Sera Monastery Portal / Profile
Home Page: http://www.seramonastery.info
Focus
Scholarly Content
Overview
The Sera Project is a research and pedagogical initiative employing digital technology in the service of creating the most comprehensive, interactive, multimedia database of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery ever attempted. The various sections allow you to explore the different facets of Sera, one of Tibet’s most important monasteries.
The Sera Project is a research and pedagogical initiative employing state-of-the-art digital technology in the service of creating the most comprehensive, interactive, multimedia database of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery ever attempted. The various nooks and crannies of this website allow you to explore the different facets of Sera, one of Tibet’s most important monasteries. You will find sections on its physical layout, history, material culture, educational system, and ritual life – in short, all of the various aspects that together constitute the richness and complexity of Tibetan monastic life.
People
José Cabezon, the director and principal investigator of the Sera Monastery Project, is Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies in the Religious Studies Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The University of Virginia hosts this project, and has done most of the technical work on it. David Newman, Will Rourke, Steve Weinberger and Dan Haig provided extensive technical support at UVa. David Germano has also offered extensive assistant to the project in various capacities.
Sponsors
University of California, Santa Barbara
- Faculty Senate
- Instructional Improvement
- Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
- The XIVth Dalai Lama Endowment
University of Virginia
US Department of Education
Current Focus
There are audio files of rituals that are being processed, and the place data is being migrated to THL’s new geographical publishing system.
History
Work on the Sera Project began in the early 1980’s during the time that José Ignacio Cabezón, the project director, lived and studied in Sera-India. However, the digital initiative began in earnest in 2002, when José worked with UVa staff on fieldwork in Tibet on Sera Monastery. Since the University of California at Santa Barbara has developed content with technical support from the University of Virginia, and fieldwork support from the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences and Tibet University in Lhasa.
- General Interests
- THL Cultural Geography Initiative (28)
Data
The project is chiefly intended to provide scholarly content and resources on Sera Monastery.
