Author: Mariia Lepneva

We are pleased to announce the next talk in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series, which will also be a talk in the Spring 2026 Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title:

“New archaeological data on the extension of the Kushan empire and post-Kushan groups in the Himalayan range”

Speaker:

Dr. Samara Broglia de Moura, Eveha International, Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité (ArScAn), Centre de Recherche sur les Civilisations de l’Asie Orientale (CRCAO)
Timing:

Thursday, April 30 @ 17.00 CET

Location:

Faculteitsraadzaal

Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren

9000 Gent, Belgium

(also online)

Abstract:

During the first millennium CE, part of the Western Himalayas was subjected to a dynamic of exchange and interaction similar to those that affected a large part of Central Asia and North India during the expansion of the Hellenistic empire up to the post-Kushan groups (3rd century BCE to 8th century CE). The aim of this presentation is to provide new archaeological data collected in Ladakh (North India), particularly in the Dras valley, in order to better understand the mechanism of expansion, the control apparatus, and the circulation roads of these different Central Asian groups in the Himalayas.

In order to detail these dynamics, we first aim to present new ceramic and architectural data from two sites in the Dras Valley (Goshan Khar and Rgyalmo Khar) and one site in the Nubra Valley (Deskit Thingang). We will then carry out an intra-regional analysis with other contemporaneous sites in Ladakh, with the aim of understanding the different stages of expansion of these central Asian groups, the organization of the territory and the routes that linked all those sites. Finally, we will provide a macro-regional view of Ladakh’s connections with its neighbours during the Kushan and post-Kushan periods.
Bio:

Samara Broglia is an archaeologist and specialist of the Himalayas. Since 2015, she has been carrying out research on ceramic productions in the Himalayas and on diachronic high-mountain peopling dynamics. The aim of this research is to propose new chronologies for the region, which are still lacking, and to understand the material and cultural interactions that Himalayan societies have maintained with its neighbors in Central Asia, Tibet and India overtime.

Since 2011, she has taken part in several archaeological expeditions to excavate, to survey or to study ceramic material: in Nepal (Mustang region), India (Ladakh and Spiti valley), Afghanistan (Mes Aynak site), Uzbekistan (Kuduk Bulak, Termez and Romitan sites) and Turkmenistan (Ulug Dépé site). She also works with the French-Indian Archaeological Mission in the Indian Himalayas since 2015.

Samara Broglia has also been involved in various research projects as a research assistant at the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA), and with the Franco-Turkmen Archaeological Mission in Turkmenistan (MAFTur) and as part of the Emergence(s) project directed by Laurianne Bruneau (EPHE): “Archaeology of the Himalayas: material culture and networks of the past”. She is currently co-director of the Mission Archéologique Franco-Népalaise au Mustang (MAFNAM) co-funded by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and works as technical project manager in archaeology and regional director for Central and South Asia at Eveha International.
All are welcome. The Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series is in-person and hybrid online. Please register for the series through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/TwffQCPuVipUpMvk6

We are pleased to announce the next talk in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series, which will also be a talk in the Spring 2026 Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title: “Revisiting the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Gandhāran Art”

Speaker: Dr. Christian Luczanits, SOAS, University of London

Timing: Thursday, April 2 @ 17.00 CET

Location:  Locaal 3.30 – Camelot

Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren

9000 Gent, Belgium

All are welcome. The Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series is in-person and hybrid online. Please register for the series through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/TwffQCPuVipUpMvk6

(registering once will ensure you will receive links to all future talks in the series)

Abstract:

In my presentation, I will return to a topic that has interested me since my student days, namely the depictions and roles of the Bodhisattva and future Buddha Maitreya in Gandhāran art. I have covered some aspects of this topic in previous work, in particular in my contribution on narrative reliefs with a flask-holding Bodhisattva to the 2005 volume of East and West dedicated to Maurizio Taddei, and since have an unfinished monograph on the subject on my virtual desk.
This time, I will revisit my earlier ideas on the subject in light of more recent publications. Among other topics, I will consider the origin of Maitreya, his designation as Buddha in early inscriptions, the concepts of Maitreya’s paradises, Ketumatī and Tuṣita, as potential precursors of Pure Land Buddhism, and Maitreya as a Bodhisattva representing the brahmanic caste.

Bio:

Christian Luczanits is David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art at SOAS. His primary research areas are early Buddhist art during and after the Kushana period (1st to 5th centuries) and early Tibetan Buddhist art (7th to 15th centuries) within its wider context. Recent research has centered around an AHRC-funded project on “Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Collections Today”, in particular the documentation and assessment of monastery collections in Mustang, Nepal, and Ladakh, India.

We are pleased to announce the next talk in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series, which will also be a talk in the Spring 2026 Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title: “Exegetical Diagrams as Scholastic Tools: Text-Image Dynamics, Production, Use, and Networks in Dunhuang”

Speaker: Dr. Xiaoming Hou (侯笑明), Ghent University

Timing: Thursday, March 26 @ 17.00 CET

Location: Faculteitsraadzaal, Blandijn

Campus Boekentoren

9000 Gent, Belgium

(also online)

Abstract:

Exegetical diagrams in Chinese Buddhism—whose use flourished during this period and continues to this day—are designated both as fenmen tu 分門圖 (“gate-division diagrams”) and kewen 科文 (“texts of analytical division”). This dual terminology reveals the liminal nature of this genre, which stands at the intersection of textual reasoning and visual representation. In this talk, I focus on a group of closely related Dunhuang manuscripts often labeled Tiantai fenmen tu 天台分門圖 (“Gate-Division Diagrams of the Tiantai School”). These manuscripts, which contain diagrams at various stages of completion, provide crucial evidence for understanding their connection to the commentarial literature, the editorial procedures of their production, and their intended use in the context of monastic education.

By analyzing these materials, I show how exegetical diagrams mediated the complex interplay between text and image, the schematic and the discursive, and the oral and the written, through techniques of classification, synthesis, and visualization. This approach sheds new light on the mechanisms through which intellectual knowledge was transmitted, practiced, and reconfigured in medieval Buddhist scholasticism. Finally, the talk reviews evidence linking these Tiantai exegetical diagrams to the intellectual circle of Facheng 法成 (Chos grub, d. ca. 864), the influential Sino-Tibetan translator and exegete active in Dunhuang during the first half of the ninth century. This connection situates the diagrams within local scholastic networks and underscores their role in broader cross-cultural exchanges of knowledge and technique.

Bio:

Hou Xiaoming 侯笑明 is a scholar of Chinese Buddhism specializing in Chinese Buddhist scholasticism and cross-cultural transmission. She is currently a FWO postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, Centre for Buddhist Studies, working on the project “Visualizing Doctrine: A Study of Exegetical Diagrams in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (8th–10th Centuries)”. She received her Ph.D. from EPHE/PSL (École Pratique des Hautes Études/Université Paris Sciences et Lettres) in Paris, Department of Religions and Systems of Thought in 2022. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Pratiquer le bouddhisme en chinois: traduction et reconstruction des enseignements sur la méditation bouddhique du IIe au VIe siècles en Chine, focuses on the interdependent dynamics between meditation and exegesis in early medieval China.

All are welcome. The Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series is in-person and hybrid online. Please register for the series through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/TwffQCPuVipUpMvk6

(registering once will ensure you will receive links to all future talks in the series)

The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies is pleased to announce an upcoming guest lecture titled “Unmarried Women in Early Indian Texts: From the Ṛgveda to Buddhist Literature” by Prof. Dr. Mau Das Gupta (University of Calcutta), a distinguished scholar of Sanskrit and early Indian religious literature.

This lecture will explore representations of unmarried women across a wide range of early Indian sources, tracing developments from the Ṛgveda to Buddhist texts. The talk will examine changing ideas about women’s autonomy, ritual participation, and spiritual agency, highlighting the complex and non-linear history of gender roles in early Indian religious traditions. The lecture will take place on Monday, March 2nd at 16:00 CET and can be attended both on campus (Blandijnberg 2, room 0.8, Ghent) and online via MS Teams.