Top of page
Posted by: Anchi Hoh
The Library recently digitized three rare thangkas from the Tibetan collection. They are not only beautiful works of art but illustrate and disseminate key cultural teachings. This blog features the Srid pa ho, which wards off harm from all directions, illustrating basic Tibetan astrology concepts.
Posted in: Asian Division
Posted by: Anchi Hoh
(The following is a post by Susan Meinheit, Mongolian and Tibetan reference specialist, Asian Division.) On July 25, 2018, the Asian Division welcomed 11 students from the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School summer class, “The History and Culture of the Tibetan Book,” for a special one-day field trip to learn about the Tibetan collection. Students …
Posted in: Asian Division
Posted by: Anchi Hoh
(The following is a post by Susan Meinheit, Reference Specialist for Tibet, Asian Division) A very attractive task it is to pursue the gradual growth of the Kanjur and Tanjur through the course of many centuries, and to establish the chronology of the translations. (Berthold Laufer, “Notices of Books,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, …
Posted in: Asian Division, Manuscripts
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
Suzanne Karpelès lived a fascinating life of a scholar of Pali, Khmer, Thai, Tibetan, and Sanskrit, at a time when being an Indologist was a male dominated field, making a major impact on academic knowledge of Cambodian Buddhism, among other subjects. Her personal library is full of wonderful treasures from the early days of Western printing of Cambodian Buddhist works and rare Khmer manuscripts like the Reamker, the Cambodian version of the epic Hindu tale, the Ramayana. One can still access her unique library at the Library of Congress where it has found a home with the Southeast Asian Rare Book Collection in the Asian Reading Room.
Posted in: Asian Division, Southeast Asia
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
(This post is a cross-post written by Dianne Choie, Educational Programs Specialist at the Library of Congress. It originally appeared on the blog Minerva’s Kaleidoscope.) You may have counted down to midnight on December 31st to ring in 2024, but did you know that in some parts of the world, February 10th marks the beginning …
Posted in: Asian American History, Asian Division, East Asia, Holidays
Posted by: Joshua Kueh
The Asian Division is now accepting applications for its Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship, which supports short-term research visits to the Asian Reading Room at the Library of Congress. This year's application deadline is January 28, 2024.
Posted in: Announcements, Asian Division
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
While staff work is what allows researchers to conduct research, their presence in the Library of Congress is foundational to the creation of the culture at the Library. This blog is an interview with Phong Tran, a librarian, and currently, Deputy Director of the New Delhi Overseas Operations Field Office, conducted by Charlotte Giles.
Posted in: Asian Division, South Asia
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
This blog post highlights the Library of Congress Asian Division’s “Collection of Wartime Messages from China to the American People (1943-1945) and Other Materials.” The collection is made up of items related to the Second Sino-Japanese War, among which are 2,100 rarely seen hand-written letters, booklets, and scrolls in Chinese that were created in wartime China.
Posted in: Asian Division, East Asia
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
Thomas Wilson Haskins, a young American legation official in Beijing, accompanied the U.S. Minister, William W. Rockhill on a journey to meet the 13th Dalai Lama in 1908. The recently digitized collection includes Haskins’ handwritten diary of the meeting, photographs of Wutai Shan and diplomatic life in Beijing in the early 1900s, and a transcript of an interview with Elizabeth Gowan Haskins Workman, his fiancée who had travelled to China to join him.
Posted in: Asian Division