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)
