2011-2012 Events

Wednesday, April 25, 2012, Noon
The Life and Songs of a Mad Yogin
Stefan Larsson, Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley
3335 Dwinelle Hall

The Tibetan 'mad yogin' Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507) was an important figure in the history and formation of the genres of Buddhist 'songs of realization' (mgur) and 'biographies of liberation' (rnam thar) in Tibet. He and his disciples authored and published a large number of such texts. Among them, Tsangnyön's life story and collected songs of Milarepa (printed in 1488) stand out as particularly significant. These two works became extraordinarily popular in Tibet and beyond, eclipsing Tsangnyön's own biographies and songs. Given his position as one of Tibet's most important authors, and perhaps the most influential mad yogin in Tibetan Buddhism, it is somewhat surprising that his own life story and songs never became widely disseminated and have received comparatively little attention. Primarily drawing upon these texts, this talk will shed some light upon this important Tibetan master, and upon holy madness in Tibet, an often neglected subject in the study of tantric Buddhism.

Stefan Larsson, Ph.D. (2009) in History of Religions, Stockholm University, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the non-monastic and practice-oriented aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly as evidenced in Buddhist songs and biographical literature. His book "Crazy for Wisdom: The Making of a Mad Yogin in Fifteenth-Century Tibet" is forthcoming from Brill.

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Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 3-7 pm
Shamans, Buddhists and Muslim Saints: The Layered History of the Desert Mazar
Symposium
Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor conference room

In conjunction with the exhibition in the IEAS Gallery, "Desert Mazar: Sacred Sites in Western China," a symposium on the historical and contemporary religious landscape of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

3:00-3:20 Introduction
Sanjyot Mehendale, Vice Chair, Center for Buddhist Studies

3:20-4:00 Framing the Desert Mazar: Exhibitions, Artists and Scholarship
Beth Citron (Assistant Curator, Rubin Museum of Art) and Lisa Ross (Artist/Photographer)

4:00-4:30 Buddhist-Muslim Interaction in Mongol Inner Asia
Johan Elverskog, Visiting Fellow, Stanford University

4:30-4:40 Coffee/Tea Break

4:40-5:10 Sufis, Dervishes and Maddahs in the Mazars of East Turkestan
Alexandre Papas, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris

5:10-5:40 Mapping the Sacred Landscape: Uyghur Shrines in Xinjiang
Rahila Dawut, Xinjiang University, China

5:40-6:30 Panel Discussion and Q&A
Chair, Sanjyot Mehendale

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Thursday, April 19, 2012, 5 pm
Johan Elverskog, Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow, Stanford University
Creative Destruction: An Environmental History of Buddhist Asia
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

Buddhism is often linked to environmentalism and deep ecology in both popular and academic discourses, yet few have investigated how Buddhists actually impacted the natural world. Drawing upon the burgeoning field of environmental history, as well as Buddhist Studies, this presentation will explore not only how we can begin to investigate the environmental impact wrought by Buddhists, but also how the elucidation of this history enables us to explore large-scale interlocking processes across pre-modern Asia.

Johan Elverskog is Altshuler University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, and is currently a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is the author and editor of seven books including most recently Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, which was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010, and winner of the American Academy of Religion's 2011 Award for Excellence in the Historical Study of Religion.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 5:15 pm
Osmund Bopearachchi, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris
Visiting Professor, History of Art, UC Berkeley
A 2nd Century BCE Shipwreck and the Role of the Bodhisattva Avalokistesvara as the Protector of Mariners
308J, Doe Library, History of Art Department

In December 2010 and January 2012, respectively, two test dives were carried out on a ship¬wreck discovered off the coast of Godavaya by an international team composed of divers and archaeologists from Sri Lanka (Department of Archaeology), the USA (INA, University Texas A & M and University of California at Berkeley) and France (CNRS – Sorbonne-Paris IV). Carbon 14 analyses carried out on three wood samples date the shipwreck to the 2nd century BCE which makes it the oldest ever found in the Indian Ocean. Given the importance of Godavaya as the main maritime trading center of the southern coast, it is no wonder that so many images of Avalokiteśvara, as the protector of mariners, were found along the Walawe Ganga.

Osmund Bopearachchi is Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S.-E.N.S. Paris), a member of the Doctoral School VI of the Paris IV-Sorbonne University, and visiting professor of Central Asian and South-Asian archaeology and art history at UC Berkeley. He holds a B.A. from the University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka), and B.A. honors, (M.A.), M.Phil., Ph.D. from the Paris I-Sorbonne University, and a Higher Doctorate (Habilitation) from the Paris IV-Sorbonne University.

Dr. Bopearachchi has published nine books, edited six books and published 130 articles in international journals. He currently serves as the director of the Sri Lanka-French Archaeological Mission, and also has launched a joint project with the Department of Near-Eastern Studies of the University of California at Berkeley focusing on Sri Lanka's role in ancient maritime trade in the Indian Ocean. He is currently excavating the most ancient shipwreck in the Indian Ocean (2nd century B.C.E.) in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka, INA, Texas A & M University, U.C. Berkeley, and CNRS.

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Friday-Saturday, April 6-7, 2012
Healing Texts, Healing Practices, Healing Bodies: A Workshop on Medicine and Buddhism
Conference/Symposium
Sponsored by the Center for Japanese Studies and Center for Buddhist Studies
370 Dwinelle Hall

The prevention, alleviation and cure of physical and mental ills have been central concerns of Buddhist traditions across Asia, as well as a major drive in the creation and promotion of healing rituals and therapies. At the same time, monks have played a key role in the spread and circulation of medical knowledge beyond national borders, and Buddhist institutions have provided fertile ground for the development and consolidation of medical treatises and curative techniques.

The workshop Healing Texts, Healing Practices, Healing Bodies aims to be a platform for scholars working in different fields of Buddhist studies to explore the intersections of Buddhism and medical knowledge in comparative perspective. The papers will analyze different therapeutic strategies emerging from textual sources and ritual practices; discuss how discourses on physical and mental illness have been constructed, represented and embodied; and examine how conceptions of pollution and filth have informed notions of disease as well as their treatment.

Schedule

Friday, April 6, 2012

2:30: Welcome by CBS and CJS Chair

2:45–5:00 — Section 1: Buddhism and Medicine in Dialogue

2:45–3:15: Janet Gyatso (Harvard)
Values and Ways of Knowing: Conflicts (and Confluences) Between Buddhism and Medicine in Tibet

3:15–3:45: Andrew Goble (Oregon)
Faith in Medicine: The Emergence of a New Medicinal Culture in Medieval Japan

3:45–4:15: Laura Allen (Independent Researcher)
Pox-gods, Sacred Buckets, and Big Red Babies: Late Edo Prints for Disease Prevention

4:15–4:45: Discussion chaired by Robert Sharf (Berkeley)

5:00–5:30: Refreshments

Saturday, April 7, 2012

9:45–10:00: Breakfast

10:00–12:15 — Section 2: Monks, Healers and their Texts

10:00–10:30: Amy Langenberg (Auburn)
Female Herbalists, Midwives, and their Clientele in Early Buddhist India: A View from the Vinaya Tradition

10:30–11:00: C. Pierce Salguero (Penn State)
Buddhist Medicine in Crosscultural Translation: Disease and Healing in the Chinese Tripitaka

11:00–11:30: Paul Copp (Chicago)
Buddhist Healers and their Handbooks: Scribal and Ritual Practice in Manuscript Culture

11:30–12:00: Discussion chaired by Jake Dalton (Berkeley)

12:00–1:30: Lunch Break

1:30–2:30 — Keynote

Shigehisa Kuriyama (Harvard)
The Buddhism of Western Medicine

2:30–2:40: Coffee Break

2:45–4:15 — Section 3: Illness, Pollution and Madness

2:45–3:15: Edward Drott (Missouri)
The Meanings and Uses of Pollution in Late Heian Didactic Tales

3:15–3:45: Benedetta Lomi (Berkeley)
Healing Through the Six Syllables: Body and Medicine in the Rokujikyō-hō

3:45–4:15: James Robson (Harvard)
Monks, Monasteries and Madness: The Relationship between Buddhist Monasteries and Mental Institutions in East Asia

4:15–4:45: Discussion, chaired by Regan Murphy (Berkeley)

4:45–5:15: Plenary Discussion and Concluding Remarks chaired by Benedetta Lomi

5:15: Reception

Please contact the Center for Japanese Studies (cjs@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3156) or Benedetta Lomi (b.lomi@berkeley.edu) for more information.

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Thursday, March 8, 2012, 5 pm
Padmanabh S. Jaini, Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley
Sri Ramakrishna's Legacy: A Buddhist Perspective
And a Note on the Buddha as the Ninth Avatāra of Vishnu
Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton, Conference Room, 6th floor

In his majestic work Sri Ramakrishna (1834-1886) and His Divine Play, Swami Saradananda states: "After performing sādhanā according to the main religious denominations prevalent in India, and even the non-Indian religion, Christianity, …Sri Ramakrishna observed that each one of them led the aspirant towards the non-dual plane: Advaita, the Brahman of the Upanishads, the Vedanta."

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission and the Vedanta Society, chose, probably without a precedent, the sacred syllable OM, as the supreme Icon of the Brahman, for the Society's Temple. It appears that in the post-Gupta era, OM became identified with a certain image of the god Ganesha, hailed as "pranava-svarupam," and occasionally invested with the emblems of Lord Vishnu.

To the question how the 'atheistic' Buddhism may find place in the Master's Vedanta vision, Swami Saradananda states: "In regard to Buddha the Master shared the same beliefs as all Hindus: He always offered loving worship and reverence to Buddha as an avatāra, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu".

There are several literary sources which describe the Buddha as the 'Illusion Personified' (māyā-purusha) avatāra of Vishnu. This paper will look at a rare sculpture of a standing Buddha appearing in the "dashāvatāra" panel, from North Gujarat.

Swami Saradananda sums up the Master's own legacy: "All religions are true — as many faiths, so many paths."…He lived for one purpose: to eradicate as far as possible religious narrowness from the world." This is a legacy inherited from the Emperor Ashoka, who was promoting 'harmony of religions' with the memorable words "samavāyo eva sādhu."

Padmanabh S. Jaini is Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Studies and co-founder of the Group in Buddhist Studies. Before joining UC Berkeley in 1972, he taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of numerous monographs and articles on both Buddhism and Jainism. In the field of Buddhist Studies he is particularly well known for his work on Abhidharma and for his critical editions of the Abhidharmadīpa (a Vaibhāṣika treatise), the Sāratamā (a commentary on the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā), and a collection of apocroyphal Jātakas, the Paññāsa-Jātaka, that appeared in four volumes (text and translation). His collected essays have appeared in two volumes, and, recently, he has been honored by a Festschrift (2003) with contributions on early Buddhism and Jainism.

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Thursday, March 1, 2012, 5 pm
Jann Ronis, Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley
Contestation and Innovation in the Fruitful Encounter Between a Lay Visionary and Monk Scholars: The Revelations of Longsel Nyingpo (1625-1692)
Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

A dominant feature of Tibetan Buddhism is the tradition of revealed treasures (terma) — scriptures, images, and ritual implements "excavated" from from physical sites or the mind streams of designated revealers and made the foci of tantric cults. The treasure tradition dates to the early 11th century, the beginning of the Tibetan renaissance during which all major lineages have their origins, and treasures are integral facets of most Tibetan Buddhist sects. It is well known in contemporary scholarship on treasure traditions that the majority of treasure revealers have been non-monastic tantrists and that most textual treasure traditions reflect the liturgical and contemplative needs of smaller-scale communities that were themselves likely non- or loosely-monastic. Despite these humble origins certain textual treasure traditions have gained renown for their spiritual efficacy and the leaders of large monasteries have incorporated certain of them into their liturgical programs through the composition of liturgies that evoke the deities and lineages of the treasures while at the same time conforming to the customs of communal monastic rituals. Nevertheless, what might transpire when an active treasure revealer finds himself at the helm of a monastery that has a strong prior commitment to a non-treasure based system of ritual and scholastics, and, in fact, has a conflicted history with the treasures? This talk will explore just such an encounter and, in so doing, aims to expand the understanding of the tradition on several points.

The subject of this talk is the treasure revealer Longsel Nyingpo (1625-1692) and his tenure at Katok Monastery in last two decades of his life, after a long career as treasure revealer largely outside of monastic settings. At Katok, Longsel Nyingpo excavated — i.e., composed — one cycle of treasures and it is explicitly connected with the non-treasure traditions that Katok had always identified as their special heritage. How did Longsel Nyingpo present himself in these texts as a master of Katok's traditions, in which he presumably had little or no prior training? Though his texts explicitly identify themselves as within the Katok tradition, in what ways do they differ from mainstream Katok texts? Considering that he was attempting to establish a hereditary line of lamas at the monastery, what do these discrepancies suggest about Longsel Nyingpo's broader agenda at Katok? Are there indications of close collaboration between Longsel Nyingpo and learned Katok lamas on certain texts, especially his treasures on the path and systematic philosophy? Finally, what was the reception history of these texts in the medium to long term at Katok? This talk will therefore interest scholars working on the social history of esoteric movements, the intersection of monasticism and tanra, the centrality of "indigenous scriptures" in vernacular Buddhist traditions, and the intellectual history of competing ritual traditions.

Jann Ronis (Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, 2011-12, UC Berkeley) studied religion, Tibetan studies, Sinology, and the Tibetan and Chinese languages at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2009 for a dissertation about developments in the monasteries of eastern Tibet, along the border between Tibet and China, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His dissertation focused on innovations in scholastics, liturgical practices, and administration spearheaded by the lamas of Katok Monastery and their widespread adoption in the region. The resulting network of monasteries represented the only significant alternative in Tibet to the model of monasticism prevalent in central Tibet and was the site of tremendous literary and artistic production. His research interests include the social histories of visionary cults, scholastic traditions, monastic reform movements, and sectarian conflicts; the philosophical and contemplative traditions of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism; and Sino-Tibetan cultural relations. During his year at Berkeley Jann is researching the twelfth and thirteenth century formation of an important ritual tradition in Tibetan Buddhism — the Kagye (bka' brgyad), or Eight Dispensations in an effort to better understand the domestication of Buddhism in Tibet. The Kagye is a compendium of eight heterogeneous deity cults including deities of Indic and Tibetan origins, and supramundane and mundane statuses — and Jann is exploring the innovations in narrative and ritual made by the Tibetan creators of this uniquely Tibetan pantheon.

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Thursday, February 16, 2012, 5 pm
2012 Khyentse Lecture
Matthew T. Kapstein, Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies, The University of Chicago Divinity School
Tibet in the Age of Manuscripts: Reflections on Recent Textual Discoveries
Heyns Room, Men's Faculty Club

During the past few decades, the discovery, cataloguing, and partial publication of important Tibetan manuscript collections has substantially transformed our view of the intellectual and religious history of Tibet. Important developments about which we were almost entirely ignorant only a decade ago may now be studied in detail thanks to copious newly available documentation. The present talk will review aspects of the recent manuscript finds, considering their implications for our understanding of Tibetan cultural history more generally.

Matthew T. Kapstein specializes in the history of Buddhist philosophy in India and Tibet, as well as in the cultural history of Tibetan Buddhism more generally. Kapstein has published a dozen books and numerous articles, among the most recent of which are a general introduction to Tibetan cultural history, The Tibetans (Oxford 2006), an edited volume on Sino-Tibetan religious relations, Buddhism Between Tibet and China (Boston 2009), and a translation of an eleventh-century philosophical allegory in the acclaimed Clay Sanskrit Series, The Rise of Wisdom Moon (New York 2009). With Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia) and Gray Tuttle (Columbia), he has completed "Sources of Tibetan Traditions," to be published in the Columbia University Press Sources of Asian Traditions series in early 2012. Kapstein is additionally Director of Tibetan Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012, 5 pm
Jeff Durham, Curator of Himalayan Art, Asian Art Museum
Transformation by Thangka: Yoga Tantra Paintings from Sakya's Tibet
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

The Five Jinas, cosmic Buddhas associated with the four directions and their central axis, appear prominently across the Himalayan art historical corpus. These sets are visual synecdoche for the initiation (abhisekha) of Shakyamuni as told in yoga tantra texts like the Tattvasamgraha. In these accounts, four progressive initiations elevate Shakyamuni to full enlightenment (abhisambodhi) and with it realization of his true identity as Vairochana. When painted on a thangka, these events become an exemplar through whose re-enactment subsequent isomorphic awakenings can take shape.

Given their soteriological importance, the Five Jinas are the single most important iconographic motif in Sarma Buddhist art. As early as the 11th century, Ngari temples associated with Rinchen Zangpo and the Kashmiri art style focus on the Five Jina motif of the yoga tantras. Five Jina motifs also figure prominently in the corpus of (11th-12th century) central Tibetan paintings, where Indian styles predominate. By the 13th century, however, new anuttara yoga tantra deities had largely eclipsed Vairochana and his yoga tantraimagery. It was during this time that Sakya masters commissioned a particularly important set of Five Jinas — which is now being conserved by San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. In these three magnificent paintings, artists have focused on the old yoga tantra motif, but here they employ a radical new style — the Beri, or Nepalese. The Beri employs deep detailing to create dimensional effects on each thangka. Each thangka in its turn is part of a larger dimension — that of the Vajradhatu mandala from which each derives. On these thangkas, the ordinary sense of vision becomes a laboratory in which we can directly watch two flat dimensions magically become three.

Trained in Sanskrit and Tibetan at the University of Virginia, Jeff Durham is curator of Himalayan Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Prior to joining the Museum, he served as professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College in New York, where he developed cross-cultural approaches to the study of sacred art. Currently involved with a project focused on the influence of Yogacara thought on Yoga Tantra practice, Jeff has visions of creating the first transdisciplinary, pan-Asian exhibition of Vajrayana art on the west coast.

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Thursday, December 1, 2011, 5 pm
Amelia Barili, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, UC Berkeley
Borges, Buddhism, and Dreams
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

One of the great writers of the 20th century, Jorge Luis Borges, was fascinated with Buddhism and with dreams. Amelia Barili, a longtime friend of his, will guide us in exploring the relation between these two themes and their presence in Borges' lectures and writings.

Dr. Amelia Barili is the former book review editor of the Argentine newspaper "La Prensa". She is faculty member of UC Berkeley, the Dharma Realm Buddhist University and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She teaches "Borges, Buddhism, and Cognitive Science," and "Borges, Buddhism and Dreams," and is writing a book on "Borges on Buddhism, Buddhism in Borges."

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Thursday, November 17, 2011, 5 pm
Jonathan Gold, Department of Religion, Princeton University
Vasubandhu's Ultimate: How Scriptural Hermeneutics Lays the Foundation for a Yogācāra Mainstream
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

Vasubandhu is among the best known and most influential of Buddhist philosophers, but he is also extremely controversial and difficult to pin down. His scholarship is hounded on the one side by issues of dating and attribution, and on the other side by controversies over how to characterize his mature, Yogācāra philosophy. Yet even in the face of such complexities, it turns out to be fruitful to read works attributed to Vasubandhu for their conceptual continuity — in particular, their continuity on the nature of causality and the uses of scripture. This presentation paints a picture of how Vasubandhu's works employ scriptural citations within philosophical arguments, noting parallels among diverse texts. We see that these arguments reflect the interpretive principles found in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra, which points us suggestively to a hermeneutical motive behind the elusive Yogācāra text, the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa. Vasubandhu was keenly aware of the paradox of articulating, in language, a view that the ultimate nature of reality is beyond words. His solution lays the ground for subsequent Indian Yogācāra, with its emphasis on the conventional utility of epistemology (pramāṇa) and the acceptance of "sliding scales" of truth.

Jonathan C. Gold (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Assistant Professor and Julis Foundation University Preceptor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. His research focuses on Indian and Tibetan intellectual traditions, especially theories of language, translation and learning. He is the author of The Dharma's Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (State University of New York Press, 2007), which explains the nature of language and the role of the scholar from the unique perspective of a great thirteenth-century Tibetan philosopher. His current project is a study of the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu.

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Friday, November 4, 2011, 3:00–7:30 pm
2011 Toshihide Numata Book Award Presentation and Symposium
Lives of the Buddha: A Symposium in Celebration of the Book "Sugata Saurabha" by Todd Lewis and Subarna Man Tuladhar
Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA

The winners of the 2011 Toshihide Numata Book Award are Professor Todd Lewis (College of the Holy Cross) and Mr. Subarna Man Tuladhar (Translator, Nepal), for their 2010 book Sugata Saurabha An Epic Poem from Nepal on the Life of the Buddha by Chittadhar Hridaya (New York: Oxford University Press).

3:00–3:15 pm
Introductory Remarks and Book Award Presentation
Rev. Brian Nagata, Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism)

3:15–4:15 pm
Keynote Address and Discussion – A Confluence of Narrative Ambitions: Reading Chittadhar Hridaya's Sugata Saurabha
Todd Lewis, College of the Holy Cross

Demonstrating to what extent the Indic cultural world was alive for the traditional Newar elite in mid-20th Century Nepal, this lecture will explore the narrative richness in Sugata Saurabha, among the greatest works of modern Himalayan literature. Composed during five years of imprisonment and smuggled out in fragments past his jailers, Chittadhar Hridaya's 19-chapter narrative of the Buddha's life is remarkable not only for its doctrinal erudition but also for the artistry of its rhythmic patterns and end rhymes. The author's originality is also found in his enlivening the great sage's life with details of Newar urban society and culture, poetic license taken where the classical sources are silent.

The lecture will then examine this text as a specimen of Buddhist modernism; it will explore how this work as a case study in the matrix of modernity in Nepal, reflecting the author's awareness of classical Sanskrit sources, as well as his knowledge of Hindi translations from the Pali Canon, publications from the Mahabodhi Society, among other influences. Yet another level to be examined in the fabric of Sugata Saurabha's narrative is how it is crafted to defend the integrity of Newar culture, offering a positive vision of the author's own traditions.

Illustrated with paintings from the original publication and informed by details of the great poet's life, the lecture will argue that Sugata Saurabha deserves a place among the great literary accomplishments of Buddhist history and modern world literature.

4:30–6:30 pm
Symposium on "Lives of the Buddha"

Chair, Robert Sharf, UC Berkeley

Sugata and the Goat's Milk
John Strong, Bates College

The Scent of Sanctity and the Sweet Smell of the Buddha
Gregory Schopen, UCLA

Remarks on the Representation of the Buddha's Life in the Newar tradition
Alexander von Rospatt, UC Berkeley

Response
Todd Lewis, College of the Holy Cross

6:30-7:30
Reception

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Thursday, October 20, 2011, 5 pm
2011 Numata Lecture
Stefano Zacchetti, Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley
Early Chinese Buddhism through the Eyes of Liang Historians
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

A considerable part of what we know of the first four centuries of Buddhist presence in China comes from a group of historical works produced during the 6th century, particularly under the rule of the Liang dynasty (502-557 CE). These texts — collections of documents, biographies of monks, bibliographical catalogues, for the most part produced in a cultivated clerical milieu — marked the heyday of early Chinese Buddhist historiography. In this lecture, Dr. Zacchetti will discuss the historical and ideological background of the most significant Buddhist historians active in the 6th century, focusing on their portrayal of Buddhism during the Han and Three Kingdoms periods (2nd-3rd centuries CE). He will also investigate how their work shaped the traditional image of the introduction and early developments of Buddhism in China, ultimately influencing, at different levels, modern studies on these subjects.

Stefano Zacchetti received his PhD in 1999 from Venice University. He conducted further research at Sichuan University, China, and Leiden University, The Netherlands. From 2001 to 2005, he was an associate professor at the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology in Tokyo. He currently serves as a tenured lecturer at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Department of Asian and North African Studies. Dr. Zacchetti's research focuses on early Chinese Buddhist literature (particularly translations and commentaries), and the history of the canon. His publications include the monograph In Praise of the Light(Tokyo 2005), and several articles.

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Thursday, October 6, 2011, 5 pm 
Anne M. Blackburn, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University
Buddhists & the Raj in South and Southeast Asia
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

Moving across a spatial scale — from the city of Colombo (Lanka) to a wider regional Buddhist world including Lanka, India, and Southeast Asia — Anne Blackburn explores the 19th- and early 20th-century interaction between Buddhists and the Raj. In doing so, she focuses particularly on the crystallization of expressions of collective identification that developed thanks to intersecting forms of knowledge, new technologies, and colonial urban growth.

Anne Blackburn received her Ph.D. in History of Religions in 1996 from The University of Chicago Divinity School. She was trained to study Buddhism as an historian of religions (in a program greatly influenced by approaches to historical sociology and hermeneutics) rather than as a philologist. She approaches Buddhist texts with attention to the contexts in which they were composed and used. It has also led her to substantial work in the history of devotional practices and intellectual history, topics first broached in undergraduate days at Swarthmore College. She approaches this work with the assumption that the history of Buddhist texts and practices should not be divorced from the history of other forms of life with which they are closely connected, and through which they have been constituted.

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Thursday, September 22, 2011, 5 pm
Shi Zhiru, Department of Religious Studies, Pomona College
The Power of the Word: Textualizing the Pagoda into a Whole Body Relic in Tenth-Century Southeast China
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor

Among the southern kingdoms in the Five Dynasties period, the small kingdom of Wuyue (907–960) visibly styled itself as a Buddhist state. Among its sponsorship of Buddhist projects, the state mass-produced the so-called "Precious Chest Mudrā" 寶篋印 stūpa which was disseminated throughout China and across the seas to Japan and Korea. New wealth and technological resources were integrated into historical practices of culture, piety, and textuality to engender a religio-political icon that resonated with the sinitic milieu of East Asia. In particular, Buddhist monks and the rulers embraced and added printing to their repertoire of writing technologies to materialize the power and perpetuity of the Sacred Word in the face of shifting socio-political forces.

Born in Singapore, Shi Zhiru is a nun ordained in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. She subsequently completed her graduate studies in the United States, receiving her M.A. degree in Buddhist studies from the University of Michigan, and Ph.D. degree in East Asian studies from the University of Arizona. She is currently an associate professor at the Department of Religious Studies in Pomona College. A specialist of Chinese Buddhism, she has published a book on sinitic reimaginings of the bodhisattva studied through the medieval cult of Dizang (Kṣitigarbha), and articles on image worship in China and Taiwan. Her research has regularly included the study of textual and visual materials beyond the transmitted canon.

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Saturday, September 11, 2011
Third annual Group in Buddhist Studies Fall Hike and Picnic
Tilden Park