The world of Buddhism is being celebrated at Cornell University Library in honor of the Dalai Lama's Oct. 9-10 visit to Ithaca.

"Bridging Worlds: Buddhist Words and Works," an exhibition and lecture series sponsored by the Cornell Library, is an exploration of the different schools of Buddhism across Asia. Using pan-Asian texts and visual materials from Cornell's Asia collections, the exhibition shows how Buddhism ties together the continent's otherwise disparate cultural zones.

Highlights include gold-lettered and gem-studded ceremonial manuscripts from Thailand and Burma, a handwritten Chinese encyclopedia from 1567 on Buddhist topics, and sacred and devotional Buddhist texts in several Asian languages. The exhibition will also feature popular and scholarly biographies of the Buddha, ornate illustrations of Buddhist works from art and travel books, and a 3-D computer model of a Kalachakra mandala, a symbolic image of a palace, created by Kavita Bala, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell.

"Bridging Worlds" runs Oct. 4 through Nov. 15. The exhibition will be displayed in the Severinghaus Kroch Asia Reading Room, the hallway that connects Olin and Kroch libraries and outside Kroch Library's Hirshland Gallery. To learn more about the exhibition and its associated events, visit http://asia.library.cornell.edu/ac/bridgingworlds.

Bronwen Bledsoe is the curator of Cornell University Library's South Asia Collection.