during the rainy season. Have you ever wondered how the tradition of doing retreats during wet weather got started? The origins, timing, and procedures of the rains retreat are meticulously described in The Chapter on the Rains (Toh 1-4),

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Andrew Quintman @andrewquintman.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Tibetan author writes a life of the Buddha in 125 chapters, each begins with a chapter title, great. They are preceded by an enumerated table of contents with each chapter listed, sure. This is preceded by a list of chapter titles in verse, ok. But every version of a chapter title is different, lol.

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Sara Shneiderman @sshneiderman.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Finally got here!

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Brother K @konchognorbu.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Bhikkhu Bodhi posted a letter from the Buddhist Council of New York in support of Mohsen Mahdawi. Excerpt: "Mohsen has been a clear and consistent advocate for peace, human dignity, and nonviolence. At no time has he expressed or endorsed hate speech or divisive rhetoric of any kind."

facebook.com

Bhikkhu Bodhi

The Buddhist Council of New York has written a beautiful letter of support for Mohsen Mahdawi: April 15, 2025 To Whom It May Concern, On behalf of the Buddhist Council of New York (BCNY), I write....

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Edward w @edwardw2.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

cf: Pigs eat the flesh of dead men; People eat the innards of dead pigs. Pigs do not abhor the stink of man; And men, for their part, say pigs are fragrant. ... If both would just stop eating each other, Lotus flowers would grow in boiling soup. - Hanshan www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

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Pigs eat the flesh of dead men;
People eat the innards of dead pigs.
Pigs do not abhor the stink of man;
And men, for their part, say pigs are fragrant.
When a pigs die, they'll throw them in the water;
When people die, they dig a hole and hide them away.
If both would just stop eating each other,
Lotus flowers would grow in boiling soup.

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Tashi Namgyal @tnamgyal.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Always liked that old story and the verse in Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ནས། ཕ་ཤ་ཟ་ཞིང་མ་ལ་རྡེག༎ ལས་ངན་དགྲ་བོ་པང་ན་བཟུང༌༎ ཆུང་མས་ཁྱོ་ཡི་རུས་པ་འཆའ༎ འཁོར་བའི་ཆོས་ལ་གད་མོ་བྲོ༎

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Egas Moniz Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ @egasmb.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

The oldest non-book printed Sanskrit texts* (in Siddham script) are from the Tang Empire, produced since the 8th century. Here's a magnificent sample produced in Sichuan, found in Xi'an, ca. 9th century. 🥰 1/4 *except clay votive tablets stamped from moulds.

Printed dhāraṇī, Sanskrit text, woodblock print on paper, detail.
Printed in Sichuan, ca. ninth century, found in Xi’an. Shaanxi Museum of History. Photographs by Katherine Tsiang

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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Manuscripts were thought to have the power to save women suffering in a Buddhist hell of menstrual blood. In this Japanese image from the Tateyama Mandara, priests let float copies of the Blood Bowl Sutra that the women chase after in the hope that it will liberate them from hell. #ManuscriptMonday

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