Dynamics in Buddhist Networks in Eastern Central Asia, 6th-14th Centuries

Project Information

BuddhistRoad

Grant agreement ID: 725519

DOI

10.3030/725519

Project closed

EC signature date 8 May 2017

Start date 1 August 2017

End date 31 January 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 998 717,00

EU contribution

€ 1 998 717,00

Coordinated by

RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - BuddhistRoad (Dynamics in Buddhist Networks in Eastern Central Asia, 6th-14th Centuries)

Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2024-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The BuddhistRoad Project aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of how Buddhist centres situated along the Eastern Central Asian stretch of the Silk Roads facilitated significant intercultural exchanges between the 6th-14th c., thereby developing Buddhist localisations as well as participating in the translocal grandeur of Buddhist civilisations. The project addressed three main problems, related to a) scientific organisation, b) status of source materials, and c) research perspective. a) Relevant textual and visual source materials have been scattered globally in the 20th c.(mainly in collections in Europe and Asia) resulting in a compartmentalisation of research fields (e.g. Turfan, Dunhuang, Tangut Studies) in modern scholarship. b) The difficulties inherent in dealing with extremely different status quo of source materials (e.g. from fragment snippets to elaborate written sources) led to limited knowledge of the impact of Buddhism at some sites. c) The increasing politicisation of the research area in Chinese scholarship in recent years reinforced a Sino-centric interpretation of multicultural premodern societies to serve current political goals. As part of the Belt and Road Initiative of the Chinese government, with the visit of President Xi Jinping in Dunhuang in 2019 the re-compartimentalisation of research fields was further fostered for political ends, particularly the promotion of Dunhuang Studies.
With a focus on research of primary sources across ancient languages and visual materials alike, the project addressed these problems and offered an interdisciplinary approach by analysing the whole region as one large cultural entity. For the first time, the project successfully integrated in a systematic way the many sub-fields in the overarching attempt to analyse the spread of Buddhism from a network approach. Thereby source materials from different sites were related to and informed each other, so that even fragments, like in a mosaic, added bids and pieces of information to the larger picture, understanding of the whole: the making of Eastern Central Asian Buddhism. The project overcame not only compartimentalisation of research, but also consistently applied a non-Sino-centric approach. For this end a list of unified spellings applied throughout all publications and maps were created, using geographical references rather than imposing contemporary and thus time-inappropriate use of administrative-political designations on historical realities.
The research agenda extends beyond basic research, potentially serving as a model for research on (multi)cultural (religious) exchanges in other spatial and temporal contexts. The project’s outcomes will depict a society where individuals from diverse cultural, linguistic, and religious background coexisted, shared their distinct characteristics, adapted them according to local needs, yet continuously adding new knowledge at major and minor nodes into the larger network through feedback loops. Primary sources were studied along six transversal themes, including a) legitimation and patronage, b) sacred space and pilgrimage, c) rituals and practices, d) visual and material transfer, e) doctrines, as well as f) non-Buddhist influences. The specific case studies shedded light on the intricate mechanics of cultural and religious transfer. Thanks to exemplary collaborations among scholars (team members and external contributors) from diverse research backgrounds the project was successfully completed with a huge publication output.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Buddhism was like a glue for a multicultural society in premodern Eastern Central Asia. During each of the three successful conferences, two of the above-mentioned six transversal themes were discussed; the proceedings were published open access as "Buddhism in Central Asia I, II, III" (2020, 2021, 2023) by Brill. Some of the main findings include:
- A multidisciplinary approach combining the study of manuscripts and visual art from various sites and collections together is indispensable to analyse the systematic creation of Tantric sacred space in Eastern Central Asia (Meinert 2020);
- The Mogao Caves in Dunhuang were not only used as mortuary shrines, but also as sites for ritual practice (Meinert 2022; see also Sørensen, BuddhistRoad Paper 5.6 (2022));
- The hypothesis that Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts from the 10th c. were likely not all produced in Dunhuang itself but in the region east of the Blue Lake (Meinert 2023; see also Sørensen, BuddhistRoad Paper 5.2 (2021));
- The legitimation of Uyghur rulers was placed in a Buddhist context for the first time (Kasai 2020);
- Dunhuang strongly contributed to the spread of Buddhism among the Uyghurs, but the latter adapted Buddhist practices according to their needs (Kasai 2022);
Additionally, the BuddhistRoad Guest Lecture series was initiated (38 lectures). Results were published open access as peer-reviewed BuddhistRoad Papers (https://omp.ub.rub.de/index.php/BuddhistRoad/catalog). At the time of the final report, 34 papers were published and downloaded over 14,000 times on the university website alone. External contributors added research not covered by team members, including:
- A chronology of the spread of Buddhism in Khotan (Loukota, BuddhistRoad Paper 1.7 (2023));
- A study of Brahmanical deities in Khotanese Buddhism (Lo Muzio, BuddhistRoad Paper 6.1 (2019));
- An analysis of Tantric Buddhism visible in Chinese Chan meditation texts in Dunhuang (Goodman, BuddhistRoad Paper 2.5 (2022));
- The transmission of Tibetan Buddhist epistemology among Tangut manuscripts (Ma, BuddhistRoad Paper 1.5 (2022));
Furthermore, "The Buddhist Road: Major Themes in Central Asian Buddhism I and II", co-authored by all team members, and "History of Central Asian Buddhism: Dynamics in Buddhist Networks" authored by the PI as her synopsis of the project, are forthcoming (Brill). The project also engaged in external collaboration with the Dzogchen Project hosted at CERES and published a special section in the Journal of the International Association of the Buddhist Studies 44 (2021).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By far the most important achievements of the project, a real breakthrough and move beyond the state of the art, are:
1) The establishment of Central Asian Buddhism as a new main research field in itself (and not simply an auxiliary discipline), with a multi-dimensional, non-Sino-centric approach;
2) The re-writing of Central Asian Buddhist history based on local primary sources, thus a local history not overwritten through the perspective of neighbouring empires;
3) The establishment of a politically unbiased terminology (an over 80-pages long list of unified spellings available open access on the project website);
4) The creation of a global interdisciplinary academic community of more than 80 scholars who contributed in various ways to the success of the project, mirroring the real diversity of the original Buddhist Road;
5) The inspiration to further projects, including ERC projects by Charles DiSimone and Andrea Acri (personally communicated to the PI), the DFG Heisenberg Program project by Yukiyo Kasai, and the Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship project by Emanuela Garatti;
6) The continuation of the BuddhistRoad Guest Lectures and BuddhistRoad Papers by the PI beyond the project’s duration, planned to be used by other new ERC projects.

Buddhism in Central Asia I_Cover

BuddhistRoad Paper_Sample

BuddhistRoad Network

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Buddhism in Central Asia III_Cover

Buddhism in Central Asia II_Cover

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