Martina Wernsdorfer

The Vessantara Jataka is the tale of Buddha's last life, before he was reborn as the historical Buddha 2,500 years ago. In this earlier existence as Prince Vessantara he demonstrated evidence of the highest virtue that constitutes an enlightened man: generosity. Vessantara gave away everything dear to him - in the climactic scene of the story, even his wife and children. In North-East Thailand the Vessantara tale is celebrated annually as Bun Phra Wet. Pha Phra Wet - 'Vessantara cloths' - form the visual framework for this festival; they are hand-painted scrolls, which can reach lengths of up to one hundred metres. Devotion presents, for the very first time, a selection of six full-length Vessantara scrolls and explores a contemporary multimedia celebration of an ancient Buddhist text.

Between 1885 and 1891 the Swiss pastor Wilfried Spinner sojourned in Japan on behalf of the East Asian mission. He founded the first Christian parishes in Tokyo and Yokohama and began to intensively teach there. However, his interest was also directed at local beliefs, which informed the everyday lives of the population. He brought back to Europe around eighty religious scrolls, comprising some painted hanging scrolls and numerous black-and-white prints (ofuda). Ofuda are paper amulets featuring representations of important deities, Buddhas and bodhisattvas, which were printed in and distributed from temples. Some of them additionally feature calligraphy, which was written by the monks in the presence of the pilgrims. They are evidence to their pilgrimage and accompany them onwards as protection and good luck charms. The recently discovered collection of Wilfried Spinner in the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich covers a broad spectrum both figuratively and in content. Text in English, German, and Japanese.

Die Autorin dieses Buches widmet sich mit dem Thema "Bildung in Tibet" einem Bereich, der zwar in der wissenschaftlichen Forschungsliteratur zu China und Tibet erst marginal diskutiert wird, im Rahmen der Modernisierung Chinas jedoch aktueller denn je ist. Bildung fur wen und wozu und in welcher Sprache? Von dieser Frage geleitet, geht die Autorin den Motivationen und Aktionen unterschiedlicher Handlungstrager auf verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen und burokratischen Ebenen nach. Sie beleuchtet historische Vorbedingungen, erlautert zeitgleiche politisch-oekonomische Kontexte und macht so die komplexen Mechanismen zwischen Regierungszentrale, Lokalbehoerden und Schulen sichtbar. Interviews mit tibetischen Jugendlichen vor Ort und mit den Initiatoren mehrerer Schulprojekte runden die historisch-soziologische Studie ab und schlagen die Brucke zur wahrnehmbaren Realitat der Gegenwart.