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.
Archive for the ‘Jainpedia’ Category
V&A curator talk on 20 May 2010
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010We are excited to announce that the first Jainpedia exhibition will open on Friday 14th May at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. (more…)
Project Manager job at Jainpedia
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010Now that the Jainpedia project is gearing up to go live, we are looking to appoint a full-time project manager in the next few weeks. If you’re interested or you know someone who might be keen to apply, please read on. (more…)
JAINpedia for schools
Monday, March 22nd, 2010Hello, my name is Colin Hynson and I am the Education Adviser on the JAINpedia project. I have been an education adviser to the Institute of Jainology for some years. As part of that role (more…)
Good start to 2010: the Bodleian images have arrived!
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Jainpedia and V&A activities in 2010/11
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010As 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…)
Christmas and New Year break
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009The college is closing down tomorrow for the holidays so we won’t be around until January 2010.
However… (more…)
JAINpedia at the Arts and Humanities Research Fair
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Last week I had the opportunity of attending the Arts & Humanities Research Fair at King’s College as a representative of the JAINpedia project. The aim of this Research Fair was to display and talk about the different arts and humanities projects based at King’s. It was an open event that allowed visitors (mainly researchers and students) to explore, talk and learn about the different research projects that are being carried out by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH).
It was a fascinating event that encouraged an exchange of ideas between different projects and allowed many people to hear for the first time about the JAINpedia project and Jainism. The JAINpedia stand, with its bright colours and poster, attracted numerous people who showed great curiosity and interest in the project.
Many students and researchers from King’s found JAINpedia a very positive learning initiative for gaining knowledge about Jainism and making the collections accessible to a wider audience.
We also took the opportunity to show them some of the beautiful digital images of manuscripts that will appear on the JAINpedia website. Everybody looked stunned and we had incredibly positive feedback.
Some students were keen to know more about the different phases of the project and how it has been developed. They looked at images of wireframes, mock-ups, as well as the blog, and we encouraged them to contribute to the blog with comments.
There’s no doubt this Research Fair has brought some valuable exposure of JAINpedia to a wider audience. I really enjoyed the experience, and I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make this year’s Arts and Humanities Research Fair possible.
Words and paintings
Friday, October 23rd, 2009I 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, 2009I’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
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…)