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On July 15, 2024, the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies welcomed H.E. Mrs. Kanchana Patarachoke, Ambassador of Thailand, and H.E. Mr. Chandana Weerasena, Ambassador of Sri Lanka, along with Mr. Nithi Patarachoke, the spouse of Mrs. Patarachoke, and Mr. Pathompong Singthong, Counsellor and Consul of Thailand. The delegation was received by Prof. Dr. Ann Heirman, head of the Department of Languages and Cultures and the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies of Ghent University. Prof. Dr. Daniela De Simone, Prof. Dr. Bart Dessein, Prof. Dr. Andreas Niehaus, Dr. Anna Sokolova, and Dr. Mariia Lepneva were also present at the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, H.E. Mrs. Kanchana Patarachoke and H.E. Mr. Chandana Weerasena expressed their interest in the activities of the Ghent Centre of Buddhist Studies, as both Thailand and Sri Lanka have a large portion of the population that identify as Theravada Buddhists. Prof. Dr. Ann Heirman introduced the history, education, staff, and activities of the GCBS, stressing that it is currently broadening its research scope from the traditional focus on China, India, and Japan. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session and a general discussion. Subsequently, the esteemed guests were accompanied to visit the Indian and Buddhist Studies library.

Centre for Buddhist Studies of Fo Guang University welcomes a guest lecturer from Ghent University in Belgium, who gives a talk about his research on Śākyamuni’s Life in Mogao Cave 61 in Dunhuang. Professor Christoph Anderl is a linguist specializing in classical Chinese and an expert in Dunhuang studies, particularly in textual studies.

Mogao Cave 61 is the main subject of today’s talk. The uniqueness of this cave lies in the wall painting representing a map of Wutai Mountain (五台山) instead of the Buddhist motifs typically found in other caves. Another highlight of this cave is the depiction of Śākyamuni’s life painted on the room’s bedrock, which includes captions containing Chinese texts from the 佛本行集經 (Sūtra of Buddha’s Life).

In the presentation, Professor Anderl begins with a visual tour of Cave 61 using a 3D reconstruction from the Digital Dunhuang website and introduces the basic information about this cave. Cave 61 was commissioned by Cao Yuan Zhong (曹元忠), an official of the Dunhuang area, for family use. The donors’ figures are painted at the entrance, including Cao Yuan Zhong, his wife, and their family members, mostly female.

The panels depicting Śākyamuni’s life in the cave cover stories from Buddha’s birth to his death. Unlike the common representation of Buddha’s life through the eight junctures (八相成道), much of the content focuses on Buddha’s princely life. It appears that the donors of this cave were particularly interested in Buddha’s life in the palace.

Professor Anderl then presents the texts written in the captions alongside the 佛本行集經, using two examples from panel 13, which describes the selection of Buddha’s stepmother, and panel 28, which describes Sujata’s offering of milk porridge. Comparisons between the Chinese text in the Taisho Canon and the captions show that the authors of the captions deliberately abbreviated the text with shorter key phrases to create a condensed version for storytelling within limited space. This condensation slightly changes the emphasis of the story and alters its understanding in a different way.

This finding leads to a discussion between Professor Hsin-Yi Lin and Professor Anderl regarding whether the authors intended to manipulate the original text and create a new reading material, effectively ending the presentation with many potential research questions.

On March 27, 2024, two talks for the Research Forum were given by Ph.D. students Yu Jiahang于佳航 and Massimiliano Portoghese who presented parts of their ongoing research projects at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies. Please find the relevant details below:

Yu Jiahang’s talk:

• Working Title: “A Linguistic Study of the Funeral Address for a Donkey in Dunhuang manuscript Or.8210/S.1477.”
• Summary: The Dunhuang manuscript Or.8210/S.1477, titled Jilüwen yishou 祭驢文一首 (Funeral Address for a Donkey), was written by a frustrated and impoverished scholar during the late Tang dynasty and served as a tribute to his recently deceased donkey. The text adopts a semi-vernacular style remarkable for this period and genre, containing many colloquial words and phrases, thereby ensuring its accessibility to contemporary readers. This study examines S.1477 from multiple linguistic perspectives, including genre features, syntactic constructions, as well as the author’s use of classical allusions.
• Context: The presentation is based on ongoing research that will eventually be presented at the EACS conference. Since Jiahang also aims to submit her paper for publication in the future, she would like to discuss aspects related to the structure of her presentation and article. In addition, she will introduce similar materials from Dunhuang to make connections with her larger research project.

Massimiliano Portoghese’s talk:

• Working Title: “Why Did Śramaņas Take the Tonsure? Perceptions and Symbolism of Hairstyles in Ancient and Early Medieval China.”
• Summary: This talk examines the symbolic and social significance of hair in pre-Buddhist China to enhance our understanding of the Buddhist-Confucian disputes during the Six Dynasties period regarding the practice of monastics shaving their heads.
• Context: The presentation is based on ongoing research that will eventually be presented at the EACS conference. However, the talk is not meant as a mock talk in preparation for the venue. Instead, Massimiliano will try to show the material that he has collected so far and the new research paths he intends to address. He also intends to submit his paper for publication in the future.

The meeting of the GCBS’s Research Forum took place on April 29, 2024. Our Ph.D. student Nguyễn Khuông Hồng Ngọc (a.k.a. Ruby) presented a draft paper of a research project submitted for consideration to the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS) 25^th Biennial Conference 2024 in Tallinn, and which will lay the groundwork for her Ph.D. dissertation. The working title of Ruby’s paper is as follows:

“Practical Learning (實學) and Its Influence on Educational Transformation in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam.”

Ruby’s primary objectives were: (1) to elucidate the mechanisms and resources through which Practical Learning was introduced to Vietnam, and (2) to elaborate on how Vietnamese confucians, on the basis of Practical Learning, criticized and transformed the state of education in the eighteenth century. She will focus on Lê Quý Đôn 黎貴惇 (1726–1784) who is at the center of her research, and try to bring an overall understanding about the context of education in eighteenth-century Vietnam.

We are hiring! A four year doctoral fellowship is available in the European Research Council funded Gandhāra Corpora project led by Professor Charles DiSimone.

Please consider applying or sharing this with any recent MA graduates who are looking to continue their academic career in Buddhist Studies with a focus on Buddhist texts in classical languages. The fellow will join a great and welcoming team of international scholars. The application deadline is May 24. For further information and application guidelines, please visit the website of the Ghent University.

Titled “Corpora in Greater Gandhāra: Tracing the Development of Buddhist Textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan Manuscript Networks in the First Millennium of the Common Era”, Professor Di Simone’s project centers on the study of large, recently discovered caches of highly significant early Buddhist manuscripts and their place in the body of works from Greater Gandhara. The philological, paleographical, codicological, and critical research conducted in this project will examine textual and material production, transmission, and relationship networks in the Buddhist manuscript cultures of Greater Gandhara and beyond in the first millennium of the Common Era.