Hangzhou, the Chinese capital during the Song dynasty (960-1278), has been a cultural and economic hub for centuries and played a crucial role in the spread of Buddhism throughout East Asia, particularly in the case of Chan (J. Zen; K. Sŏn) Buddhism. The Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture is the first dedicated reference source for Hangzhou’s Buddhist heritage and its associated cultural legacies. Hangzhou’s cultural prominence expands beyond the monasteries and subsumes fine arts, material culture, and intellectual history. This Encyclopedia includes people, places, texts, industries, arts, concepts, and schools from pre-Tang China all the way through the Republican Period.
We are very happy to announce a workshop “New Perspectives on Chinese History, Buddhism, and Cultural Heritage: Taiwanese Scholars and Ghent University Researchers in Dialogue,” which will take place at the Department of Languages and Cultures of Ghent University on July 10, 2026. Four Taiwanese scholars will offer in-depth insights into their research, while the presentations of several young scholars from Ghent University will demonstrate the recent research dynamics at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.
“New Perspectives on Chinese History, Buddhism, and Cultural Heritage”
Taiwanese Scholars and Ghent University Researchers in Dialogue
Ghent University, Department of Languages and Cultures
Date: July 10, 2026
Time: 13:00-18:00
Location: Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University
Two Aspects of Tang History: Intellectual Change and Women’s World
Jo-shui Chen (陳弱水) received his B.A. in history from National Taiwan University in 1978 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1987. He has since taught and worked across the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Taiwan. He has been a regular faculty member at the University of British Columbia, Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and National Taiwan University, and has taught on a temporary basis at Yale, Columbia, and the University of Tokyo. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of History and NTU Chair Professor at National Taiwan University. Specializing in medieval Chinese history and Chinese intellectual history with a comparative approach, he is the author of seven books and numerous articles. A former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at NTU, he has also served in various administrative and advisory positions, mostly in Taiwan.
Two Aspects of Tang History
I have been active as a historian for about forty years, focusing on the history of the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties periods, and Chinese intellectual history. In Sui-Tang history, I work mainly in the fields of intellectual and social history. Here, I would like to introduce two major themes from my research on Tang China.
The intellectual aspect of the Tang-Song transition
My primary field of research is the intellectual history of Sui-Tang China, with a focus on intellectual changes in the mid- and late Tang, particularly the Confucian revival. This subject is crucial to the question of the Tang-Song transition. Intellectually, a main outcome of this all-important transformation in Chinese history was the emergence of a new type of Confucianism that evolved into the cultural orthodoxy in late imperial China.
My research focuses on the earlier phases of this change, from the mid-eighth to the early tenth century. I found that two main currents co-existed in this revival: one emphasized rejuvenating traditional Confucianism for political order, while the other proposed that Confucianism should serve as guiding principles for the human world as a whole. While the former was the mainstream, the latter was the primary source of innovation.
I also found that the pivotal force behind these changes might not be ideas in the Confucian revival themselves, but the fact that a large number of literary writers began to promote the Confucian cause after the mid-Tang. Since literary writing was the most prestigious activity among the Tang elite, this shift within the literary community carried enormous intellectual impact. By analyzing mid-Tang intellectual leaders against the broader mindset of earlier medieval China, I also aim to illuminate the essential features of this revival.
My main works on this topic include Liu Tsung-yüan and Intellectual Change in T’ang China, 773-819 and Literary Men and Intellectual Transformations in Tang China (Expanded edition, in Chinese). Additionally, my chapter, “Confucianism, Statecraft and Literary Writing in Sui-Tang China,” is forthcoming in the Cambridge History of Confucianism, vol. 1.
Women’s and family history of the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties periods
Aside from intellectual history, I am also active as a social historian focusing on women’s and family history in the Tang. I have examined the relationships between Tang women and their natal families, identifying key elements of their family life and how they interconnected. I have also explored the cultural aspects of their behaviors and lives.
As my work in this field was highly innovative when I began publishing more than twenty years ago, it has helped advance the study of early Chinese women’s history. For example, expanding on this line of research, a monograph on the relationship between women and their natal families in Song China was published earlier this year in Taiwan. Most of my findings are included in my 2007 book Women’s Culture and Family Life in Tang China (in Chinese). I further explored Tang women’s world of meaning in a long article published in 2021.
In Search of National Ancestors: Heritage, Identity and Place making in China
shuliwang@as.edu.tw
My research explores the intersections of cultural heritage, politics, archaeology, museums, cultural memory, and society. I examine how heritage, ritual, and museum practices are shaped by global heritage discourse and contemporary political forces. Emphasizing multi-scalar analysis, I investigate the formation of authorized heritage discourse, the politics of archaeological knowledge, and the material representation of religion and Indigenous culture. I also explore how local heritage practices respond to global heritage-making trends.
Myths concerning the Chinese as “descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors” and as a people sharing common ancestors have long been central to the construction of modern Chinese national identity. My latest book project “In Search of National Ancestors – Heritage, Identity and Placemaking in China” examines the recent resurgence of discourses surrounding the worship and commemoration of distant ancestors, manifested in the revival of popular religion, the preservation of cultural heritage, academic nationalism, the production of memory and historical narratives, and regional competition. It investigates how, under the overarching narrative of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, contemporary China has witnessed a new wave of root-seeking movements that contribute to the construction of a renewed linear national history.
My research investigates the contemporary revival of ancestral ceremonies honoring figures such as the Yellow Emperor, Yandi, Dayu, and Ciyou. I examine how intangible cultural heritage discourse legitimizes these rituals, their relationship to the resurgence of folk religion, and the role of oral history in reconstructing ancestral narratives. The project also explores how academic nationalism and archaeological activity shape evolving historical memory.
The study shows that the contemporary “Yellow Emperor fever” is not solely state-driven; rather, it emerges from the combined efforts of local governments, academic communities, cultural actors, and even overseas Chinese and religious groups, all of whom participate—actively or through mobilization—in the reproduction of ancestral myths and the creation of this ancestral lineage narrative.
New Perspectives of the History of Premodern Chinese Political Thought
Yang Fu is Associate Professor of Premodern Chinese History in the Department of History, National Taiwan University. He received his BA and MA from National Taiwan University and his PhD in Chinese Studies from the University of Cambridge. His research spans the intellectual history of pre-imperial China, the political culture of early and medieval China, and the history of modern scholarship.
His central preoccupation is the interplay between knowledge, authority, and order. He is currently completing two book projects: Economic Discourse in Early Chinese Thought and Memory and Imperial Reconstruction in Early Medieval China.
In his presentation, he will draw on both published work and work in progress to explore how the perspectives of economics, knowledge, and violence can illuminate the history of Chinese political thought.
Telling and Singing Buddhist Precepts in Dunhuang Bianwen Manuscripts
I received my B.A. in Chinese Literature from National Chengchi University, my M.A. in Chinese from National Taiwan Normal University, and subsequently my Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from National Chengchi University. I have previously served at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, and at the Center for General Education, Ming Chi University of Technology. I am currently a professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at National Chengchi University and also hold a joint appointment in the PhD/MA Program in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. From August 2021 to July 2024, I served as Editor-in-Chief of The Bulletin of the Department of Chinese Literature National Chengchi University, and since April 2025, I have been serving as President of the Tang Studies Society of Taiwan.
I first encountered Dunhuang Studies during my master’s training and have since developed a lasting interest in both Dunhuangology and Codicology. My early research focused on vernacular poetry, the expressive forms of bianwen, and their relationship with ritual practices. Later, I devoted my attention to biographies of eminent monks and Verse of Praising. More recently, I have conducted a series of studies on the vernacular preaching, telling, and singing of Buddhist sutras and Vinaya texts in Chinese Buddhism between the ninth and eleventh centuries.
My research is primarily concerned with the tendency within Chinese Buddhism between the ninth and eleventh centuries to make the Sutra and Vinaya traditions, which contain rich philosophical teachings, more accessible to ordinary audiences and to integrate them into the performance of Buddhist assemblies and rituals.
This trend can be observed not only in Dunhuang bianwen manuscripts, but also in Dunhuang manuscript commentaries on Buddhist scriptures and in Vinaya rituals manuscripts. Similar phenomena can furthermore be found in the Liao-dynasty manuscripts from the Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple. Comparable tendencies toward popularization may also be observed in Japanese Buddhist assemblies and rituals of the same period, such as the Saisho-e, Yuima-e, and Shuni-e ceremonies.
Chan Historiography in Transition: The Shengzhou ji and Dunhuang Manuscript Or.8210/S.4478
The Shengzhou ji 聖冑集 is a little-known five-juan 卷 anthology of hagiographies devoted to Chan patriarchs and other early Chan figures compiled by Huayue Xuanwei 華嶽玄偉 (d.u.) around 899. Although only fragments survive, it provides a rare window onto the formation of Chan historiographical literature before the emergence of state-sponsored lamp histories. This paper examines one of its two surviving textual witnesses, the Dunhuang manuscript Or.8210/S.4478. First, I analyze the manuscript’s codicological, paleographic, and textual features, shedding light on manuscript culture, copying practices, and Chan Buddhism in tenth-century Dunhuang. Second, I investigate the contents of the Shengzhou ji preserved in S.4478 through comparison with the second juan of the Baolin zhuan 寶林傳 as transmitted in the Jin Canon 金藏, a reprint of the Kaibao Canon 開寶藏 edition that had been supplemented with material from the Shengzhou ji. Following earlier studies by Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山 and Tanaka Ryōshō 田中良昭, I argue that the version preserved in S.4478 represents an abridgement, whereas the text incorporated into the Jin Canon reflects a more complete recension. Further paleographic and philological analysis supports this conclusion while also revealing variant readings that cannot be satisfactorily explained by common processes of textual transmission. These findings suggest that multiple recensions of the Shengzhou ji were already circulating by the late tenth century, highlighting the fluidity of early Chan historiographical literature across manuscript and print cultures.
Literature Related to the Transmission of the Cult of the Thousand-Eyed, Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva in Medieval China
This study examines the textual transmission and ritual development of the cult of the Thousand-Eyed, Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara in Tang China within the broader context of proto-Esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism. Focusing on early Chinese translations, particularly those attributed to Bhagavaddharma and Zhitong, and related Dunhuang manuscripts, it shows how dhāraṇī scriptures introduced ritual technologies such as maṇḍalas, mudrās, consecrated images, and ritual altars into Chinese Buddhist practice. The analysis argues that these texts were continually revised through the use of multiple Sanskrit exemplars circulating across China and Central Asia. It further traces how the cult’s original ritual system was gradually incorporated into wider ritual compendiums, where its practices merged with other Esoteric and non-Buddhist traditions. Through an examination of developments in maṇḍala construction, image worship, and healing rites, the study demonstrates that the Thousand-Eyed, Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara cult played a significant role in shaping Tang Esoteric ritual culture while undergoing substantial adaptation across different social and regional settings.
Revisiting Buddhist Historiography: The Transmission of Buddhist Biography from Seventeenth Century to Contemporary Scholarship
This paper readdresses the key question of John Kieschnick’s recent book, Buddhist Historiography in China: what are the specific features of Buddhist historiography, and how does it differ from academic research in Buddhism? Whereas Kieschnick’s focus lies primarily on biographies of eminent monk and Chan genealogies from Tang and Song, juxtaposing them with several key Buddhist masters of the twentieth century, this paper supplements his study by focusing on the transmission linking the early modern and contemporary period. Following Kieschnick’s identification of miracles as one of the distinct features of Buddhist historiography, this paper focuses on a biography of Guxin Ruxin 古心如馨 (1541–1616), famed as Vinaya reviver during the late Ming dynasty, which includes two major miraculous episodes. Based on Buddhist canonical texts, monastery records, and local gazetteers, this study traces the complex evolution of miraculous accounts of Guxin Ruxin from the earliest references to contemporary scholarly treatments. Eventually, it questions Kieschnick’s proposition that Buddhist historiography has nowadays subsided, giving way to academic approach, and engages in self-reflection on the role of academic historians in shaping the past of the living Chinese Buddhist community.
Modality in Buddhist Textuality: Grammaticalization of Peripheral Modal Markers in Middle Chinese
This research examines how Middle Chinese Buddhist texts contributed to the grammaticalization of modal expressions, focusing on “peripheral” modal markers whose diachronic trajectories have received relatively little scholarly attention. It argues that the development of these markers remains insufficiently explained because Buddhist texts have been neglected in Chinese historical linguistics. Drawing on transmitted Chinese corpora from the Eastern Han (25–220 CE) to the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), supplemented where possible by Sanskrit parallels, the project investigates the mechanisms through which Buddhist texts shaped the historical development of Chinese modal markers. Through selective comparison of transmitted editions with Dunhuang manuscripts, it further asks to what extent transmitted texts reflect the “original” linguistic features of their attributed period.
Writing for Dead Animals: Human-Animal Relations in Dunhuang Manuscripts
This dissertation examines mourning texts for dead animals preserved in Dunhuang manuscripts and explores human-animal relations in medieval Dunhuang. It first uses a social-historical approach to outline the institutional background of Tang China, where animals were incorporated into legal, administrative, and veterinary systems as labor instruments, property, and objects of regulation. Against this background, the dissertation turns to a cultural-historical analysis of three types of Dunhuang materials: liturgical protocols for zhai 齋 rituals held for dead animals, namely 亡畜齋儀; sutra-copying colophons written for dead animals; and the “Funeral Address for a Donkey” 祭驢文一首. Through philological analysis of genre, terminology, structure, and expression, this study shows how ordinary people used writing to understand, express, and ritualize their relations with dead animals. By focusing on these materials, this study shows that human-animal relations in Dunhuang were not limited to utility and property. They also carried complex religious, emotional, and social meanings.
The Dūnhuáng bāxiàngbiàn八相變Manuscripts and Their Graphical Variety
This joint dual-object study analyzes unconventional narrative elements and graphical idiosyncrasies of the three genealogically related manuscripts BD03024, BD04040, and BD08191, which contain the partial biography of the historical Buddha that is known as the Dūnhuáng bāxiàngbiàn 敦煌八相變. Spanning the first twenty-five years of Śākyamuni’s life, this text selects eight key episodes occurring between his birth and enlightenment and presents them with a wealth of realistic description, but it does this while adding, altering, or eliding many characters and events in a manner that sets the Bāxiàngbiàn conspicuously apart from the more standard biographies, the overall atmosphere reminiscent of a religious folktale. The several manuscripts are interesting also for their qualities as physical artefacts, in particular for the variety they display in their unknown scribes’ personal preferences in terms of variant characters, extra- and intratextual marks, formatting, greater or lesser cursiveness, and sundry other characteristics of handwritten text.
Gender, Family, and Religious Narrative: Daoist Female Immortals and Six Dynasties Society — The Case of “Lady Yiqian”
The Six Dynasties Daoist classic Zhen’gao records the spiritual progression of the practitioners Xu Mi and his son Xu Hui, while also constructs the figure of “Lady Yiqian” (Tao Kedou), a female immortal who attains transcendence from the human realm. Through an analysis of religious narrative structures, this article demonstrates that Lady Yiqian is firmly embedded within her husband’s Xu lineage, lacking the independence and transcendence typically associated with female immortals. A comparative analysis reveals a distinction Zhen’gao between “transcendent” and “mortal-origin” female immortals: high-ranking female immortals function as divine guides for male practitioners, whereas female immortals who ascend from the human world, although being granted partially autonomous cultivation narratives, remain fundamentally constrained by secular social norms. By comparing Zhen’gao with later hagiographies of female immortal, this study shows that the Xu-family-centered narrative of Zhen’gao deprives Lady Yiqian of individual sacred authority and social recognition beyond the family lineage. Consequently, she was excluded from later compilations and failed to attain independent religious status. This article argues that the religious marginalization of Lady Yiqian reflects the interplay between Six Dynasties family ethics and Daoist gender hierarchies, providing a valuable lens for understanding the position of religious women and the gendered structure of religious authority in the Six Dynasties period.
Comprehending Everything as Oneself: The Non-Self Doctrine of Zibo Zhenke in Ming Dynasty Buddhism
This dissertation investigates the significance, characteristics, evolution, and hermeneutics of the doctrine of “non-self” (Skt. anātman; Ch. wuwo 無我) in Ming-dynasty Buddhism, with a focus on the deeply influential monk Zibo Zhenke (紫柏真可, 1543–1604). The “Self” (Skt. ātman) criticized in the mainstream discourse of Indian Buddhism is a metaphysical Self that persists along the dimension of time; what Zibo’s “non-self” negates is something different. This dissertation defines it as what I term the “oppositional self”: the illusory subject constructed through the perceiver’s reflexive self-cognition of itself as a cognizing subject set in opposition to its cognized object. This “self” finds a comparable concept in Indian Buddhism, namely, the Yogācāra notion of the “grasper” (Skt. grāhaka), yet in India this was not directly regarded as the ātman to be negated.
It is argued that Zibo’s case reveals the inapplicability of various previous models of Buddhism’s development in China and its relationship to Indian Buddhism. First, Zibo still treats “non-self” as an important doctrine rather than a marginal one. Second, the “self” he negates is nevertheless not the Indian ātman, and his teaching is therefore not a doctrine of “non-self” in the strict sense. Third, he is still discussed within the Yogācāra structure of consciousness, with its bifurcation into grasper and grasped, rather than articulating “non-self” from within the context of Confucian ethics; his position therefore cannot simply be regarded as a product of “sinification.”
This complexity in fact reflects the dominant position of tathāgatagarbha thought in late-Ming Buddhism, as well as late-Ming Buddhists’ engagement with the issue of “selflessness” (Ch. wusi 無私) in Yangmingism, that is, Zibo’s attempt to put forward a Buddhist version of a “non-self” as a path to sagehood. This demonstrates the different roles that Buddhist “non-self” plays in different contexts: in India, as a wedge issue; in the late Ming, as a semantic field and a discursive terrain shared between Confucianism and Buddhism.
Welcome address by Prof. Christoph AnderlIntroduction of research group “East Asian Culture in Perspective” by Jasper RoctusProf. Jo-shui ChenProf. Shu-Li WangProf. Yang FuProf. Ming-chang YangDr. Laurent Van CutsemDr. Anna SokolovaLongyu ZhangJiahang YuYurui ZhaoWushi Lin
On Friday, June 5, the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies celebrated the successful PhD defense of Massimiliano Portoghese, whose dissertation, The Advent of Buddhist Monastic Bodies in China: Symbolic Appearance, Identity Markers and Social Perceptions, offers a significant contribution to the study of early Chinese Buddhism.
The dissertation investigates the emergence and reception of distinctive Buddhist monastic bodily practices in China during the first centuries of the Common Era. Focusing on markers such as tonsure, sitting posture, and the practice of baring the right shoulder, the study explores how these visible expressions of monastic identity became the subject of debate and negotiation between Buddhist communities and their elite lay interlocutors. Through a close examination of textual sources, the dissertation sheds new light on the formation of Buddhist identity and the social perceptions of Buddhist monastics in early medieval China.
The research was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Ann Heirman (GCBS) and co-supervision of Prof. Christoph Anderl (GCBS).
The examination committee consisted of Prof. John Kieschnick (Stanford University), Prof. Ester Bianchi (University of Perugia), Prof. Sylvie Hureau (École Pratique des Hautes Études), and Prof. Anna Andreeva (GCBS). The committee was chaired by Prof. Michael Meeuwis (Ghent University), and Dr. Paride Stortini (GCBS) served as secretary.
The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies warmly congratulates Dr. Massimiliano Portoghese on this outstanding achievement and wishes him every success in the next stage of his academic career.
The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS) was honored to welcome a distinguished delegation from Thailand, led by H.E. Mrs. Kanchana Patarachoke, Ambassador of Thailand to Belgium, and including three senior Buddhist monks together with accompanying members of the Thai Embassy.
During the visit, Professor Ann Heirman, Head of the GCBS, presented an overview of the Centre’s history, educational programs, academic staff, and activities in research and public outreach. Professor Charles DiSimone also shared his experiences from his research stay at Mahidol University and introduced the ongoing Corpora in Greater Gandhāra project, which has recently established an office in Bangkok to collaborate on the rich manuscript collections preserved in Thailand.
The Thai delegation expressed their appreciation for the presentation and showed strong interest in the activities and international profile of the GCBS. They highlighted Thailand’s deep Buddhist heritage and noted that, while Buddhist higher education in Thailand has traditionally focused on Theravāda studies and Pāli, there is now growing interest in promoting the study of Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna, and Sanskrit. In this regard, the delegation emphasized that the academic strengths of GCBS — particularly its expertise relating to India, China, Japan, and Tibet — make it a highly compatible partner for future collaboration.
The Thai delegation also outlined several concrete possibilities for future academic cooperation. They noted that scholarships are available for both Buddhist monks and lay students from Thailand to pursue studies abroad, and expressed particular interest in developing joint PhD opportunities with Ghent University. In addition, they warmly welcomed the possibility of GCBS researchers undertaking research visits and academic exchanges in Thailand, including collaborations with Buddhist universities and research institutions in Bangkok.
Following the meeting, the delegation was given a tour of the Library of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, with particular attention devoted to the collections in Indology and Buddhist Studies.
We are very happy to announce a mini-workshop on Digital Humanities, with a focus on the use of digital tools and AI in the editing of Buddhist texts and manuscripts.
“Scholarly Editing in the Age of AI: Navigating Uncertainty through the Compilation of Buddhist Canons”
(Prof. Kiyonori NAGASAKI)
This presentation explores the role of AI in scholarly editing through the case of Buddhist canon compilation. Focusing on the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database Project and related efforts toward the Reiwa Tripitaka, it examines how AI-OCR, OCR correction systems, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) can support the creation of reliable digital scholarly texts. The talk argues that AI should not be understood as a replacement for scholarly judgment, but as a means of restructuring editorial workflows. In particular, AI-OCR can assist in the large-scale transcription of printed and woodblock Buddhist texts, while correction interfaces can make errors, variants, and editorial decisions more visible and manageable. Generative AI and RAG-based systems further open new possibilities for searching, comparing, and interpreting large textual corpora, though they also introduce new forms of uncertainty concerning reliability, provenance, and accountability. By situating these technologies within the long tradition of Buddhist canon compilation, the presentation considers how standards such as TEI and IIIF can help create transparent, verifiable, and reusable research infrastructures. It argues that scholarly editing in the age of AI must be understood not simply as the production of corrected texts, but as the design of systems for navigating uncertainty.
“The Blessing and Curse of Digitization for Historical East Asian Texts”
(Dr. WANG Yifan)
Modern text digitization schemes are fundamentally grounded in the synchronic state of writing systems and orthographies from the latter half of the twentieth century, operating under the governance of international information standards. While this foundational framework impacts the encoding of historical texts worldwide, it presents distinct challenges for East Asian languages, particularly those utilizing the Chinese (Han) script. Meanwhile, the study of pre-printing Chinese orthographic systems has recently garnered increased academic attention, only the establishment of robust quantitative methodologies to analyse them remaining an ongoing endeavor. Against the backdrop of these two relatively remote topics, this presentation provides an overview of the current landscape and the specific challenges posed by contemporary computational environments. Conversely, it discusses on a paradigm shift and positive perspectives granted by the open data era and recent technological progress, highlighting insights and methodologies from my own recent research.
Kiyonori Nagasaki is a Professor in the Faculty of Letters at Keio University and Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Digital Humanities. His work focuses on Digital Humanities, Buddhist Studies, and the development of digital research infrastructures for textual scholarship. He has been actively involved in the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database Project and in the promotion of international standards such as TEI, IIIF, and Unicode for East Asian classical texts. His current work explores how AI-OCR, structured text encoding, and digital scholarly editing can support the compilation, sharing, and long-term preservation of Buddhist canonical texts.
Yifan Wang 王一凡 is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Digital Humanities and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. He holds an MA in linguistics and a PhD in library and information sciences from the University of Tokyo. For a decade, he has contributed to the SAT project, focusing on digitizing the Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist scriptures) and researching medieval character dictionaries. He also actively participates in standardization, serving as an Ideographic Research Group (IRG) expert for ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode, and as a Working Group expert within ISO/TC 37.
Lively exchanges during the coffee breakGCBS PhD student Longyu Zhang during the Q&ALively exchanges during the coffee breakPresentation by Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki on the Reiwa Buddhist Canon projectPresentation by Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki on the Reiwa Buddhist Canon projectPresentation by Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki on the Reiwa Buddhist Canon projectPresentation by Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki on the Reiwa Buddhist Canon projectPresentation by Dr. Yifan Wang on digital text encodingPresentation by Dr. Yifan Wang on digital text encodingPresentation by Professor Christoph Anderl on the ongoing DH projects at the GCBSPresentation by Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem on TEI markupPresentation by Chengtong Liu on AI image recognition tool
Asuras have long been depicted as primordial antagonistic beings in the religious, mythological, and folkloric traditions of South Asia. Buddhism engaged with these figures early on and regarded Asuras as warlike demons perpetually in conflict with the gods. This gave rise to the Deva-Asura war (devāsurasaṃgrāma) motif, which persisted throughout the history of Buddhist literature. This talk focuses on how Aśvaghoṣa, the well-known Buddhist poet, presents the Asuras in his epics, the Buddhacarita and Saundarananda, at the beginning of the first millennium CE. Through close readings of four sets of verses from these two works, we attempt to discern the strategies and approaches by which early Indian Buddhists appropriated, localized, and “domesticated” the figure of the Asura and the motif of the Deva-Asura war. This further serves as a cultural, epistemic, and intellectual backdrop for the development of the Buddhist cosmological traditions and the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, of which the Asuras and the Deva-Asura war are inevitable components.
Bio:
Meng “Alex” Xiaoqiang is a PhD candidate in South Asian and Tibetan Studies at the Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He received his BA in history (on Mongol-Yuan dynasty and maritime silk road in the 13th–14th centuries) from Nankai University in 2017 and his MA in Buddhist studies (on Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā) from Fudan University in 2020. Afterwards, he came to the Netherlands to pursue a PhD degree in Buddhist Studies. Sponsored by Khyentse Foundation and the J. Gonda Fund Foundation, he concentrated on Buddhist cosmology and mythology, specifically on the myth of the war between the gods and the Asuras, based on the Buddhist scripture Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra. He has also studied in the program “MA in South Asian Languages and Cultures: Jainism and its Languages” at Ghent University, and made an academic stay at the Departments of Buddhology and Tibetology and Indian Studies (BTK), Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
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:
“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:
“The Contours of Paradise: Pleasure Gardens and Figurations of the Self in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three”
Speaker:
Prof. Daniel Stuart, University of South Carolina/ Uni Hamburg
Timing:
Wednesday, April 22 @ 17.00 CET (please note this talk exceptionally occurs on a Wednesday!)
Location:
Locaal 1.13 (1st Floor Classroom)
Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
9000 Gent, Belgium
(also online)
Abstract:
This presentation introduces newly edited Sanskrit material from a manuscript of the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna. This text contains the most extensive surviving Sanskrit account of Buddhist cosmology. Likely composed in Greater Gandhāra in the fourth century CE, it presents a visionary narrative in which a Buddhist yogic practitioner experiences the five realms of the cosmos: the human realm, hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, and deities. Focusing on descriptions of the heavenly realms within the sphere of sensual desire, this talk explores how these depictions relate to broader developments in Buddhist thought. In particular, it examines the relationship between traditional cosmological models, emerging scholastic taxonomies, visionary yogic practice, and conceptions of the interpenetration of phenomena that became central to major strands of Mahāyāna philosophy.
Bio:
Daniel M. Stuart is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina and is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Hamburg under the auspices of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He holds an MA in Sanskrit Literature and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. He has worked extensively on sūtra and narrative literature, śāstric texts, and Buddhist manuscripts in various Asian languages and scripts. He works with textual materials in Sanskrit, Pāli, Hindi, Gāndhārī, Buddhist Chinese and literary Tibetan. His research focuses on the history of traditional Buddhist contemplative practices from their origins in premodern South Asia into the global present. He is the author of five books: Thinking about Cessation (2013), A Less Traveled Path (2015), The Stream of Deathless Nectar (2017), S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight (2020), and Insight in Perspective (2024).
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)
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”
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”
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)
Jo-shui Chen (陳弱水) received his B.A. in history from National Taiwan University in 1978 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1987. He has since taught and worked across the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Taiwan. He has been a regular faculty member at the University of British Columbia, Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and National Taiwan University, and has taught on a temporary basis at Yale, Columbia, and the University of Tokyo. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of History and NTU Chair Professor at National Taiwan University. Specializing in medieval Chinese history and Chinese intellectual history with a comparative approach, he is the author of seven books and numerous articles. A former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at NTU, he has also served in various administrative and advisory positions, mostly in Taiwan.
My research explores the intersections of cultural heritage, politics, archaeology, museums, cultural memory, and society. I examine how heritage, ritual, and museum practices are shaped by global heritage discourse and contemporary political forces. Emphasizing multi-scalar analysis, I investigate the formation of authorized heritage discourse, the politics of archaeological knowledge, and the material representation of religion and Indigenous culture. I also explore how local heritage practices respond to global heritage-making trends.
Yang Fu is Associate Professor of Premodern Chinese History in the Department of History, National Taiwan University. He received his BA and MA from National Taiwan University and his PhD in Chinese Studies from the University of Cambridge. His research spans the intellectual history of pre-imperial China, the political culture of early and medieval China, and the history of modern scholarship.
I received my B.A. in Chinese Literature from National Chengchi University, my M.A. in Chinese from National Taiwan Normal University, and subsequently my Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from National Chengchi University. I have previously served at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, and at the Center for General Education, Ming Chi University of Technology. I am currently a professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at National Chengchi University and also hold a joint appointment in the PhD/MA Program in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. From August 2021 to July 2024, I served as Editor-in-Chief of The Bulletin of the Department of Chinese Literature National Chengchi University, and since April 2025, I have been serving as President of the Tang Studies Society of Taiwan.
