Nepal and Tibet

Nepal is where CAIRN was centred. The acronym itself, as expanded on the surviving affiliation page, reads Center for Advanced Integrated Research in Nepal (CAIRN-2009-VALCROS).

Kathmandu and the institutional base

The affiliation page describes CAIRN as a non-profit organisation and provider of higher education and training, affiliated with St Xavier's Social Services and St Xavier's Campus in Kathmandu. The member-status list of the regulations places the consortium itself under Nepal, with William R. Leon as EXE/FO and Fr. B. Robins SJ as EXE/FO and Nepal Regional Head, and records advisory and consultant members drawn from Nepalese institutions: Prof. R. P. Gartoulla of NIHS for ethnomedicine and doctoral supervision, and a coordination desk in Kathmandu (CAIRN-2008-MOU).

Tibetan medicine and Himalayan traditions

The same list records directors and practitioners of Tibetan medicine in Kathmandu under the consultant statuses: Amchi Jampa for Kailash, Amchi T. Pedon for Kunphen, Amchi T. Wangpo, and a Tibetan doctor for primary health care. Among advisory members it names Namgyal Rimpoche for Dharma philosophy and Tsa-rLung healing, and Matthieu Ricard of Shechen. The programme headings on the surviving pages speak of comparative research in Himalayan and Keltic traditional healing, cultural immersion, Tibetan materia medica and Tibetan psychology training.

Comparative research in Himalayan and Keltic traditional healing, cultural immersion, Tibetan materia medica and Tibetan psychology: this is the curriculum the consortium set out, taught from Kathmandu by practitioners named in its own regulations.

Kathmandu in the correspondence

Kathmandu recurs in the private letters as the place from which Leon worked. In February 2018 he writes that he will study, edit and give feedback on Paret's material once there, and asks him to keep sending it (MAIL-2018-02-06-COLLAB). It is the last catalogued exchange in the archive, and it runs between Kathmandu and Nice.