Archive for the ‘art’ Category

Hear about Jain artefacts on the BBC

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

The daily BBC World Service programme called ‘The Strand’ on 22nd June features the exhibition of Jain artefacts at the V&A. The curator of the display, Nick Barnard, talks about the exhibits in chapter 3.

You can listen to Nick at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0084t6r

The exhibition opened last month in the Nehru Gallery and is the first in a series of exhibitions at museums and galleries round the country.

Dr Rowan Williams learns about Jainpedia

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

The Institute of Jainology was very fortunate to host the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Jain temple in Potters Bar.  The event took place on Friday 7th May and was organised jointly with the Oshwal Association of the UK.

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V&A curator talk on 20 May 2010

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

We are excited to announce that the first Jainpedia exhibition will open on Friday 14th May at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. (more…)

Jainpedia and V&A activities in 2010/11

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

As the museum consultant for JAINpedia, my main responsibilities are to ensure that an ongoing programme of related events is put together for the project. With this in mind, I have been busy working with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) over the last few months to create an exciting series of activities for the Jainpedia display between 2010 and 2012. (more…)

Words and paintings

Friday, October 23rd, 2009
I am Nalini Balbir, the content director of Jainpedia, the academic consultant who is in charge of ensuring that what’s on the website is accurate, comprehensive and intellectually credible. I’d like to give you an overview of how I began studying Jainism and talk briefly about why manuscripts are so central to Jainpedia.

As a professor of Indian studies at the Sorbonne, my academic interests include not only Jainism but Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Theravada Buddhism, and Hindi languages and literature of the 20th century. Although I am fully involved with Jainpedia and have worked for some years with the Institute of Jainology and other institutions in the UK on Jain-related projects, my work in Jainism arose only towards the end of my undergraduate career. (more…)

First images!

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

I’m very pleased to report that a few weeks ago we received nearly all of the digital images of the manuscripts we requested from the Wellcome Library.

You will be able to start appreciating the beauty of these artefacts in these small photos.

Manuscripts

A manuscript is made up of a number of folios. A folio is a sheet of paper or other material that has writing and sometimes an illustration on each side of the sheet. Each folio bears the handwriting of a scribe who used ink to write by hand. Many of the folios are also painted in full colour.

Kālakācāryakathā © Wellcome Library, London

Kālakācāryakathā © Wellcome Library, London

For most of the manuscripts we’ll be displaying on the forthcoming full Jainpedia website, each page (one side of the sheet) has been photographed. Sometimes a manuscript will consist of only one or two folios, because of its age, its material or the conditions in which it was kept before being held in a professional curated environment. (more…)

Jainpedia – heritage, museums and exhibitions… work, challenges, ideas!

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Hello Readers! I am Rajiv Anand and I work as the museum/heritage consultant on the Jainpedia project. I have been involved since April 2009 and will see this part of the project through till April 2012.

I am glad to state that the project is going from strength to strength and developing further its professional links and contacts. It’s now a familiar brand with its major heritage partners, which are the V&A, British Library, Bodleian Library (University of Oxford) and Wellcome Library.

There will be a series of exhibitions and displays at these institutions, which house some of the most important Jain collections outside the Indian subcontinent. (more…)