Nepal Research Center

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The Nepal Research Center (NRC) was a German research institute founded in Kathmandu in 1967 . It was in the tradition of the Himalayan research project Nepal of the 1960s around the scientist Walter Hellmich and was considered the oldest institution of its kind in Nepal . From 1974 to 2014 the NRC was operated by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft .

history

General

The first expeditions in Nepal, financed by the German Research Foundation , took place as early as the middle of the 20th century (the German-Russian Altai-Pamir Expedition in 1928 , the German Nanga Parbat Expedition in 1934 and the German-Austrian Himalaya-Karakoram Expedition in 1954 ). The first general director Walter Hellmich and the then German ambassador Wilhelm Löer played a decisive role in the establishment of the Nepal Research Center . The Himalaya-Forschungsvohaben Nepal ( Research Scheme Nepal Himalaya ), which was initiated in 1960 , has already been funded by the state and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation .

In 1965, the Thyssen House was opened in the presence of King Birendra . This served as the predecessor of the Nepal Research Center, which was contractually established in 1967 by Germany and Nepal . Later there was a short-term organizational cooperation with the Working Group for Comparative High Mountain Research , the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg and the German Oriental Society . Numerous Nepalese, Western and Japanese scientists frequented the NRC.

From 1974 the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG) was responsible for the facility. To this end, a contract was signed in 1977 between the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu and the DMG. Several extensions took place u. a. in a modified form in 2002. However, the institution increasingly ran into financial bottlenecks, struggled with the energy supply and sought a way of dealing with the political instability in the country, which also affected the local university.

On March 31, 2014, DMG stopped funding the organization.

Location and library

A public reference library with over 3,500 copies was set up at the Kathmandu location , including specialist books, magazines, encyclopedias, manuscripts, microfilms and other documents from Nepal and elsewhere.

The center used a building in New Baneshwor from 1981 . In 2002 the institute had to move to smaller premises in the north of Kathmandu ( Baluwatar ) due to financial constraints . In addition to the library, there were four work rooms with PCs, microfilmers, etc. and two sanitary guest rooms for scientists doing research on site.

management

The organization was led by the following German directors:

There was also a local director, manager and official translator.

activities

It organized scientific lectures, seminars and conferences etc. a. the “Nepal Research Talk Series” serves as an opportunity for national and international scientists from the humanities and natural sciences to meet . The areas of cartography , geography , botany , zoology , ethnography and medicine were of particular interest. It made an explicit effort to establish a regional reference and to scientific work and publications in English . It also supported researchers in the languages Nepali , Newari , Sanskrit and Tibetan with translations and interpretations.

NRC was involved in two research projects, the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) from 1970 to 2002 and the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloging Project (NGMCP) from 2002. These were carried out in cooperation with the Nepalese National Archives, the Government of Nepal and the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg realized. The overall management was taken over by the Indologists Wolfgang Voigt (1970–1982) and Albrecht Wezler (1982–2002) as well as Harunaga Isaacson (follow-up project). A copy of the filmed manuscripts is in the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation . In addition, it made an important contribution to the reconstruction of the Pujarimath Museum in Kathmandu, which was badly damaged during the Nepal-Bihar earthquake in 1934 and from 1991 to the Nepal-German Project on High Mountain Archeology .

From 1975 to 2006 , the Nepal Research Institute was responsible for the Nepal Research Center Publications (NRCP), which was published by Franz Steiner Verlag in Wiesbaden until the 2000s , and from 2009 again published the Journal of the Nepal Research Center (JNRC), first published in 1977 . JNRC is one of the few dedicated exclusively to Nepalese culture. NRC provided technical and financial support for the creation of monographs and articles; also in cooperation with the Tribhuvan University Central Library (belonging to the Tribhuvan University) in Kathmandu the Nepalese National Bibliography (NNB).

literature

  • Nepal Research Center, 1960-1982. Developments, Results and Prospects . Edited by the Nepal Research Center, Kathmandu 1982.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see also: Funded projects of the DFG: Nepal Research Center , DFG, accessed on December 30, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b c Announcement of the agreement between the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the government of Nepal for the establishment of the Nepal Research Center . In: Federal Law Gazette, No. 6 of February 17, 1967, pp. 81–82.
  3. ↑ a b c d e History of the NRC ( Memento of the original dated December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , University of Hamburg, accessed December 30, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  4. ↑ a b c d e Michael Zimmermann: Annex 11: Report on the “Nepal Research Center” (NRC) for the period from April 2002 to March 2003 . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society , Volume 153, 2003, pp. 525-526.
  5. ^ A b c Albrecht Hanisch : Annex 9: Report on the “Nepal Research Center” (NRC) for the period from October 2006 to August 2007 . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society , Volume 158, 2008, pp. 260–262.
  6. ↑ a b Funding of Research Tasks , Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, accessed on December 31, 2014.
  7. ↑ Library of the NRC ( Memento of the original from December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , University of Hamburg, accessed December 30, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  8. ↑ Diwakar Acharya, Drgomir Dimitrov: Annex 9: Report on the Nepal Research Center for the period from April 2003 to March 2005 . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society , Volume 156, 2006, pp. 272–274.
  9. ↑ Activities of the NRC ( Memento of the original dated December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , University of Hamburg, December 30, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  10. ↑ German Institutions in Nepal ( Memento of the original from December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , German Embassy Kathmandu, accessed December 30, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kathmandu.diplo.de
  11. ↑ The Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloging Project ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Digital copies of the NGMCP online Universität Hamburg, accessed on May 6, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  12. ^ Nepal Research Center , Tribhuvan University Central Library website, accessed December 30, 2014.