Publication highlights (Q4 2025): Papers by GCBS members in T’oung Pao, JEACS, and Journal of Chinese Religions (1/5/2026) - At the end of 2025, three early-career scholars affiliated with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies — Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem, Dr. Mariia Lepneva, and Massimiliano Portoghese — published new research articles in leading international peer-reviewed journals. Their work reflects the… Read more
Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Mengqiu Tian in Dunhuang, Septemeber-October, 2025 (12/17/2025) - FWO PhD student Mengqiu Tian spent two months conducting fieldwork in Dunhuang, one of the key Buddhist sites in northwestern China. Below, she reports on her research experience: Dunhuang is one of the most important sites for the study of… Read more
New member: Xiaoming Hou (12/17/2025) - We are welcoming a new member of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies: FWO junior postdoctoral fellow Dr. Xiaoming Hou. Her research focuses on scholastic practices in medieval Chinese Buddhism and the cross-cultural transmission of Buddhism, with particular interest in… Read more
Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Mariia Lepneva in Vietnam, December 1-6, 2025 (12/11/2025) - GCBS member and FWO postdoctoral fellow Mariia Lepneva recently completed a one-week research visit to Vietnam. Below is her brief report. My research visit to Vietnam began with consulting primary sources at the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies in Hanoi. I… Read more
Guest lecture “The Last Words of a God-King: A Corpus of Tibetan Buddhist Narrative Histories” by Dr. Reinier Langelaar, November 25, 2025 (11/13/2025) - We are excited to announce the next lecture in our ongoing “Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series,” featuring Dr. Reinier Langelaar (IKGA, Austrian Academy of Sciences). The Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series is organized by Prof. Charles DiSimone, leader of the… Read more
Guest lecture “Sustaining Digital Heritage Beyond Funding: Building on the DiGA Project” by Jessie Pons, November 20, 2025 (10/27/2025) - We are excited to announce the fourth lecture in our ongoing “Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series,” featuring Professor Jessie Pons (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) and other esteemed guests! The Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series is organized by Prof. Charles DiSimone, leader of… Read more
Reading group meeting, presentation by Wushi Lin, October 23, 2025 (10/24/2025) - The next phase of the Reading Group convened on October 23, 2025, marking the first of three sessions dedicated to the study of materials prepared by Wushi Lin, a joint PhD student of Professor Bart Dessein (Ghent Centre for Buddhist… Read more
Guest lecture “Resituating the Yogācārabhūmi Corpus: Potential Gandhāran Links and Sūtra-Grounded Practice” by Keiki Nakayama, November 13, 2025 (10/21/2025) - We are delighted to announce that the fourth lecture in our ongoing “Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series” will be delivered by Keiki Nakayama from the University of Leipzig. The lecture series is organized by Prof. Charles DiSimone, leader of the ERC-funded… Read more
Guest lecture “War Memorials and Religion in Japan: Separation of Religion and Politics and the Role of Scholars” by Akira Nishimura, October 23, 2025 (10/15/2025) - We are pleased to announce an upcoming lecture by Dr. Nishimura Akira (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tokyo), who has been a visiting scholar with us over the past two months. Dr. Nishimura’s talk will explore the complex… Read more
New member: Dr. Kikee Doma Bhutia (10/14/2025) - Please join us in welcoming Dr. Kikee Doma Bhutia, who, having won the FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowship, will be with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies for the next three years. Her project, "Local Deities, Natural Disaster, and Ritual Waste… Read more
New member: Yurui Zhao (10/7/2025) - Yurui Zhao is a joint PhD candidate at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, and the School of Chinese Classics, Renmin University of China. Her research focuses on the social, religious, and cultural history of China during… Read more
Doctoral school “Current Developments in Research on Middle Chinese and ‘Buddhist Hybrid Chinese’””, October 27–31, 2025 (9/22/2025) - This five-day, on-campus course explores how Chinese evolved in the medieval period, its interaction with Sanskrit in Buddhist translations, and the role of Buddhist Hybrid Chinese in shaping medieval texts. In addition, text corpora and digital resources for the study… Read more
MA course “The Golden Age and Contemporary Asia” co-organized by GCBS postdoc Dr. Paride Stortini (9/19/2025) - In the first semster of the 2025/2026 acedemic year, GCBS postdoctoral fellow Dr. Paride Stortini, together with Dr. Akshara Ravishankar, is co-organizing the elective MA course “Contemporary Asian Academic Debates I” at Ghent University. Focusing on the theme of “Golden… Read more
Reading group meeting, presentation by Zixuan Wang, September 11, 2025 (9/15/2025) - The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies opened its 2025–26 reading group on September 11, 2025, with a focus on rare Vinaya (monastic discipline) texts from Dunhuang. For the first three sessions, the group will engage with primary sources studied by… Read more
Publication highlights (Q3 2025): Constructing the Divine Abode of Dizang Bodhisattva (9/1/2025) - GCBS's former member Ouyang Nan will publish her first book, Constructing the Divine Abode of Dizang Bodhisattva: Mount Jiuhua in Late Imperial China (14th to 20th century), as volume 174 of Sinica Leidensia series with Brill. The e-book has come… Read more
GCBS members participate in the XXth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS) (8/8/2025) - Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies has a notable presence at the XXth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS) held at Leipzig University, Germany, from August 10th to 15th, 2025. Our professors, postdocs and PhD students made eight… Read more
Virtual Tour of “Sensing the Buddha” Exhibition – Now Online (8/8/2025) - From 21 September 2024 to 11 May 2025, the Domain & Royal Museum of Mariemont, in cooperation with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, presented the exhibition Sensing the Buddha — an unprecedented, multisensory immersion into the world of Buddhism.… Read more
PhD opportunity at the Ghent Centre for Buddist Studies (7/18/2025) - We are hiring! One fully funded four-year PhD fellowship is now available in the ERC-funded project "Corpora in Greater Gandhāra: Tracing the Development of Buddhist Textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan Manuscript Networks in the First Millennium of the Common Era" led by… Read more
Lecture Recap: “Gāndhārī Manuscripts and Inscriptions: Maintaining and Analyzing a Comprehensive Corpus” by Stefan Baums (6/19/2025) - The third lecture in the Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series was delivered by Dr. Stefan Baums from the University of Munich on June 18, 2025, and focused on the formation, structure, and analysis of a comprehensive corpus of Gāndhārī manuscripts… Read more
Guest lecture “Gāndhārī Manuscripts and Inscriptions: Maintaining and Analyzing a Comprehensive Corpus” by Stefan Baums, June 18, 2025 (6/9/2025) - We are thrilled to share that the third lecture in our ongoing “Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series” will be delivered by Dr. Stefan Baums from the University of Munich! The lecture series is organized by Prof. Charles DiSimone, leader of… Read more
Lecture Recap: “Visualising Rituals in Gandhara” by Dr. Ashwini Lakshminarayanan (6/6/2025) - Thursday, June 5, 2025, saw the presentation of an insightful talk, “Visualising Rituals in Gandhara” by Dr. Ashwini Lakshminarayanan, which inaugurated The Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series organized by GCBS's Prof. Charles DiSimone. In her lecture, Dr. Lakshminarayanan presented her… Read more
Newsletter of the Database of Medieval Chinese texts – May 2025 (6/2/2025) - We are very happy to announce the publication of a new issue of the “Newsletter of the Database of Medieval Chinese texts (DMCT)” (ISSN: 2952-8534), a collaborative project of the Department of Languages and Cultures / GCBS, Ghent University, and… Read more
FWO Postdoctoral Fellowships Awarded to Buddhist Studies Projects at Ghent in 2025 (5/25/2025) - We are delighted to share that two researchers will be joining the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies in the fall having both been awarded prestigious FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowships in the 2025 competition under the supervision of Professor Charles DiSimone.… Read more
King of Belgium Receives Royal Gift of the Pali Canon from Thai Monarch, May 15, 2025 (5/16/2025) - On May 15, 2025, the King of the Belgians received a special royal gift from the King of Thailand: a beautifully bound edition of the Pali Tipitaka, the foundational scripture of the Theravāda Buddhist tradition. The gift symbolizes the long-standing… Read more
Long-term research stay of GCBS researcher Laurent Van Cutsem in China, August 2024 – February 2025 (5/15/2025) - In February 2025, our postdoctoral researcher Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem returned from an enriching six-month stay as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Research on Ancient Books 古籍研究所 at Zhejiang University 浙江大學 in Hangzhou 杭州. His host was Prof.… Read more
Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Mariia Lepneva in China, March 15 – April 6, 2025 (5/12/2025) - Dr. Mariia Lepneva conducted fieldwork in China from March 16 to April 5, 2025, as part of her FWO-funded postdoctoral project, "Vinaya Revival on Baohua Mountain in Ming–Qing China." The primary objectives of this research trip were threefold: to strengthen… Read more
Guest lecture “A Corpus of Ritual Literature from Dunhuang and its Links Further West” by Lewis Doney, June 10, 2025 (5/9/2025) - We are excited to announce the second lecture in our ongoing "Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series", featuring Prof. Lewis Doney from the University of Bonn! The lecture series is organized by Prof. Charles DiSimone, leader of the ERC-funded project “Corpora… Read more
Guest lecture “Visualising Rituals in Gandhara” by Ashwini Lakshminarayanan, June 05, 2025 (5/8/2025) - We are delighted to announce the launch of our new lecture series, "The Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series", and share the details for the inaugural hybrid lecture below, marking the beginning of what promises to be an engaging and dynamic… Read more
Lecture “Everything You Didn’t Know You Ever Wanted to Know about Buddhist Manuscript Cultures in Greater Gandhāra” by Charles DiSimone (5/7/2025) - On Tuesday, May 6, 2025, a captivating lecture titled “Everything You Didn’t Know You Ever Wanted to Know about Buddhist Manuscript Cultures in Greater Gandhāra” was delivered by GCBS's Prof. Charles DiSimone as part of our Permanent Training in Buddhist… Read more
Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Massimiliano Portoghese in India, April 1-18, 2025 (5/6/2025) - From April 1st to 18th, 2025, our PhD student Massimiliano Portoghese undertook a rich and immersive fieldwork journey across India, engaging directly with key sites of Buddhist heritage and scholarship. His itinerary began in New Delhi, where he visited the… Read more