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Chapter 07
Ancient Tibet - History and Culture
German Research Council (DFG), Germany iii. Lumbini Research Institute, Nepal
Institute for Asian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Science, Vienna, Austria. v. International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands. vi. Central Institute of Higher studies, Varanasi, India. The research articles on Ashtapad should be collected from magazines like Bulletin of
Tibetology, the Tibet Journal and others. 7. International seminar on Ashtapad should be arranged and Jain, Buddhist and Tibetan
scholars should be invited to participate in it. 8. We should involve Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for the research. 9. Satellite imagery can be useful for the research. During my stay at Dharamsala I visited local museums but I could hardly see any archaeological remains of Jainism. The remains of submerged Dwarka are found with the help of Marine archaeology and the flow of the lost Sarasvati River is found with the help of satellite. Then why are we unable to find any trace of Ashtapad described in Jain Literature? Even if we cannot find it, it does not mean that it does not exist. If we consider the Mount Kailash as Ashtapad then question arises where Sinha Nishadhya Prasad would have been located on it built by Bharat Chakravarti? If it is covered and is under the ice then it might be possible to find. The news published in Sandesh - a Gujarati daily (Dt. 19th April, 2006) lead us to believe that Ashtapad does exist, as per the similar news like this. Japanese scientists found ten lac years old piece of ice from Antarctica below 3 Kms. It took two and half years for the research. The piece of the ice is preserved at room temp of - 20 degrees Centigrade at the National Research Institution in Tokyo, Japan. Second Visit to LTWA, Dharamsala The project to find references of Ashtapad & Jainism in Tibetan Literature For the above project first I visited Library of Tibetan works and Archives (LTWA) at Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh) during 20th April 20 to 26th April, 2006. Second visit to LTWA was arranged during 22nd April 2009 to 1st May 2009. Mr. Maheshbhai Parmar and Dr. R. Shah also joined us. During this second visit we focused on the library work and visited local Tibetan Scholars. Library Work During our stay at Dharamsala we were attending the library daily. (Except Second and fourth Saturdays and Holidays) we referred 35 books to find the references about Jainism and Ashtapad in Tibetan culture. The following information was collected. 1. Three manuscripts were referred: i. Sources for history of Bon - Compiled & edited by Tenzin Namdak
This manuscript contains the historical account of the Bon Po Vinaya and biographies.
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Tibetan Sources for the Research of Ashtapad
