University teaching has always been an activity reflecting two quite contrary challenges, namely the motivated acquisition of knowledge and skills versus a proof a professional abilities documented by examinations and degrees. This strange mixture of demands was met over centuries by canonical forms of teaching and learning: lectures, exercises, seminaries and practical training, followed or ac...

time for two centuries; and it is the (lirect outcome of the system of apprenticeship which endured for four centuries. For six hundred years it has given the medical student practical training in his real mission in life: the age-long fight with disease and with death. lI'he limitations of Medicine in this battle are only too obvious, nevertheless the unending struggle must continue, for, as t...

This article examines the *Manasvi-nāgarāja-sūtra, a unique text in the raksạ̄ genre of Buddhist literature dating to the early centuries of the common era. In addition to exploring special features of the vocabulary and meaning of this text, the article places the *Manasvi-nāgarāja-sūtra in the wider context of Buddhist textual and ritual practice in the first, second and third centuries CE.