I have planned to post updates every month, but this has not happened in the recent couple of months. (By the way, I want to tell the visitors who read English alone that previous series of posts contain pictures of Gaya, Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Vaishali, and Patna, which I visited toward the end of January.)

There were a lot of travels in the past months, but I didn't get much done in my study. From mid-Februrary to early March, I visited my parents in Shanghai. We celebrated the Chinese New Year together, which was the first that I have spent with my parents in the last 11 years, then my mom's 70th birthday. I traveled to Nepal in the last half of May where I got my research visa for India, and now I am offically doing on my research for my dissertation project in India. While in Kathmandu I have taken pitures of the Svayambhu and Boudhnath stupas, but since there are hundreds of pictures of both, I don't need to post any here.

There is also a good news, but since it is only at its incipient stage, I will refrain from writing anything about it till later this year.

The weather in Northern India where I stayed became extremely hot at the beginning of April. After I had a taste of it for ten days, I relocated myself to the pleasant region of Southern Karnataka. My intention is to stay at Sera monastery in Byalakkuppe. But since my permit has not arrived from the Indian government, I in the meanwhile have moved to the city of Bangalore to study Spoken Sanskrit. The place where I am staying is called Ak.saram, this is the Bangalore branch of Samskrita Bharati which has the goal of bring Sanskrit back to the homes of the Indian nation. The monthly Sanskrit magazine sambhaa.sa.nasa.mde'sa is published here. You can visit their website if you want to learn more.

http://www.samskrita-bharati.org/newsite/index.php