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Dear list members,
Our next seminar will be at 6:00-7:30pm on Thursday October 27 in
the Rogers Room (N397) of the John Woolley Building, University of
Sydney.
We hope you can attend this event.
Kind regards,
AABS Executive
The “World’s Biggest Book”: The Conservation,
Photographing, and Study of the Kuthodaw Pagoda Marble-stelae Recension
of the Pali Buddhist Canon in Mandalay, Myanmar
The Kuthodaw Pagoda at Mandalay in upper Myanmar/Burma is commonly
referred to as the “World’s Biggest Book”. Consisting of 729 marble
stelae spread over a 5.2 hectare site, the Pagoda is a large
inscriptional complex that preserves an authorised mid-nineteenth century
Myanmar recension of the Pali canon. The site was created at the command
of King Mindon, the second last king of Burma, between 1860 and 1868 in
order to fulfil one of the religious duties of Myanmar kings to preserve
the Buddha’s teachings, in all likelihood also prompted by the annexation
of lower Myanmar by the British in 1852.
Despite its importance (UNESCO “Memory of the World” status 2013),
neither the inscribed text nor the site as a whole has been studied in
any detail. In 2013 a group of scholars and students at the University of
Sydney and Nan Tien Institute established the Kuthodaw Pagoda Project
with the aim of conserving, digitally photographing and studying the
Kuthodaw Pagoda site and its inscriptions. This paper will be jointly
presented by several project members and will describe the challenges
encountered thus far, work completed to date and future plans. Some
preliminary findings will also be discussed.
Presenters
Mark Allon, University of Sydney
Chris Clark, University of Sydney
Tamara Ditrich, Nan Tien Institute & University of Sydney
Bob Hudson, University of Sydney
Ian McCrabb, University of Sydney
Wendy Reade, University of Sydney
Royce Wiles, Nan Tien Institute
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