Asia

Projects in Asia

Eap 1247

Songs of the Old Madmen: Recovering Baul Songs from the Note-Books of 19th and 20th Century Bengali Saint-Composers

The songs of the Bauls are composed by gurus and performed by itinerant folk musicians. They are transmitted among low-caste communities in India and Bangladesh, where they ar…

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Eap 1228

Locating and Sampling Arabic and Arabic-Malayalam Manuscripts in Kerala, South India

The Arabic and Arabic Malayalam literature of Kerala (Malabar) constitutes an important, under-researched link in the history of intellectual and religious networks in the pre…

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EAP1213 Buppha Saramat at National Library of Thailand resized 0

Sounds of Siam Archive: Siamese/Thai 78 rpm Gramophone Records from 1903-1960

In 1903, Fred Gaisberg and George Dillnutt conducted the first Asian recording expedition for the Gramophone Company. The recording represents the beginning of the recording t…

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Eap 1160

Documenting royalty through the changing political culture in Kongu Nadu, South India, 1400-1950

Kongu Nadu is one of the earliest cultural areas in ancient Tamil land. The documents held by chieftains in the region are of great interest to historians, anthropologists, so…

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Eap 1153

Preservation of audio recordings, and accompanying documentation of music and folklore of Western Rajasthan

Rajasthan’s cultural heritage is heavily based on oral traditions. Professional bards and musicians of the region recite traditional epics, with puppetry and music. Recordings…

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EAP1150 1 0

Fragile palm leaves digitisation initiative

The Fragile Palm Leaf Foundation (FPL) holds hundreds of unknown and unstudied manuscripts and texts. Access to this vast collection would revolutionise the study of Theravāda…

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Eap 1149

The Monastic Manuscript Project: Preservation of the Archives of Śaiva Monastic Lineages

Over the past few decades, scholars of Śaivism have recovered a wealth of manuscripts that have revolutionised our understanding of the place of Śaivism in the religious histo…

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Eap 1126

A Digital Library of the Lanten Textual Heritage - Phase II

The manuscripts of the Lanten in Laos enable shamans and priests to engage Daoist deities in the rituals to reproduce the Lanten socio-cosmological order. A distinctive qualit…

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Eap 1123

Recalling a Translocal Past: Digitising Thai-Mon palm-leaf manuscripts

The Mons are credited with bringing Buddhism and a written culture to mainland Southeast Asia. The Thai Mon manuscripts represent a gap in the intellectual history of Burma an…

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