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Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Centre, (TAHSC)<br />
by Lama Jabb<br />
As in previous years, the cluster continued to host a broad range of academic and cultural<br />
events to which all members of the <strong>College</strong> were invited. The cluster organised guest<br />
lectures on a diversity of topics ranging from Tibetan history and worship of mountain deities<br />
to the role of magic rituals in Tibetan Buddhism and rediscovered Tibetan treasure literature.<br />
The speakers came from the UK and from universities abroad including Vienna, Bochum,<br />
Berlin, Jena and Paris.<br />
In Michaelmas 2018 we held the fourth annual Aris Lecture, established in 2015 in memory<br />
of Michael and Anthony Aris and their contribution to Tibetan and Himalayan Studies. This<br />
year’s lecture was delivered by Dr Sam van Schaik from the British Library before a packed<br />
audience in the Auditorium. It focused on ‘Magic, Healing, and Ethics in Tibetan Buddhism’<br />
and explored the role of books of spells in Tibetan Buddhism within the Buddhist ethical<br />
framework.<br />
Another annual highlight worthy of special mention was the ‘Losar’ party in early February.<br />
Once again we celebrated the Tibetan New Year with live Tibetan music, dancing and<br />
traditional food and drinks. This popular event was organised in previous years by our late<br />
colleague and former Wolfsonian Tsering Dhundup Gonkatsang (1951–2018), and this<br />
year it was celebrated in his honour. Once again it attracted members of Wolfson and the<br />
Unversity, together with Tibet enthusiasts, Tibetans and Mongolians from Oxford, London<br />
and elsewhere. These New Year parties have gathered momentum and are very popular<br />
with the Wolfson community, providing as they do a rare and jovial social space for students<br />
of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies and other Wolfsonians to interact with Tibetans and<br />
experience Tibetan culture.<br />
REPORTS<br />
In Hilary <strong>2019</strong> we were fortunate to entertain Yangten Rinpoche, the esteemed Tibetan<br />
Buddhist master, who came to Wolfson as a So-Wide visiting scholar. We organised a<br />
lecture by him on Tibetan monastic education at the Oriental Institute, where he also held<br />
a discussion on this topic with Dr Jonathan Samuel, the current Junior Research Fellow in<br />
Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Wolfson. We also facilitated the translation of Rinpoche’s<br />
lecture, which was attended by cluster members and current Tibetan and Himalayan Studies<br />
students.<br />
Since Hilary <strong>2019</strong> cluster members Dr Robert Mayer and Anna Sehnalova have been<br />
running the Asian Treasure Traditions Seminar at Wolfson, consisting of several lectures given<br />
by a diversity of speakers from the UK and abroad. This ongoing seminar focuses on Tibetan<br />
and other treasure traditions within an interdisciplinary perspective, with the aim of coming<br />
to a better understanding of their possible origins.<br />
In June the cluster hosted Gesture, Body and Language in Tibet and the Himalayas, a workshop<br />
co-organised by our cluster member Dr Theresia Hofer and Professor Elisabeth Hsu. This is a<br />
cross-disciplinary exploration of the relationships between gesture and language, and the role<br />
of signifying embodied movements more broadly, in culturally Tibetan and related linguistic<br />
areas of the Himalayas.<br />
WOLFSON.OX.AC.UK<br />
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