Localization and Transmission of Buddhist Narratives in Gandharan Written and Visual Media - Sponsored by the ACLS/Ho Family Foundation for Buddhist

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Recent discoveries of manuscripts, along with advances in art history provide unique opportunities to understand the artistic heritage of Gandhara in ways not previously possible. A limited corpus of about a dozen previous birth stories have been identified among more than 150 Gandharan sculptures on the basis of textual similarity and iconographic comparison with Buddhist images from sites such as Bharhut, Ajanta, and Kyzil. And now, we are in the unprecedented position of being able to add Gandharan texts into the mix of our assessment of these artistic representations, by dint of the recent discovery of approximately fifty-seven brief narratives labeled as Avadānas and Pūrvayogas as well as of a host of other texts of varying genres including verse, commentary, sūtra, and vinaya.

In this panel, we propose to present the initial results of an ongoing collaboration between textualists and art historians working on Buddhist rebirth narratives in Gandharan literary and visual cultures. The purpose of project is to investigate how and why different Buddhist rebirth narratives were selected for circulation in Gandhara during the first three or four centuries CE in light of sources that have only recently become available to the scholarly community. Through integrated studies of text and art, we hope to pose and perhaps answer questions about what might have guided Gandharan artisans, scribes, and patrons to select particular narratives for preservation and transmission in in the Gandharan milieu.

Area of Study

• South Asia

Session Organizer

• Jason Emmanuel Neelis, Wilfrid Laurier University

Chair

• Richard Salomon, University of Washington

Individual Presentations

• Avadānas Seen and Unseen, Heard and Unheard - Timothy Lenz, University of Washington

• Modes and Media of Narrative Transmission in Gandharan Literary and Material Cultures - Jason Emmanuel Neelis, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Visual Perspectives on Localization of the Buddha’s Legends - Jessie Pons, Ruhr University Bochum

Discussants

• Monika Zin, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

• Richard Salomon, University of Washington