Pembroke and Nepal II

Dr Hildegard Diemberger, Fellow in Social Anthropology, works extensively in Nepal.

Hildegard regularly visits the region and conducts much of her core research in the areas affected by the recent earthquake.

As Director of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit she manages an outreach programme through which children from Steeple-Morden Primary School in Cambridgeshire speak to children at a school in Sherpa, a region south of Mount Everest outside the tourist trails. The classes connect via Skype to discuss their local environments. The school was badly damaged by the first earthquake, and the second quake has destroyed most of the houses in the surrounding villages.

Hildegard is also involved in a project called ‘Transforming Technologies and Buddhist Book Culture’, which studies Tibetan books as artifacts and ritual objects. She is involved in a project to digitise one of the greatest treasures of Cambridge University Library – the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’, a Buddhist manuscript that was produced 1,000 years ago in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

[caption id="attachment_20229" align="alignnone" width="500"] Sacred sciptures at Thubten Choling monastery[/caption]

Last year she mounted an exhibition of Tibetan and Nepalese manuscripts and prints in Cambridge, which explored the incredible journeys that the words of the Buddha have made and the different material forms they have taken. Many of the ancient manuscripts housed in Tibetan monasteries have been affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks.

Hildegard writes:

'As the scale of the human disaster that has stricken Nepal becomes clearer, we are becoming increasingly aware of other losses. Beyond the heartbreaking images of Kathmandu's centuries old monuments destroyed by the earthquake, there are also the innumerable temples and monasteries in the rural areas with their ritual objects, statutes and paintings that have been severely damaged.

‘How much of these precious items have been destroyed? How much has survived but is now exposed to wind and rain? How much is at risk of being looted? Badly affected areas such as Helambu, Langthang, Rasuwa and Kyirong are located along the most famous trade route connecting the south and the north of the Himalayas, and they bear the traces of the encounter between different cultures over a long period of time.

[caption id="attachment_20231" align="alignnone" width="500"] Buddhist nuns at Thubten Choling[/caption]

‘The big aftershock on May 12th centred in an area East of Kathmandu affected more Buddhist and Hindu temples, including historic sites of the Sherpa and the big Tibetan monastery of Thubten Choling which houses a great collection of manuscripts and prints from Tibet.

‘Thanks to AHRC funded projects we have been able to study some of this heritage and we very much hope that a wider network of local communities, state institutions, charities and international scholars will be able to rescue and protect what remains of these unique sites and spiritual treasures.'

This is the second blog exploring Pembroke’s connection to Nepal. You can read the first here and the third is also available here.