Amber Moore, together with the Ven. Druppon Rinchen Dorje, is the recipient of a Khyentse Foundation Aśoka Grant for Translation. The pair will complete an English translation of the Drikung Kagyu retreat text,The Advice of Vajradhāra Dharmakīrti: An Oral Exegesis on the Precepts of the Five-Fold Path of Mahāmudrā (phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan gyi khrid kyi zin bris rjo rje ‘chang dharma kirti zhal lung) as documented by the student of Rigdzin Chokyi Drakpa, Konchok Trinlay Namgyal. This compendium is an essential manual for the three-year meditation retreat tradition maintained in the Drikung Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhism in Tibet, at Drikung Til, Jangchubling monastery, Dehra Dun, and Laphyi, Nepal.     

Congratulations to the translation team!

Frances Garrett‘s work with trauma-informed teaching makes the University of Toronto News, as she works to address students’ well-being in her classroom. Read more at https://www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-prof-puts-students-well-being-syllabus – or you can check out her YouTube channel for a few videos about and for her students, such as this one:

The Myanmar Manuscript Digital Library (MMDL) is a collection of Pali and Pali-Burmese manuscripts that are hosted at U of T’s Robarts Library. Doctoral candidates Rachelle Saruya and Andrew Dade, are working to develop a website, archive new files, and create a Burmese language site for colleagues in Myanmar. In Toronto, these digital files are overseen by Kelli Babcock, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Robarts Library, and Priya Murugaiah, a Manager of Infrastructure for Informational and Instructional Technology.

Read more at https://www.religion.utoronto.ca/news/new-partnership-between-myanmar-manuscript-digital-library-and-national-library-myanmar

The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library’s Tibetan pechas (Image credit: Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library)

With the University of Toronto hosting Canada’s most prominent Tibetan Studies program, and Toronto itself hosting the world’s largest Tibetan community outside of Asia, in 2013, the UTL undertook a partnership with Columbia University Libraries to develop our Tibetan Studies collection. As a result of this partnership, the University of Toronto’s Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library now holds the largest Tibetan collection in Canada, making it the country’s principal resource for knowledge about this important region.

Given the successful outcomes of the Tibetan Studies partnership since 2013, the University of Toronto Libraries has now renewed this cooperation agreement. The new collection development and service agreement is for a further three years, and includes jointly sponsored acquisition trips to enhance the Tibetan collections of both universities, a shared point of service for research consultations, original cataloguing of Tibetan materials acquired by both institutions, as well as a newly expanded addition to the agreement, original cataloguing of unique titles acquired only by the University of Toronto Libraries. 

The faculties and students of both institutions will continue to enjoy the benefits of the innovative service model created by this partnership.

Libbie Mills was recently featured in an Arts & Science article on her introductory Sanskrit class, where she talks about how her interdisciplinary student body includes a lot of computer science students. You can read more at “‘It’s good coding’: Computer science students drawn to classes on Sanskrit, a 3,500-year-old language“.