Shaping the Stein collection’s Dunhuang corpus (2): the items from Cave 17’s ‘miscellaneous’ bundles

Posted by on
In a previous blog post , we looked at the instrumental role played by Wang Yuanlu during the selection of the items from the Cave 17. Wang, who directly chose from the small repository what to hand over to Stein for inspection, was very keen to divert his attention from the so-called ‘regular’ bundles, which were composed for the most part of Buddhist sutras in Chinese and Tibetan. During their first ever transaction, which took place between 21 May and 6 June 1907, Wang Yuanlu therefore began by handing over the ‘miscellaneous’ bundles, which he seemed to hold in low estimation. To Stein’s delight, these contained mixed and diverse materials, such as manuscripts in non-Chinese languages, illustrated scrolls, paintings, drawings, ex-votos, textiles, etc. Stein picked out any of the items that jumped at him as being particularly interesting and made sure to put them aside for ‘further examination’, the phrase that he used to refer to their removal in his transaction with Wang. This ...
0

Buddhism Education Pack

Posted by on
As part of the EU funded CREA project, IDP has produced a new set of downloadable educational worksheets in English, French and German on the subject of Buddhism for teachers and students. The worksheets aim to offer a general introduction to the topic and can be used together or individually to introduce ideas relating to the history and basic tenets of the religion, its transmission through Asia and its iconography and manifestation in printed documents, paintings and manuscripts from international museum and library collections.

IDP is currently working to expand its education pages online and this set of themed worksheets represents the first of a number of new resources that will appear on our web pages over the next few months. Please look out for upcoming resources on Chinese Astronomy and Astrology which will appear soon. We welcome your feedback on our resources and hope that you find them useful in your classroom, or for your own research. Please contact abby.baker@bl.uk if you have any comments or suggestions, would like to order hard copies of this resource, or have an enquiry about other education services we can offer.

The image below shows Buddha preaching the Dharma in a detail from the Paradise of Śākyamuni. 1919,0101,0.6
© The British Museum.

Comments

Post a Comment