2009-2010 Events

Thursday, May 6, 2010, 5:00 pm
Robert Gimello, University of Notre Dame
Esotericism in the Late Ming — Early Qing Buddhist Revival
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

The goddess Cundī (准提, a.k.a. Saptakoṭi Buddhabhagavatī 七俱胝佛母) — held in Japan and in modern (but not pre-modern) China to be a form of Avalokiteśvara (觀音) — came to be a, if not the,central focus of esoteric Buddhist practice in late traditional Chinese Buddhism. She is still a significant presence in Chinese Buddhism today. The textual and iconographical foundations of her cult were established in the late 7th and early 8th centuries with multiple Chinese translations of the Cundīdevīdhāraṇī (e.g., 佛說七俱胝佛母心大准提陀羅尼經, T1077) and attendant ritual manuals (e.g., 七俱胝佛母心大准提陀羅尼法, T1078). Late in the 8th century, or early in the 9th, she was assigned a prominent place in the configuration of the Mahākaruṇāgarbhôdbhava maṇḍala (大悲胎藏生大漫荼羅王) — in the "Chamber of Pervasive Knowledge" (遍知院) and, especially in that latter capacity, she then made her way to Japan where her career would develop, in tandem with that of Cintāmaṇicakra (如意輪), in distinctively Japanese directions. The corpus of Cundī scripture in Chinese was expanded in the early Song with translations of the Kāraṇḍavyūha sūtra (大乘莊嚴寶王經, T1050), the Māyājāla tantra (佛說瑜伽大教王經, T890), and a fully fledged Cundī (Cundā) tantra (佛說持明藏瑜伽大教尊那菩薩大明成就儀軌經, T1169), but it was not until the late 11th century, in the Buddhism of the Liao 遼 dynasty, that her cult came truly into prominence and was given its classical formulation. That accomplishment may be credited especially to the monk Daoshen (道蝗) and his Xianmi yuantong chengfo xinyao ji (顯密圓通成佛心要集 Collection of Essentials for the Attainment of Buddhahood by Total [Inter-]Penetration of the Esoteric and the Exoteric, T1955), which treatise also served to "locate" Cundī in the broader Chinese Buddhist tradition by arguing for the deep mutual complementarity of Cundī practice (especially dhāraṇī recitation and visualization) with Huayan (華嚴) Buddhist thought. Daoshen's work was the mainstay of what came to be called "Cundī Esotericism" (准提密教) down to the 21st century. It is particularly noteworthy, however, that the development of the Cundī cult was not a steady and gradual process. There was an intriguing period of especially rapid acceleration in its growth, in southern China, at the very end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing dynasty, that is to say, in the 17th century. From that one period and region there survive today, in the addenda to the Jiaxing Canon (嘉興大藏經) and in the Supplement to the [Kyoto] Buddhist Canon (續藏經), no fewer than six substantial texts devoted entirely to the exposition and interpretation of Cundī practice (弘贊。七俱胝佛母所說準提陀羅尼經會釋, SSZZ 446, 謝于教。准提淨業, SSZZ 1077, 施堯挺。準提心要, SSZZ 1078, 弘贊。持誦準提真言法要, SSZZ 1079, 受登 (a.k.a. 景淳)。天溪准提三昧行法, SSZZ 1481, 夏道人 (a.k.a. 埽道人默)。佛母淮提焚修悉地懺悔玄文, SSZZ 1482). Some of these texts include prefaces rich in pertinent historical information. Moreover, the extracanonical literature of the same period (e.g., 澹歸。遍行堂集, 袁黄。了凡四訓, etc.) also abounds in references to Cundī, and we have numerous examples of painted and cast images of the deity that appear to date from the same era. It is especially noteworthy that many of the figures revealed in this literature to have been most engaged in Cundī practice were also affiliated with the better known leaders of the late Ming Buddhist revival, i.e. with figures like Yunqi Zhuhong (雲棲祩宏 1532-1612), Hanshan Deqiing (憨山德清 1546-1623), Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭 1599-1655), and their progeny. This talk will survey the Cundī literature and iconography of 17th century southern China and will draw attention to the fact that esoteric Buddhism — as well as Chan, Tiantai, and the challenges of Confucianism and Christianity — was an important part of 16th–17th century efflorescence of Chinese Buddhism.

Robert Gimello is an historian of Buddhism with special interests also in the Theology of Religions and in Comparative Mysticism. He concentrates especially on the Buddhism of China, Korea, & Japan, most particularly on the Buddhism of medieval and early modern China. The traditions of Buddhist thought and practice on which most of his work has focused are Huayan (The "Flower-Ornament" Tradition), Chan (Zen), and Esoteric (Tantric) Buddhism, in the study of all of which he is particularly concerned with the relationships between Buddhist thought or doctrine and Buddhist contemplative and liturgical practice. In the area of Theology of Religions, he is concerned chiefly with the question of what Catholic theology can, should, or must make of Buddhism. In the field of the study of mysticism he is engaged with debates about the differences and similarities among various mystical traditions and about the relationship between mystical experience and religious practices and beliefs. In addition to his previous employment at Dartmouth College, UC-Santa Barbara, the University of Arizona, and Harvard University, he has held many visiting appointments around the world. In the spring/summer term of 2010 he will serve as the Shinnyō-en Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. Gimello has served in the past as President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religion, was a founding member of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism, and has recently joined the editorial board of the journal Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture. Among his current research/publication projects are: 1) completion of "Philosophy and the Occult in Later Chinese Buddhism: A Study and Annotated Translation of Daoshen's Xianmi yuantong chengfo xinyao ji (Essentials for the Achievement of Buddhahood in the Perfect [inter]Penetration of the Exoteric and the Esoteric)"; 2) preparation of a volume of essays entitled "A Flowering of Chinese Buddhism: Essays on the Huayan Tradition," co-edited with Imre Hamar and Frédéric Girard; and 3) completion of an annotated translation of Ŭisang's Diagram of the the Realm of Truth according to the One Vehicle of the Huayan Scripture.

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Tuesday, May 4, 2010, 5:00 pm
Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Tokyo Nogyo Daigaku
How was the Pure Land painted in Dunhuang?: Rethinking the connection between the Amitāyus Visualization Sūtra and the Transformation Tableaux
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

The Guanjing bianxiang 觀經變相, "Transformation Tableau based on the Amitāyus Visualization Sūtra," (Transformation Tableau) was very popular in Dunhuang. Even today, we can see many mural and silk paintings on this subject in or from Dunhuang. One of the interesting points of these paintings is that they give step-by-step depictions of the visualization process described in the the Guan wuliangshou jing 觀無量壽經, "Amitāyus Visalization Sūtra" (Visualization Sūtra). Thus, it is often assumed that these paintings were used as visual aides for the practice of visualization. However, these Transformation Tableaux are also highly problematic as they often show significant deviations from the Visualization Sūtra. In his talk, Yamabe will closely compare these paintings with sketches, manuscripts, inscriptions, and relevant texts to explain how these deviations were brought about. In so doing, he will show some aspects of artists' practice in Dunhuang. His discussion will also make clear that these Transformation Tableaux (at least those from later periods) were not meant to be a guide for visualization.

Nobuyoshi Yamabe earned his B.A. in Buddhist Studies from Otani University (1985), M.A. in Indian Philosophy from Osaka University (1987), and Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Yale University (1999). Currently he is Professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture. He is interested in clarifying the theoretical and practical aspects of Buddhist meditation. His theoretical interests are reflected in his early papers on Yogacara Buddhism, while his practical interests are expressed in his more recent works on texts and art relevant to Buddhist meditation/visualization in Central Asia.

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Thursday, April 29, 2010, 5:00 pm
Zemaryalai Tarzi, Professor Emeritus, Strasbourg University, France
The Bamiyan Stupas
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

Professor Tarzi will discuss his excavations of Bamiyan stupas, as well as his comparative studies of stupas represented on murals in the Bamiyan region and in the north of Pakistan, particularly in the mountainous region of Gilgit. He will also take into account diverse stupas from a vast region ranging from India to Gandhara and the Central Asia region of Afghanistan, the ex-Soviet Union, and China.

Dr. Zemaryalai Tarzi (born in Kabul in 1939) is an internationally renowned archaeologist from Afghanistan. From 1973 to 1979, he was Director of Archaeology and Preservation of Historical Monuments of Afghanistan as well as the Director General of the Archaeology Institute of Kabul. Tarzi was exiled to France in 1979, there he assumed the post of Professor of Eastern Archaeology at the Marc Bloch University, University of Strasbourg, France. He later directed the excavations in Buddhas of Bamiyan and Hadda on the sites of Tape Shotor and Tape Tope Kalan. He is currently Director for the French Archaeological Missions for the Surveys and Excavations of Bamiyan. Professor Tarzi is the author of some sixty articles and books. He is also President for the Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology, Inc. (APAA).

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 5:00 pm
2009-2010 Numata Lecture
Christian Luczanits, Numata Visiting Professor in Buddhist Studies
Inconceivably Remote Future Accessible Now: The Bodhisattva and Future Buddha Maitreya during the Kuṣāṇa Period
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Reception to follow

As both Bodhisattva and future Buddha in our world Maitreya occupies a unique position in the history of Buddhism and Buddhist art. Besides Śākyamuni, it is this Bodhisattva who first receives cultic attention. Such a cult can first be grasped within the realm of the Kuṣāṇa rulers and in particular in the cultural region of Gandhāra, where his imagery is extremely frequent. Although the importance of Maitreya during that period is frequently mentioned and several studies are dedicated to the depictions of Maitreya as such, no study has as yet attempted to provide more detailed information on the possible religious context and meaning of this imagery. Although precise information is scarce, a consideration of the available imagery in the light of the development of Buddhism in general and ideas related to and characteristic for what is later to become Mahāyāna Buddhism in particular, allows for the development of a much more complex picture of what Maitreya may have meant for a number of types of believers within the Kuṣāṇa realm. While some imagery can clearly be associated with the establishment of new ideas concerning the nature of a Buddha and of a Bodhisattva, the conservative nature of iconography makes differentiation practically impossible in other cases. The more developed cults of Maitreya in Central Asia and China, roughly contemporary with later Kuṣāṇa art or slightly later, provide further clues for possible roles of Maitreya in Northwest India during the Kuṣāṇa period. While Maitreya clearly has been the most prominent Bodhisattva during the Kuṣāṇa reign, Avalokiteśvara takes the more prominent position in fully developed Mahāyāna Buddhism. The lecture sets the upcoming of Maitreya imagery into context, explains his iconography, and relates different types of imagery to legends and believes associated with him and also to changing ideas about the nature and qualities of a Bodhisattva in general. In conclusion, it reflects on those changes that were instrumental in reducing the importance of Maitreya in fully developed Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Christian Luczanits received his M.A. (1994) and Ph.D (1998) at the Institute of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, the latter degree under the supervision of the late Maurizio Taddei (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli). His research focuses on Buddhist art of India and Tibet. Earlier work on the western Himalayas was largely based on extensive field research and documentation done in situ. Besides numerous articles on the early Buddhist monuments, artifacts and inscriptions found in or related to this region his first book, Buddhist Sculpture in Clay: Early Western Himalayan Art, late 10th to early 13th centuries, has come out with Serindia at Chicago in 2004. Recent research concentrated on Buddhist art immediately before and during Kushana rule. In this connection he curated the exhibition "Gandhara – the Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan. Legends, Monasteries and Paradise" at the Kunst – und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn together with Michael Jansen and was responsible for its catalogue. Christian Luczanits also was a Freeman Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley in 2004/05.

Home page: http://web.mac.com/clucz/home/. Research website: http://www.univie.ac.at/ITBA/.

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Friday, April 16, 2010, 11:00 am-2:00 pm
Workshop with Prof. Brandon Dotson, Oxford
The Tibetan Empire: Sources for the Tibetan Chronicle
Numata Seminar Room, 288 Dwinelle Hall
Faculty and graduate students only

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 5:00 pm
IEAS Book Talk Series: New Perspectives on Asia
Arjia Rinpoche, Former Abbot, Kumbum Monastery, Tibet
Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama's Life Under Chinese Rule
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Co-sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies, and the History of Art

On a peaceful summer day in 1952, ten monks on horseback arrived at a traditional nomad tent in northeastern Tibet where they offered the parents of a precocious toddler their white handloomed scarves and congratulations for having given birth to a holy child – and future spiritual leader. Surviving the Dragon is the remarkable life story of Arjia Rinpoche, who was ordained as a reincarnate lama at the age of two and fled Tibet 46 years later. In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao's Communist "reeducation." By turns moving, suspenseful, historical, and spiritual, Rinpoche's unique experiences provide a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offer readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

Arjia Rinpoche was the Abbot of Kumbum Monastery in Amdo, one of the six great centers of Buddhism in Tibet. Born to Mongolian nomads in Eastern Tibet, he is the reincarnation of the father of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelupa (Yellow Hat) Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche (Gegeen in Mongolian) is one of the most important religious leaders to leave Tibet since the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959. He is fluent in Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian, and since 1998, when he moved to California, he has become adept at English as well. In the year 2000, the Rinpoche established The Tibetan Center for Compassion and Wisdom (TCCW) in Mill Valley and Oakland, California to preserve and celebrate Tibetan language, arts, and to advance understanding of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. Rinpoche is the only Tibetan high lama of Mongolian descent. Since a very early age, he has trained with lineage teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the late Panchen Lama, from whom he received many initiations and empowerments in sutric and tantric traditions.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010, 5:00 pm
Masaki Matsubara, Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley
Remembering Hakuin in Contemporary Japan: Forgotten Memories of Rinzai Zen Master and Political Protest Use of Paintings
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

Contemporary Japanese Zen is often regarded as a tradition unconcerned with moral formulations and contemporary social events and focused solely on the quest for deep religious experience (kenshō or satori). Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) is widely regarded as the leading figure of contemporary Japanese Rinzai Zen, much like Dōgen of the Sōtō Zen school. Hakuin's major writings and considerable production of artwork (paintings and calligraphy) are held up as examples of a highly developed capacity for religious experience in the Zen tradition. Previous studies, almost exclusively emphasizing his hard practice, decisive enlightenment experience, and tireless teaching activities in hagiographical manners, have been locked into a perspective which regards Hakuin only as the reviver/de facto founder of the tradition, an ardent meditation master, or/and a versatile artist. Yet this very same process of "remembrance" ignores and even represses his strong anti-elite social critiques, which in their day were very controversial and forthright.

In this talk, Dr. Matsubara will problematize this tendency to privilege this "experiential Hakuin" at the risk of ignoring his equally present and cogent moral voice. He will examine the neglected aspects of Hakuin's considerable role as a social critic, by focusing on both his writings, with a particular emphasis on one of his most influential political treatises, Hebiichigo(lit., "Snake Strawberries"), and his unique paintings that reinforce its views. All of these writings and paintings introduced here have remained largely unknown. Remarking that Hakuin as a social critic is not simply an isolated example, but is in fact part of a dominant theme evident in both his writings and artwork, the speaker will argue that Hakuin was a fearless fighter for social justice whose campaign on behalf of farmers or the lower classes resulted in his condemnation of the luxurious lifestyle of political elites, including that of the imperial household. He even criticized sankin kōtai, or "daimyō processions," the Tokugawa shogunate's economic policy to control the country. Matsubara will also argue how the art of one of Japan's most illustrious religious figures can in fact be seen as effective political protest. Rehabilitating these forgotten memories of Hakuin, he suggests that the selective data of religious figures often represent the "best" a given tradition had to offer its deceased and, used alone, are potentially misleading indicators in cultural historical reconstructions. Matsubara's ongoing research on "cultural memory" as a tradition's shared sense of its own past and identity which is socially determined focuses on the issues of tradition development (production, reproduction, and maintenance) in modern Rinzai Zen and its effects on the identity creation that elevates Hakuin to his present position of prominence. He proposes the possibility that the Hakuin we remember as the tradition's reviver today is a fairly recent innovation, or, more specifically, a twentieth-century or Meiji-Taishō product, in the history of Hakuin remembrances.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in Political Science at Gakushuin University (1995), Masaki Matsubara received his M.A. in Asian Studies (2004) and his Ph.D. in Asian Religions (2009) at Cornell University. His dissertation focused on the dynamics of tradition formation, (re) invention, and maintenance, and the role of cultural memory. It considered eighteenth-century Japanese Zen master Hakuin Ekaku's neglected role as a social critic and reformer. Matsubara has published articles on Hakuin (2004) and on Yasukuni Shrine and cultural memory (2007). He also wrote an article on succession problems in contemporary Japanese Zen in a book entitled "Making Japanese Heritage" (forthcoming, Routledge). He is presently engaged in translating Hakuin's political treatise Hebiichigo (banned soon after its publication in 1754), comparing the four extant materials (three autographed manuscripts and one published version of an autographed manuscript) with one another. He is also an ordained priest in the Rinzai tradition.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010, 5:00 pm
2nd Annual Khyentse Foundation Lecture in Tibetan Buddhism
David Jackson, Rubin Museum of Art
Analyzing Lineages in Early Tibetan Paintings: Taklung Portraits as a Test Case
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Reception to follow

The 2nd Annual Padmanabh S. Jaini Graduate Student Award in Buddhist Studies and the new Khyentse Foundation Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies will be presented at this event.

Though the analysis of guru lineages has opened up new possibilities of dating in Tibetan art, how useful is this tool in practice? As a test case Professor Jackson will apply the approach to a number of early Tibetan paintings from the so-called 'Taklung' corpus, mainly portraits of founding masters of the Taklung Kagyü tradition. That tradition was one of the most influential branches of the Dakpo Kagyü during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries; its main seat, Taklung, was founded in 1185 by Taklung Thangpa Tashi Pal (1142-1210), a chief disciple of Phagmotrupa (Phag mo gru pa,1110-1170). At its branch of Riwoche in Kham province a large cache of early and later Pala-style thangkas survived the cultural revolution and were in recent years dispersed outside Tibet. Jackson will also investigate, if time permits, a few portraits from the related Kagyu traditions. He will begin by ordering each group chronologically following structural criteria, according to the number of generations of gurus before the generation of the patron. (In most cases the speaker has worked from photographs; he could not directly consult the painting or use the inscriptions.) Here observable structure and iconography will guide a preliminary analysis, and inscriptions will need to be taken into account later. He will also systematically chart the structure of each painting by giving a complete diagram. This may seem troublesome at first, but it has great advantages, compelling us to deal with unusual features that might otherwise be overlooked.

Background reading (articles by D. Jackson): "Lineages and Structure in Tibetan Buddhist Painting: Principles and Practice of an Ancient Sacred Choreography," Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (October 2005). http://www.thdl.org?id=T1220. "The Dating of Tibetan Paintings is Perfectly Possible — Though Not Always Perfectly Exact." In I. Kreide-Damani, ed. 2003, Dating Tibetan Art: Essays on the Possibilities and Impossibilities of Chronology from the Lempertz Symposium, Cologne. Contributions to Tibetan Studies 3 (Wiesbaden, Dr. Ludwig Reicher Verlag), pp. 91-112.

David Jackson did his doctorate at the University of Washington's department of Asian Languages and Literature in 1985. In 2007, after fourteen years teaching at Hamburg University, he began working as curator for the Rubin Museum of Art.

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Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 4:00 pm
John Holt, Bowdoin College
IEAS Book Talk Series: New Perspectives on Asia
Spirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Co-sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies, the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, and the Department of South and Southeast Asia Studies

A major aim of this study is to ascertain the manner in which Buddhist thought and practice have been construed through the prisms of the indigenous ontology of Lao spirit cults. To illustrate this pattern, I will examine the legacy of paradigmatic ritual actions attributed to pivotal 16th c. Lan Xang king, Photisarat, a king profiled in the Luang Phrabang Chronicle and in his own inscriptions as unabashedly orthodox in his Theravada Buddhist empathies and inimical to the indigenous substratum of Lao religious culture (the spirit cults). Specifically, I will discuss the unintended persistence of ancestor and phi (spirit) veneration in Photisarat's ostensibly Buddhist practices of merit transfer and worship of the Buddha respectively, practices that clearly reflect how power was understood in relation to the sacred space of the monastic vat and to Buddha images per se, especially in relation to the Phra Bang, the legitimating Buddha image for Lao royalty from which the capital city of Lan Xang, Luang Phrabang, ultimately derives its name.

John C. Holt has an A.B. (cum laude) in history from Gustavus Adolphus, an A.M. in history and phenomenology of religions from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley) with distinction, and a Ph.D. in history of religions from the University of Chicago. Since joining the Bowdoin faculty in 1978, he has taught courses about Asian religious traditions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as courses on theoretical approaches to the study of religion. In 1982, he founded the Inter-collegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program for a consortium of private liberal arts colleges, and in 1986 he became the first chair of Bowdoin's Asian Studies Program. In addition to his newest book being discussed at this event, his publications include Discipline: the Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka (1981), A Guide to the Buddhist Religion (1981), Buddha in the Crown (1991) for which he was awarded an American Academic Book Award for Excellence in 1992, The Anagatavamsa Desana (Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka (1996), and The Buddhist Visnu (2004). He has also edited a collection of essays entitled Communities: Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia (2003). Professor Holt has been an editor of Religious Studies Review and was elected as a fellow to the American Society for the Study of Religion in 1995. He has been Visiting Professor of History and Comparative Religion at the University of Peradeniya three times (1984, 1989 and 1999), a Visiting Reader at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (1994), and the Visiting Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Calgary twice (2000 & 2006). In 2002, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (Litt.D) from the University of Peradeniya for his contributions to Sri Lankan and Buddhist Studies, and in 2007 he was cited as Alumnus of the Year by the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010, 5:00 pm
Robert Brown, University of California, Los Angeles
The Gupta Connection: The Buddha Image in India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cosponsored by the Center for South Asia Studies

In the second half of the fifth century a new type of Buddha image was invented at Sarnath. This image type interested Buddhist worshippers across Asia, and was used by artists to create local versions of the Gupta Buddha image type. The talk traces the timing of the relationships among images from India to Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China. It argues that the impact of the new Sarnath style image in Asia was rapid, by the mid-sixth century. It also suggests that the Buddha image in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia begins only in the sixth century, a radically later dating than has been accepted by scholars up until now. Possible reasons for the popularity of the Gupta style of Buddha image are proposed.

Robert Brown graduated from UCLA with a Ph.D. in Indian art history in 1981. Immediately after graduation he worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, being promoted to Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art in 1984. In 1986 he began teaching at UCLA where he is presently Professor of art history. In 2000 he was reappointed as Curator in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Art at LACMA, a position he holds with his UCLA professorship. His publications include a number of books and articles on Buddhist and Hindu art, on the nature of Indian artistic influence in Southeast Asia, and on the colonial and western basis for art historical understanding of India. He is presently writing a book on the Gupta-period Buddha images from Sarnath (India).

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Thursday, January 28, 2010, 5:00 pm
Paul Copp, University of Chicago
Buddhist Seal Manuals and the Nature of Dunhuang Buddhism: The Case of P. 3835v.#9
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

Chinese Buddhist uses of fu-talismans 符 and talisman-bearing seals (fuyin 符印) are among the most characteristic practices of the form of medieval Chinese religiosity known lately as "Buddho-Daoism." Yet aside from being a rather vague label, "Buddho-Daoism," as Christine Mollier has recently pointed out, implies a non-sectarian orientation on the part of the sources that is not always present. In the case of the text that will be the focus of this talk, "Dhāranī Methods of the Great Wheel Vajra" (Foshuo dalun jin'gang zongchi tuoluoni fa 佛說大輪金剛總持陀羅尼法), found as the ninth text on the verso of the Dunhuang manuscript Pelliot # 3835, seals are presented unmistakably as Buddhist – in fact, as forms of Buddhist incantation known as dhāranī (tuoluoni 陀羅尼, zongchi 總持, etc). I will thus take this text's seals as straightforwardly Buddhist and ask what close analyses of dhāranī-seal manuals may tell us about the deep doctrinal and practical natures of the forms of Buddhism practiced at Dunhuang in the ninth and tenth centuries. I will pay special attention to P. 3835v. #9's invocations of Manibhadra (Monibatuo 摩尼跋陀; often a protector of travelers) and Great Wheel Vajra (Dalun jin'gang 大輪金剛), a deity featured in such native Chinese Buddhist productions as the Pseudo-Śūraṃgama Scripture (Lengyan jing 楞嚴經) and the esoteric imagery found in Song Dynasty Sichuan.

Paul Copp is Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Department of Religion at Princeton University and spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, in Heidelberg, Germany, working on Buddhist inscriptions from Northern Dynasties China. He recently finished a monograph entitled Incantatory Bodies: Spells and Material Efficacy in Chinese Buddhist Practice, 600-1000, which explores amuletic and philosophical traditions of Chinese Buddhist incantation practice. He is currently beginning a large-scale study of personal forms of esoteric Buddhist practice in medieval Dunhuang.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010, 5:00 pm
Wendi Adamek, Stanford Humanities Center
Practicescape at Bao shan
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

The site known as Bao shan (Treasure Mountain) in Henan reveals a rich web of complex relationships: gender relations, lay and ordained relations, successive reshapings of the environment, human and non-human relations, and images and texts of various kinds. Dr. Adamek illustrates these relationships with slides and selected inscriptions from the site's treasures. Drawing from Tim Ingold's notion of a given environment as a rhizomatic "taskscape," she will discuss her current work on Bao shan in terms of "practicescape," a multi-directional reinscription of the landscape in Buddhist terms. The notion of "practicescape" allows us to examine the relationships noted above within the context of key co-dependent representations of practice space: empty peaks and caves with images, mountain and city temples, sites of ascetic "escape" and socioeconomic networks.

Dr. Adamek is a China religions scholar who received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University and has taught at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her book The Mystique of Transmission (Columbia University Press, 2007) centers on an 8th century Chan/Zen group in Sichuan and won an Award for Excellence from the American Academy of Religion. Works in progress include a book on the Buddhist community at Bao shan and a book on issues in environment and culture. Dr. Adamek's research interests include Buddhism of the Tang dynasty, donor practices, Buddhist art, and network theory.

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Monday, December 14, 2009, 7:00-9:30 pm
Pre-release screening of "Journey From Zanskar" and discussion with filmmaker Frederick Marx
PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way between College and Telegraph
The event is free but is also a fundraiser to support completion of the film.
Suggested donation: $25 general/$10 students

In 3-5 years a road connecting Padum, the heart of Zanskar, with Leh, the heart of neighboring Ladakh, will be finished. The route which previously took up to two days by car will take only 4-5 hours. As economic growth descends on Zanskar it will bring with it an end to this unbroken Buddhist social tradition. Will the native language, culture, and religious practice be able to survive? The Dalai Lama has instructed two monks from Zanskar's Stongde Monastery to do everything in their power to insure that it does. The monks are building a school to educate the children from surrounding villages in their own language, culture, history, and religion. Presently, the government school teaches none of those subjects, and is closed most of the year. The nearby private school also doesn't teach those subjects and is additionally unaffordable for the area's poor families. At Stongde, along with indigenous traditions, the children will be educated in the best Western curricula. The monks are racing against the clock. While they complete the school they are also placing local children in other schools and monasteries in the city of Manali and beyond. This requires walking over a 17,500 foot pass. One such journey with 17 children aged 4-12 comprises the plot line of this unique film.

View the film's trailer at: http://www.warriorproductions.tv/JourneyFromZanskarTrailer.asp.

Frederick Marx is an Oscar and Emmy nominated producer/director with 25 years in the film business. Having worked as an English and creative writing teacher, Marx began his movie career as a film critic, and has worked both as a film distributor and exhibitor. He has also traveled extensively in Western and Eastern Europe, North Africa and Himalayan India, and has lived in Germany, China, and Hungary. He has a B.A. in Political Science and an MFA in filmmaking. His interest in languages and foreign cultures is reflected in PBS' international human rights program "Out of the Sience" (1991), the widely acclaimed personal essay "Dreams from China" (1989), and Learning Channel's "Saving the Sphinx" (1997). He consulted on Iranian-Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi's feature "Turtles Can Fly" (2004) and was a teacher of renowned Thai feature filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He was named a Chicago Tribune Artist of the Year for 1994, a 1995 Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Special Achievement Award. His film "Hoop Dreams" (1994) played in hundreds of theatres nationwide after winning the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was the first documentary ever chosen to close the New York Film Festival. Marx repeatedly returns to work with disadvantaged and misunderstood communities: people of color, abused children, the working poor, welfare recipients, prisoners, the elderly, and "at risk" youth. He brings a passion for appreciating multiculturalism and an urgent empathy for the sufferings of the disadvantaged to every subject he tackles.

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Monday, November 23, 2009, 5:00 pm
Osmund Bopearachchi, Paris IV-Sorbonne University
The Buddha Sakyamuni and the Courtesan Utpalavarna in Gandhâran Buddhist Art
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

The Buddha Sakyamuni, having preached Abhidhamma in the Trayastrimsa heaven to the gods and to his mother who was then reborn as a deva, descended to Jambudvipa at Samkasya on a triple ladder with Brahma to his right and Indra to his left. At the bottom, the Buddha was greeted by Utpalavarna, a Buddhist nun who had been a courtesan in Rajagriha. Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese sources, relate how Utpalavarna came to renounce the secular world. While giving birth to a daughter, to her utter dismay, she discovered that her husband was having an illicit affair with her mother. She then ran away from home, leaving her newborn child behind. Sometime later she became the wife of a wealthy man in Varanasi, only to discover one day that the second wife he brought home was her own daughter. Disappointed with life, she became a courtesan in Rajagriha. After a chance encounter with Maudgalyayana, she became a disciple of the Buddha, engaging in Buddhist practice under the guidance of Mahaprajapati until she attained arhatship. The story of Utpalavarna has been a favorite legend among Buddhists, as attested not only by literary sources but also by Buddhist art in which the depiction of Utpalavarna, transformed by magic power into a great emperor (Chakravartin) and admitted with her chariot and troops into the foremost row to pay tribute to the Buddha upon descent from the Trayastrimsa heaven, was a popular theme. Very few art historians have paid attention to representations of the encounter between Utpalavarna and the Buddha. In his lecture, Prof. Bopearachchi will reexamine previously identified reliefs depicting this event in the light of newly discovered unpublished Gandharan reliefs where Utpalavarna is shown both as a Chakravartin and a Bikshuni.

Osmund Bopearachchi is a Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S. Paris), where he oversees the 'Hellenism and Oriental Civilisations' program of the C.N.R.S. UMR 8546/5, and also teaches Central Asian and South-Asian archaeology and art history at the Paris IV-Sorbonne University. This academic year, he is a visiting professor at Yale University. Prof. Bopearachchi 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. He has published nine books, edited six books and published more than a hundred articles in international journals. Prof. Bopearachchi 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.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 12:00 pm
Lewis Lancaster, Director, Electronic Cultural Atlas Initative (ECAI) and Professor Emeritus, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Buddhist Studies and Digital Technology: Computational Humanities
Brown Bag Lunch
3401 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley

Lewis Lancaster, a specialist in the canons of Buddhist texts, earned his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He taught at UC-Berkeley for 33 years, with five years as Chair. With a grant from the National Geographic Society, he and a group of students and faculty inventoried texts in monasteries among the Sherpa people in the Himalayas. He then began to research the problems of converting Buddhist texts from Pali and Chinese into computer format, which resulted in major CD ROM databases. That computer experience then led him to form an association of scholars called the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), which is housed on the Berkeley campus and has a thousand affiliates worldwide. ECAI is promoting worldwide electronic access to quality research data by creating a partnership of technical specialists and the scholarly community dedicated to the support of scholarship through technology. Guided by the paradigm of the historical atlas, research data is indexed by time and place using temporally-enabled Geographic Information Systems software. User queries retrieve and display data in GIS layers on a map-based interface, allowing comparisons across discipline, region, and time.

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Friday, November 13, 2009
Dr. Nareshman Bajracharya, Tribhuvan University
Public Construction of a Vajradhātu-maṇḍala, followed by a talk on the maṇḍala's principal characteristics and its ritual uses
(mandala construction starts at 10 AM; talk at 4 PM)
SSEAS Lounge, 342 Dwinelle Hall
Co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities

In a single isolated valley on the southern flank of the Himalayas, Indic Buddhism has survived to the present day. The historic Nepal Valley, known today as Kathmandu Valley, is the ancient home of the Newars. Some six hundred years after Buddhism disappeared from India, the Newars continue to preserve a form of "tantric" Vajrayāna Buddhism characteristic of the late phase of Buddhism in India. This highly ritualized form of Buddhism employs maṇḍalas, mantras and esoteric initiatory rites in pursuit of both liberation and worldly ends. The Vajradhātu-maṇḍala is the principle maṇḍala invoked in this tradition, used to consecrate and worship images, paintings, stūpas, monasteries, books, and other sacred objects.

Dr. Nareshman Bajracharya of Kathmandu is both an accomplished tantric ritual master with a large following in his community, and a well known academic, the founding director of the Department of Buddhist Studies at Tribhuvan University in Nepal.

Between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm Dr. Bajracharya will lay out a Vajradhātu-maṇḍala, following the Newar Buddhist tradition. Anyone interested is invited to come and observe the production of the maṇḍala and interact with Dr. Bajracharya. At 4:00 pm, having traced the maṇḍala, Dr. Bajracharya will give a brief presentation that will introduce the maṇḍala and its ritual uses in Newar Buddhism.

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Thursday, November 12, 2009, 5:00 pm
Jan Nattier, Soka University
Re-evaluating the Translations of Zhu Fonian 竺佛念: A Preliminary Report
3335 Dwinelle Hall

Zhu Fonian (fl. 365-early 400s CE) is one of the best-known names in Chinese Buddhist translation history. Modern scholars generally think of him first in connection with the Dīrghāgama (長阿鋡經, T1) and the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya (四分律, T1428), both of which are listed in scriptural catalogues (both ancient and modern) as translated by Zhu Fonian together with the Kashmiri monk Buddhayaśas 佛陀耶舍. These two titles, however, are not singled out for attention in the oldest extant account of his life and works: the biography by Sengyou 僧祐 contained in the Chu sanzang jiji 出三藏記集 (completed c. 515 CE). Though these scriptures are registered under Zhu Fonian's name in the catalogue section of this work (which, as Antonello Palumbo has shown, is of a later vintage) in the biographical section Sengyou selects a quite different list of texts as representing Zhu Fonian's most important works. In this talk, Professor Nattier will begin by considering Zhu Fonian's life history as presented by Sengyou, paying special attention to what is said about the chronological sequence of his translations. She will then take a close look at at a text that is seldom mentioned in modern scholarship, but was considered by Sengyou to be one of Zhu Fonian's outstanding works: the Shizhu duan jie jing 十住斷結經 (T309), a scripture that presents an otherwise unknown account of the ten stages of the bodhisattva path. By doing so, we will be able to gain new insight into the way Zhu Fonian actually worked.

Jan Nattier did graduate work in the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies at Indiana University (specializing in Classical Mongolian) before moving to Harvard University, where she completed her Ph.D. in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies in 1988. She has taught at Macalester College, the University of Hawaii, Stanford University, and Indiana University, and is currently Research Professor of Buddhist Studies at the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology (Soka University) in Tokyo, Japan. Her current area of specialization is the Chinese translations of Zhi Qian (early third century CE).

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Thursday, October 29, 2009, 5:00 pm
Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College
Mater Dolorosa: Māyā and Mahāprajāpatī in Grief
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

In the 13th century Latin hymn Stabat Mater, Mary, the mother of Christ, is celebrated and idealized as the "grieving mother" (mater dolorosa) who stands by the cross and weeps as her son is crucified. The believer, speaking through the words of the hymn, longs to experience Mary's grief for himself and thereby identify more closely with Christ's torment upon the cross. In the Indian Buddhist tradition, by contrast, the "grieving mother" is an iconic figure in an altogether different way: Mindless and hysterical out of grief over the death of her child, she stands as a paradigmatic example of the fact that all attachment leads to suffering. Spiritually stunted because of her grief and frequently likened to a pitiful animal, she is anything but an exemplary model for the Buddhist believer. She becomes exemplary, in fact, only when she is violently "de-mothered" — eradicating any particularistic attachment whatsoever to her own child, and universalizing her personal grief into a detached appreciation of the inevitability of death, impermanence, and suffering. Professor Ohnuma will focus on episodes in Buddhist literature in which the Buddha's own mothers — his biological mother Māyā and his foster-mother Mahāprajāpatī — are depicted in states of grief. It will contrast the way in which each mother deals with her grief, as well as placing this contrast within the context of a larger argument contrasting Māyā and Mahāprajāpatī as alternative representations of motherhood.

Reiko Ohnuma is an Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College. She was trained in South Asian Studies at U.C. Berkeley (B.A., 1986) and in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan (Ph.D. 1997). She specializes in the Buddhist traditions of South Asia, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist narrative literature, hagiography, and the role and imagery of women. She is the author of Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature(Columbia University Press, 2007), and is currently working on a second book, tentatively titled "Ties That Bind: Maternal Imagery and Discourse in Indian Buddhism."

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Thursday, October 1, 2009, 5:00 pm
Andrew Rotman, Smith College
Saving the World through Commerce: Buddhism, Merchants, and Mercantilism in Early India
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

In the early centuries of the Common Era, Buddhism had a very close and formative relationship with the merchant world, and this relationship transformed Buddhism in fundamental ways, leaving the market's imprint on the very foundations of Buddhism. One important byproduct of this relationship was a resultant market-based morality. Merit and virtue were now subjected to the forces of commodification, and as such could be bought, earned, stockpiled, transferred, cashed in, and depleted. I discuss this moral economy, and the market-based morality that underlies it, in my book Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism. Yet, why use merchant activity as a model for spiritual activity? Did Buddhism embrace the market, or was Buddhism overrun by it? The aim of this paper is to begin to make sense of the history of this mercantilization process, focusing primarily on merchant-monastic relations in the Kusāṇa and Sātavāhana empires.

Andrew Rotman is Associate Professor of Religion at Smith College. His research largely concerns the ways in which seeing and what is seen in South Asia function as part of social history, affective relations, and material culture. This interest is apparent in his research on Indian Buddhism, South Asian media, and the economies of the north Indian bazaar. He recently published Divine Stories (2008), the first part of a two-part translation of the Divyāvadāna, one of the largest and most important collections of ancient Buddhist narratives. This volume inaugurates the Classics of Indian Buddhism series from Wisdom Publications. His second book, Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism(2008), considers the construction of faith as a visual practice in Buddhism, and how seeing and faith function as part of overlapping visual and moral systems.

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Saturday, September 5, 2009
Group in Buddhist Studies Faculty and Student Labor Day Weekend Hike and Picnic
Mt. Tamalpais

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Friday-Saturday, August 28-29, 2009, 9:00 am - 4:30 pm
"Zen Practice at 50" Symposium
Friday venue: San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page St. (at Laguna St.), San Francisco
Saturday venue: Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley
Co-sponsored by the San Francisco Zen Center

May 23, 2009 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi's arrival in America, an event that offers the opportunity for a broader look at Zen practice in America over the past fifty years, its current place in American life, and its vision for the future. "Zen Practice at 50" will bring together a mix of scholars and Zen teachers, including Hoitsu Suzuki, Norman Fischer, Edward Brown, Carl Bielefeldt, Grace Schireson, Robert Sharf, Richard Jaffe, and Wendy Adamek, who will create a forum for a lively exchange of ideas.

The first day, to be held at the San Francisco Zen Center, will begin with a brief biographical and historical presentation on Shunryu Suzuki, including the cultural context of his Japanese background and his choices regarding how to offer Zen practice to Americans. The day will continue with considerations of what was happening in the 1960s in San Francisco, what people perceived Suzuki offered, and what they received from him.

The second day, to be held on the UC Berkeley campus, will examine the current state of Zen practice in America. This will include consideration of what has been transmitted from Asia, what has changed, what has possibly been misunderstood, and how and what may have been lost in the transmission of Zen to America. Participants will also address the effect of Zen on American culture, the challenges facing Zen teachers and practitioners, the sustainability of Zen practice as a movement, and the most helpful and effective ways to offer and teach the dharma.

A complete schedule of this two-day event is available online at http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/symposium.

The symposium is free and open to the public on a first come, first served basis. You can pre-register for all or part of the event by email at events@sfzc.org.

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