Hi everybody, long and short eared ! And sooooooooo sorry for being away from the blog for so long. Translating that enormous catalogue for the forthcoming Bhutanese exhibition at the Musée Guimet kept me busy all right, but furthermore, I had a major internet connexion failure which lasted nearly two months until I got hold of a the right technician who sorted it out. Anyway, I’m now back online and that’s a relief. Crazy how one gets used to modern technology and is easily lost when it goes wrong.

Now back to the point. I was in Dublin once more recently (had something to see which I just couldn’t miss at the Olympia theatre in May… you Cork people see what I mean I suppose, it’s back again in Cork Opera house in July) and I’ll have to tell you that there are two more donkeys in the gallery. That is a Thomas Robert’s painting—A Bay Horse and Two Donkeys—on display in the temporary exhibition on that mid-eighteenth century Irish landscapist.

You donkey addicts may be interested in hearing about something I discovered while working on the Bhutanese exhibition catalogue. There’s a couple of thangkas the subject of which is a series of jakata tales. Jatakas tales tell of the previous lives of the Buddha—he had 547 of them according to the Pali Scriptures—and those stories aim at showing how the One who would become the Buddha developed exceptional qualities over his many lives. One of those tales is—partly at least—donkey related. The story, according to a Tibetan version, goes as follows : in a Kingdom called Nga-Len, the queen once had an affair with one of her attendants and gave birth to a son. The boy was part human but his head was that of a donkey and he also had a tail. Given the circumstances, the Queen was advised to keep him out of sight which she did. But she remained a loving mother and took great care of the boy, bringing him food everyday herself. The boy grew up in complete solitude, not seeing any other living creature than his mother. Eventually, the queen grew older and weaker and on a fateful day, she fell down and died as she was bringing food to her son. Nga Bong heard her cry and came to her rescue but it was too late and she died in his arms. The royal guards and attendants who also came to the rescue were frightened by the sight of this strange half-man half-donkey being that was facing them and Nga Bong was himself also scared and fled into the mountains. He found shelter in a cave where, to his utter amazement, he realised what his physical outlook was like by accidentally seeing his face reflected on the surface of a pool. The cave provided him shelter and he decided to stay there. He became acquainted with other life forms, discovered the beauties of the world and practiced meditation. He became a great sage and is said to have given names to the stars, the months and the days of the week.

Now, who still dares use the word «donkey» as synonymous to «dummy» ?