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University Libraries mount exhibits
Exhibits to spotlight life and thought of Dalai Lama
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
The UB Libraries will host a wide range of exhibits in September to coincide with the visit to UB by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. All exhibits will be free and open to the public.
Using a wealth of images, texts and objects loaned by UB faculty and staff and community members, the exhibits will explore the life and thought of the Dalai Lama, as well as Tibetan history, religion, medicine, music, law, architecture and culture.
Richard V. Lee, professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and his wife, Susan B. Lee, have loaned rare maps and other materials for the exhibit "Discovering Tibet: The Development of Western Notions of Central Asia and Tibet" in the Special Collections Research Room, 420 Capen Hall, North Campus.
This image is of "A Newe Mape of Tartary" by John Speed, printed in London in 1626. It is from the collection of Richard V. Lee and Susan B. Lee and is part of the exhibit "Discovering Tibet: The Development of Western Notions of Central Asia and Tibet."
Nancy B. Nuzzo, director of music and special collections, said the maps in the exhibit will range from a 16th-century woodblock map of Asia, the first of the continent, to 17th-century Dutch maps showing roads used for the north-south Silk Road commerce, to 19th-century maps of increasing detail as travelers explored the region.
UB Law School professor Rebecca R. French collected Tibetan legal manuscripts while researching "The Golden Yoke," a book about the legal cosmology of Buddhist Tibet. She donated these in 2004 to the Charles B. Sears Law Library in O'Brian Hall, North Campus. Several of the manuscripts will be featured in an interior exhibit at the library, while the scholarly conference "Law, Buddhism and Social Change: A Conversation with the Dalai Lama," being held Sept. 20-21, will be the subject of an exterior display.
" 'gSoba Rig-pa' Tibetan Medicine: A Healing Science" is the title of the Health Sciences Library exhibit in 102 Abbott Hall, South Campus. The Amitabha Foundation of Rochester loaned some of the objects for the display, which will explore the history of Tibetan medicine, the training of Tibetan physicians, the spiritual dimensions of healing and the iconography of the Medicine Buddha.
The exhibit in Lockwood Memorial Library, "The Dalai Lama: His Life and Works," will include photographs by award-winning photojournalist Alison Wright, author of a book about Tibet. The library also will feature a multimedia workstation where people may listen to excerpts from a lecture on the Dalai Lama by His Holiness' principal English-language translator and interpreter, Thupten Jinpa.
The Undergraduate/Science and Engineering Library, located in 228 Capen Hall, will feature the exhibition "My Tibet," which will include reflections from UB Tibetan students. A workstation will present an interview with UB graduate student Kunchok Youdon.
The Music Library is creating the only online exhibit, which will focus on Tibetan music and will include a bibliography on sacred and secular Tibetan music and musical instruments.
For information about the Dalai Lama's visit to UB, go to http://www.buffalo.edu /dalai_lama/.