After the start of the academic year, the pandemic situation once again forces us to close the Efeo headquarters to the public until the beginning of December, as decided by the authorities. Our seminars will continue online, as will most of the administrative activities. Our institution will continue to operate, despite the constraints imposed by the health situation. I would like to thank all the staff and researchers for adapting to the new measures. Access to the library of the Maison de l'Asie will be specified later.

I wish you all courage and patience for the coming weeks, while protecting your health.

Christophe Marquet
Director of the EFEO

Ubaldo Iaccarino (Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica) gives a lecture entitled Traders, Smugglers, and Pirates in the Shaping of the Early Modern Hispano-Japanese Relations, organized by the EFEO Taipei Center and the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.

At 2 p.m., Conference Room 702, Research Building, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.

As part of the Kyoto lectures, Marco Tinello (University of Kanagawa) presents: "The Annexation of Ryukyu to Japan seen from a global perspective".

At 6 p.m. (Japan time). The conference will be broadcasted online via Zoom.

The password for logging in will be posted on the Kyoto Center's blog and ISEAS websites the day before.

The XXXIVe Seoul Colloquium in Korea Studies, organized by the EFEO Center in Seoul, in collaboration with the Royal Asiatic Society, is led by Byungki SONG (researcher at the Seoul National University Hospital Biomedical Research Institute) on the theme: "An Anthropological Perspective on the End of Life: How does the social & cultural background of Korea respond to medical treatment, especially to tube feeding, for elderly patients?".

At 6 p.m. at the EFEO Center in Seoul.

In case of new health measures, the seminar will take place online, on the Zoom platform.

Legend: film "Festival" (Chukje 祝祭), directed by Im Kwon-taek, 1996.

Sculpture conservation workshop at the National Museum of Cambodia - EFEO: the movements and arrangements continue in the rooms of the National Museum with the installation of the sculpted groups of Prasat Chen from Koh Ker.

Photos: Valin & Sugriva's delicate move last month.

Alain Arrault is taking part in the study day L'art de gouverner en Asie - sources，héritages, créations et recréations [The art of governing in Asia - sources, legacies, creations and re-creations], organised by the Musée des arts asiatiques - Guimet and the Association Française des Amis de l'Orient. He will present a conference on the Tongjian Zizhi (Mirror to help the government) by Sima Guang (1019-1086), on Saturday 21 November, Salon Paul Pelliot of the Hôtel d'Heidelbach (19 avenue d'Iéna - 75116 Paris).

Legend: Handwritten page from the Mirror to help the government (Zizhi tongjian 司馬光) by Sima Guang (1019-1086) relating the events of the year 322 (Eastern Jin dynasty). At the end of the scroll, a letter of thanks from Sima Guang. This manuscript is said to be from the hand of Sima Guang (Preserved at the National Library of China).

The IndesLing project (Linguistic Indies. European reception of extra-European languages, elaboration and circulation of linguistic knowledge, 16th-19th centuries), led by Fabien Simon (ICT-University of Paris) has been selected by the ANR 2020. Michela Bussotti (co-responsible for the "Printing languages" axis) will be in charge of the subject matters relating to the printing of Chinese characters, particularly in France (project duration: 48 months, 2021-2025).

Fabienne Jagou gives a lecture entitled "Dalai-lamas et empereurs mandchous : une relation de chapelain à donateur ?" [Dalai Lamas and Manchu emperors: a chaplain-donor relationship] as part of the series of lectures L'histoire des Qing : archives, recherches et débats, organised by Laure Zhang, at the University of Geneva, on November 17th.

Legend: Zhongguo Xizang Potala gong guanli chu, Pho brang Po ta la'i ldebs bris ri mo'i 'byung khungs lo rgyus gsal ba'i me long (Budala gong bihua yuanliu), A Mirror of the Murals in the Potala, Beijing, Jiu zhou tushu chubanshe, 2000, p.92.

Costantino Moretti participates in the study day Représentations de la maladie et de la guérison dans l’art et le rituel [Representations of Illness and Healing in Art and Ritual], SEECHAC, Paris, November 24 2020. He gives a paper entitled "Représentations de la maladie, de la souffrance et de la mort dans les sources iconographiques de Dunhuang" [Representations of illness, suffering and death in the iconographic sources of Dunhuang].

Legend: Sūtra de Guanyin, Chinese Pelliot Manuscript 2010 (+4513), 10th century, BnF.

Christophe Pottier will speak on November 6 in the programme of the course Villes Asiatiques [Asian Cities] 2020-2021 at the ENSAPB (École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville) and will give a presentation entitled "Patrimonialisation à Angkor : de l’Atlantide à Disneyland" [Patrimonialisation at Angkor: from Atlantis to Disneyland].

Legend: the Palais Hotel in Koh Phangan, Thailand.

Christophe Pottier will give a presentation entitled "Restaurer Angkor ou restaurer sa ruine ?" [Restoring Angkor or restoring its ruins] at the conference organised on the theme of ruins in the ancient world, jointly by the association des Amis de l’École française de Rome [Association of Friends of the French School of Rome] (AmEfr) and the association française des Amis de l’Orient [French Association of Friends of the Orient] (AFAO) at the Maison de l'Asie on November 10, 2020. Charles Davoine, a former member of the French School of Rome, will speak on "Le refus des ruines dans la Rome antique" [The rejection of ruins in ancient Rome].

Legend: Louis Delaporte "Vue prise dans les ruines de Préa-Khan" and Giovanni Battista Piranesi "Veduta del Tempio detto della Concordia".

Grégory Kourilsky (EFEO) speaks on: "L’orientalisme a-t-il (ré-) inventé le bouddhisme ? Réflexion à partir des sociétés bouddhiques de l’Asie du Sud-Est continentale" [Did orientalism (re)invent Buddhism? Reflection from the Buddhist societies of continental Southeast Asia].

From 10.30am to 12pm. The conference will take place online upon prior registration. Once registered you will receive the elements to log in (seminar link and password).

Reading the very numerous specialised studies on Buddhism published in European languages for almost two centuries, the different forms in which Buddhism is expressed on both sides of Asia seem to be unique everywhere. Whatever the region studied - Far East Asia, the Tibetan plateau, the Indochinese peninsula, and even the Indian world - specialists and observers are disturbed by the presence of elements which they consider to be out of place in relation to what they believe a Buddhist society should be: cults to spirits or ancestors, divinatory and magical practices, unusual rites and apocryphal texts, are all elements that they consider to be inconsistent with the Teaching of the Buddha as reported in the early canonical texts.
The question deserves to be asked, however, whether it is reasonable to consider that all Buddhist societies are at least partly at odds with orthodox Buddhism which, in reality, is nowhere to be found. Starting with the case of the "theravādin" societies of continental South-East Asia, we shall therefore ask ourselves why orientalists, since the middle of the 19th century, seem to be unable to consider vernacular Buddhism other than as being of a "hybrid" or "syncretic" nature; which amounts, after all, to questioning its authenticity.

Legend: Louis Finot in front of a Bayon face tower, Angkor, Cambodia, 1924 (EFEO_CAM20033).

The library and archives of Jane Cobbi (1943-2020) have joined the EFEO collections.

Jane Cobbi was an ethnologist and researcher at the CNRS, and a specialist of Japan. A student of André Leroi-Gourhan, she defended her doctoral thesis on La vie alimentaire des Japonais, son évolution récente : étude centrée sur un village de montagne : Kaïda-Mura, département de Nagano in 1981 at the EHESS, under the direction of Georges Condominas. She has subsequently published numerous works on the plant world, food systems and perfumes in Japan.

This donation, made possible by the family of Jane Cobbi, is a major enrichment for the EFEO collections. The 3,500 or so monographs and the numerous scientific archive files will be processed in the coming months and made available in 2021.

The photographic holdings of the EFEO remain accessible on the photo library website.

800 photos of the Victor Goloubew Fund taken in India and Indonesia at the very beginning of the 20th century will be put online.

Legend: Jambukeswarar Temple at Thiruvanaikaval in Tamil Nadu, India, March 1902 (EFEO_GOLV00340).

A new tool in the service of khmerology is now online: the AEFEK Sound Archives. Discover and listen to oral interventions by Saveros Pou or Bernard Philippe Groslier.

A look back at the 2nd edition of On fire! Experimental Archaeology held in December 2018 at the EFEO Center in Siem Reap through two videos posted in November on the EFEO's YouTube channel.

The film Angkor, un temple sauvé des eaux, la restauration du Mebon occidental (Cambodge) [Angkor, a temple saved from the waters, the restoration of the Western Mebon (Cambodia)] relates the major stages of the restoration work carried out by the EFEO and the Cambodian authority APSARA (Authority for the Protection of the Site and Development of the Angkor Region) from 2013 to May 2018. The restorations and excavations associated with this work site have produced a better understanding of the special place occupied by the Western Mebon, a temple dating from the 11th century, during the Angkorian period.

A unique work in the history of the Angkor temples, the Mebon is an ambitious project, a symbiosis of architecture and engineering, stone and water, a religious development that makes these hydraulic structures sacred. Testimony to its complex and still partly enigmatic history, the large bronze statue of a Vishnu was discovered there. It was a monumental representation of the myth of the creation of the world, resting on a snake in the middle of the primordial ocean.

The film, directed by Didier Fassio, is available on the PSL Explore portal and on the EFEO's YouTube channel.

The study day on "Nouvelles Routes de la Soie. Réceptions et impacts territoriaux de la Belt and Road Initiative en Eurasie" [New Silk Roads. Territorial Receptions and Impacts of the Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia] is organised on Monday 2 November 2020 by Inalco - University of Paris - CNRS (IFRAE), University Bordeaux Montaigne (D2iA) and EURICS.

The conference will take place online, on the Zoom platform from 9.45 am to 5 pm.
Meeting ID : 925 5024 6865 | Secret code : 793831