Asiatica Association

To protect, preserve, and disseminate the ancient and contemporary Jain literature, the Jain Education International organization in cooperation with Shri Mahavir Ardhana Kendra, Koba Ahmedabad; and Shri Prachya Vidyapith, Sajapur, India has launched a Jain eLibrary project. Under this project the Jain literature is converted electronically into eBooks (pdf or other formatted files) or other electronic media and made available via the website.

The eLibrary comprises of a vast collection of literature on Jain principles, such as Ahimsa, compassion, karma philosophy, and Anekäntaväda. It also provides Jain educational material for Jain Päthashälä or Sunday school.

A very nice and useful map including graphical key to manuscript libraries in India. It has been put together by Prof. Kei Kataoka (Kyushu University, Japan).

I want to recommend to you the Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies from the blog The Ancient World Online, by Charles Ellwood Jones, Head Librarian at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. 

As you can see, also the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (IJTS) is listed. The EJVS (Editor-in-chief Prof. Michael Witzel)  is one of the first academic electronic journals of the world, established in 1995 together with the JSAWS and the IJTS, and I humbly serve as Managing Editor for it.

The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (EWIC) is an interdisciplinary, transhistorical project that compiles essays by scholars on all women in Muslim majority societies and all Muslim women in Muslim minority societies. The print version of EWIC, consisting of 6 volumes (1,246 articles, 2 million words), was written by 907 scholars from around the world and published between 2003-2007.

The Digital Colonial Documents Project (India) is intended to promote study of the rare seminal documents which were influential in the formation of the notions of nation, state and culture during the colonial period. The project makes available rare colonial documents as searchable internet documents.

The Social Science Baham, which was set up in January 2002 to foster and facilitate the development of the study of the social sciences in Nepal, has just sent me the announcement of a posistion as full time research associate based in Kathamndu.

Application deadline: 8 September 2010 (5 pm)< Send your application by email to: infososcbaha.org

The Research Centre for Buddhist Philology of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology of Soka University (Japan) has made freely available online the first 11 volumes of the series Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica (BPPB) 1998-2010 in PDF. Since the books are complete, downloading takes a while, but it is worth waiting.

Some titles: Vol. VI. Michael Zimmermann, A Buddha Within: The Tathagatagarbhasutra... (2002); Vol. IX. D. Stevenson and H. Kanno, The Meaning of the Lotus Sutra's Course of Ease and Bliss... (2006); Vol. X. J.

The French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) based in India offers seven doctoral scholarships in the fields of Ecology, Indology and Social Sciences. The scholarships are open to people of all nationalities who wish to work on a topic that is in relation with the research programmes conducted at the IFP.