Anglo-Czech Educational Fund – Report
Aleš Rýznar
PhD Study Program: Theory and History of the Literatures of Asia and Africa
Department of Asian Studies, Charles University
This report describes my study and research activities during 2021. I have continued extensively to work on the dissertation in 2021. The dissertation, called The Necklace of Precious Pearls: An Analysis, Translation and Diplomatic Edition of the Dzogchen Tantra, was reviewed several times by my supervisor doc. Berounský and other researchers, such as dr. Sehnalová from the University of Oxford, et al. All comments I received have been considered in improving the quality of the dissertation during the summer semester and holidays. I have reorganized most of the chapters, finished a diplomatic edition while reviewing 5 textual witnesses and completed translation of the studied tantra, which was originally written in Tibetan. I was unable to come to Oxford earlier this year, because of the covid pandemics and the closed university classrooms during the UK lockdown. However, Oxford ́s Tibetan seminars, a weekly series of colloquia and guest lectures, continued to be available on-line and I had a chance to listen to these lectures,
such as The Geluk Domestication of Tantra, Virupa is Virupaksa: Towards the Indo-Tibetan Siddha Corpus and so on.
Therefore, I have planned again to visit Oxford in the mid-September for Michaelmas, but unfortunately booked accommodations failed – a friend of mine had a covid earlier and was in hospital for a month and still had a long covid syndrome and preferred not to accommodate me. Also, the second family politely refused to accommodate me due to health risks in accommodating a foreigner from the Czech Republic. Therefore, I continued to work
on the dissertation, i.e. proofreading the English translation of the Tibetan original, providing additional commentaries in the footnotes, and so forth, and finally completed it at the beginning of November. The work has almost 500 pages with the facsimile of the Dzogchen tantra in Tibetan, Tibetan-English technical dictionary and approximately 750 footnotes.
Afterwards, I have submitted the dissertation to the study program committee. And now, I am waiting for the date of the PhD thesis defense. However, I hope to visit Oxford early this year, after the omicron wave ceases, as well as after my PhD defense is completed. I still intend to visit the Oxford library and finally, also be present in person during the classes of the Tibetan seminars. I also plan to present the results of my PhD research and discuss them with fellow colleagues and PhD students, as the Tibetan seminars provide the opportunity to present once own work and receive feedback from staff and affiliated scholars. Therefore, I am aiming at a further collaboration with Oxford this year.