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SOME RESULTS FROM VIETNAM ECAI Minh Thiện Phước - Lê Công Hậu
I. Introduction on Vietnam ECAI As you know, ECAI arrived in Vietnam no more than 1 year ago. The project started in August 22nd 2007; in connection with the Symposium of Buddhist culture in the East Asia. In those exchanges on Buddhist culture, there was a part introducing Buddhist culture in the digital age and its development in other countries. It was from here that ECAI came to us and Most Venerable Dr. Le Manh That, the vice president of Viet Nam Buddhist University and Dr. Lewis Lancaster from the University of California in Berkley initialized ECAI. We were on ECAI from the initializing of the project beginning with the first workshop instructed by Dr. Damian Evans from the University of Sysney and Dr. Howie Lan from the University of California in Berkley.. The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiatives is a project on World culture in the digital age with the aim of building a dynamic online atlas connected worldwide. This initiative is involved with many universities, scholars and professors and Van Hanh University is one of them. The development of the Ecai project includes, not only the preservation, protection and digitalizing of cultural and historical sites, but it also bears an interesting image of Buddhist monks in the digital age who are engaging and developing Buddhism by the means of GIS. After 2,500 years of Buddhist development we are now in the peak time of the digital age; Buddhist history and texts as well as the Buddha’s teachings are being digitized for the inheritance of future generations. This is surely is the generation of top digital technology. The development of Ecai will be a means of passing on and reviving the history and development of Buddhism on the planet through this tool of creating an electronic online atlas.
Today, the image of Buddhist monk is not only a solemn peaceful image, reciting sutras along with the echoing bells but also an active one with computers, lively with GPS and expertly with digital devices..
II. PROJECT ON CULTURAL BUDDHIST SITES Although there have been a numerous Ecai projects implementing in many areas of the world, here we started our project with some subjective difficulties.
We temporarily divide into 2 groups. One group is for the collection of GIS data, coordinates and brief history of the Buddhist sites. The other group is to collect and research on the headstones, inscriptions.
From the first workshop, the group under the direction of Bikkhu Duc Truong has started collecting data from many different sources, at the local Sangha, the visiting of real sites and other researches. The second group works on the headstones in Nom and Chinese characters However, the coordinates collecting is not very easy due to the GIS knowledge is not consistent and devices are still inadequate. Some raw data collected from source which was not processed properly, did not have the proper fonts or the data was in a form that is not shared. The work progresses somewhat slow since the monkish students had to take charge of their main academic subjects and their own Buddhist administration; at the same time taking acquaintance with the new GIS technology. III ONGOING WORKS AND SOME OF THE RESULTS The aim of the part is: Collect the GIS information of the sites. Collect geographical data and time Collect Buddhist data, Dharma sect, history. Collect or take photos The job is not simple since it is not always convenient. If we have lacks from existing sources or not precise, we take trips on sites to collect them. There are some locations are geographically easy, but they are not easy to meet with relevant people. Vice versa, there are places easy to access to people but for historical details ... nobody remembers, knows or the history documents lost. Following is the typical group of sites. The numbers come to around 450. Including typical monasteries, famous sites, ancient pagodas, temples. Asia: Á châu
Việt Nam
South of Việt Nam Mekong delta of Việt Nam: Long An, Cần Thơ, Hồ Chí Minh city.
North of Viet Nam and Hà Nội
Cửu Long plains
Hồ Chí Minh city
Huế city
Tuy Hòa
Ozi Explorer: The monasteries often gather in the urban areas of the cities with higher density than in the centers. Along side with highways, national ways. The higher the population density in an area is the more pagodas there are.
Aerial photography
These are some results we have in this year. Obviously there are many mistakes but we try to gain some contribution to the Ecai of the world. Thank you. |
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