Text-historical research In Toronto, Frances Garrett, Khenpo Kunga Sherab, and Dakpa Gyatso have been studying Tibetan language guidebooks to hidden lands (sbas yul). An international workshop on “Hidden Lands in Himalayan Myth and History: Transformations of Beyul (sBas yul) through Time” was held in Toronto in December 2017, featuring thirteen paper presentations; this research is now being prepared as an edited volume. In Sikkim, Anna Balikci-Denjongpa is working with monks from Pemayangtse monastery on a book that documents sacred sites in the Khangchendzonga National Park and the environs.

This project is designed around student and citizen engagement, drawing on models of public history and community-based research. From 2016-2018, Garrett and Price taught an immersive field course in Sikkim that focused on Buddhist pilgrimage travel, the influence of rivers on Himalayan cultures, and the interplay between religious institutions and environmental sustainability movements in the region. In the summer of 2017, undergraduate Study of Religion student Damien Boltauzer worked with the KCC in Yuksam on digitizing their archival materials.