Mariia Lepneva – Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies

PhD defense of Massimiliano Portoghese, June 5, 2026

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.

Many congratulations!

Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies Welcomed Delegation from Thailand, May 18, 2026

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.

Workshop “Aspects of Digital Humanities in Asian Studies”, May 22, 2026

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.

Time: MAY 22nd, 2026

Location: Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, Room 5.50 (5th floor)

Our featured speakers are Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki and Dr. Wang Yifan.

GCBS researchers Prof. Dr. Christoph Anderl, Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem, Dr. Mariia Lepneva, and Chentong Liu presented their Digital Humanities projects, including the Ghent Database of Medieval Chinese (GDMC) and the new project on Anyue district (Sichuan province, China) Buddhist sites, TEI markup of electronic editions of Dunhuang manuscripts, social network analysis of Buddhist community in early modern China, as well as GIS mapping of Buddhist sites in Anyue and AI-powered system of identification of Buddhist images.

“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 break

GCBS PhD student Longyu Zhang during the Q&A

Presentation by Prof. Kiyonori Nagasaki on the Reiwa Buddhist Canon project

Presentation by Dr. Yifan Wang on digital text encoding

Presentation by Professor Christoph Anderl on the ongoing DH projects at the GCBS

Presentation by Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem on TEI markup

Presentation by Chengtong Liu on AI image recognition tool

Lecture “New archaeological data on the extension of the Kushan empire and post-Kushan groups in the Himalayan range” by Samara Broglia de Moura, April 30, 2026

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

Lecture “The Contours of Paradise: Pleasure Gardens and Figurations of the Self in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three” by Prof. Daniel Stuart, April 22, 2026

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)

Lecture “Revisiting the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Gandhāran Art” by Christian Luczanits, April 2, 2026

Title: “Revisiting the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Gandhāran Art”

Speaker: Dr. Christian Luczanits, SOAS, University of London

Timing: Thursday, April 2 @ 17.00 CET

Location: Locaal 3.30 – Camelot

Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren

9000 Gent, Belgium

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.

Lecture “Exegetical Diagrams as Scholastic Tools: Text-Image Dynamics, Production, Use, and Networks in Dunhuang” by Xiaoming Hou, March 26, 2026

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)

Workshop “Japanese and Belgian Research on Japan: Perspectives from Tohoku University and Ghent University,” March 19-20, 2026

GCBS members Andreas Niehaus, Paride Stortini, Anna Andreeva, and Christian Uhl participated in the workshop “Japanese and Belgian Research on Japan: Perspectives from Tohoku University and Ghent University,” organized by the Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS), Tohoku University and Institute for Japanese Studies, Ghent University. In the context of 160 Years of Friendship between Japan and Beligum, Ghent University invites Tohoku University’s Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS) to come to Ghent to introduce the newly established center and discuss future research collaboration between Japan and Belgium.

🗓️ 19-20 March 2026
📍 Ghent University, Faculty Board Room, Faculty of Arts and Philosohpy, Blanfijnberg 2

Day 1

Wednesday 18 March

13:00 Visit Book Tour

14:00–16:00 Campus Tour

Day 2

Thursday 19 March

Venue: Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Facultyboard Room, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent

10:00 Introduction of Ghent University and the Institute for Japanese, Andreas Niehaus

11:00–11:30 Coffee Break

11:30–13:00 Introduction of the Tohoku University Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS), Director Adachi Hiroaki

13:00–14:00 Lunch Break

14:00–14:45 Luca Milasi “Searching for ‘Adam’s Perfect Speech’: The Phonograph/Logograph Divide and the Roman Catholic Archives as a Laboratory for Early Japanese Studies”

14:45–15:30 Mick Deneckere “From Paris to Meiji Japan: De Rosny, Renan, and Burnouf’s Impact on Ishikawa Shuntai and the Birth of Religious Studies in Japan”

15:30–16:00 Coffee Break

16:00–16:45 Ran Wei “Theorizing Postwar Grotesque: Representations of Military Ruins and Apache Tribe in Kaikō Takeshi’s Japan’s Three Penny Opera (1959)”

16:45–17:30 Hannah Dahlberg-Dodd “Characterological Engagement and Digital Fan Practice: Linguistic Insights from a Vtuber Fandom”

17:30–18:30 John D’Amico “Borrowing Trouble in Early Modern Japan”

18:30 Reception

Day 3

Friday 20 March

Venue: Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Facultyboard Room, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent

9:00–9:45 Paride Stortini “Relive Nara Cosmopolitanism: Nostalgia, Aesthetics, and Community Building at Yakushiji”

9:45–10:30 Marlies Holvoet “Ikebana as a Global Practice: (Re-)Arranging Boundaries”

10:30–11:00 Coffee break

11:00–11:45 Oguma Rie “Japanese Film Subtitling Project by Belgian University Students: Project‑Based Language Learning and Its Effects”

11:45–12:30 Sebastian Nehrdich “Dharmamitra: A Platform to Support Research across Language Boundaries on Buddhist Textual Material”

12:30–13:15 Felix Spremberg “Japan’s ‘Super Smart’ Society 5.0 and Toyota’s Woven City as a Technocratic Site of Knowledge Production”

13:15–14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-15:00 Andreas Niehaus “Emotional, Social and Political Spaces: Food on the Move in Hayashi Fumiko’s travelogue Santō Ryokōki (1933)”

15:00–15:30 30 Anna Andreeva “Buddhist knowledge on women’s reproductive health in early medieval Japan”

15:30–16:00 Justin Stein “Ancient Mountain, Modern Spiritualities: Mount Kurama as a Site for Contemporary Pilgrimage”

16:00-16:30 Coffee Break

16:00–16:45 Christian Uhl “Unevenness, Non-Contemporaneity and the Everyday in Ishikawa Takuboku’s poetry and poetology”

16:45–17:30 Tianyang Huang “Deadly or Remediable? Gender, Science, and the Ambivalence about Harm in the Trial of A Woman Doctor, 1939–1940”

17:30 Closing Remarks

Guest lecture “DharmaNexus as a Multilingual Graph of Buddhist Intertextuality: Design Choices, Research Uses, and Future Applications” by Sebastian Nehrdich, March 17, 2026

We are pleased to announce the next talk in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series, which will also be the first talk in the Spring 2026 Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title: “DharmaNexus as a Multilingual Graph of Buddhist Intertextuality: Design Choices, Research Uses, and Future Applications”

Speaker: Professor Sebastian Nehrdich, Tohoku University

Timing: Tuesday, March 17 @ 17.00 CET (in-person and online!)

Location: Vergaderzaal 0.1 Simon Stevin,
Plateau – Rozier, Campus Boekentoren
9000 Gent, Belgium

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

Abstract:

Locating textual parallels, translations, citations, and topically related passages across vast collections of texts in multiple languages is a basic requirement of philological work in Buddhist Studies. Recent advances in digitization, OCR, and cross-lingual information retrieval have fundamentally changed access to this kind of evidence, with far-reaching implications for how philological research can be conducted. A central component in this context is DharmaNexus: a database that stores intertextual relationships between passages across languages and sources, and that supports the retrieval and comparison functions used in the Dharmamitra tool ecosystem.

In this presentation, I will discuss DharmaNexus as a verifiable “evidence layer” for AI-assisted multilingual research. I will highlight key design choices and show how intertextual relationships are determined and represented. I will also demonstrate how this data is already used in research-facing tools for discovering and inspecting parallels and reuse patterns in Buddhist literature. Finally, I will address limitations and risks that can arise from over-reliance on these systems, and outline further possible research applications enabled by this architecture.

Bio:

Sebastian Nehrdich is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Tohoku University. He completed his PhD in Computational Linguistics at the University of Düsseldorf, co-supervised by Oliver Hellwig and Kurt Keutzer. He holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the University of Hamburg. His work integrates digital philology, Buddhist textual analysis, and machine learning. He serves as Director of the Dharmamitra project that was founded at the Berkeley AI Research Lab (BAIR), has managed the ML infrastructure of the ChronBMM project, and has led the development of the BuddhaNexus platform 2018-2023, now continued as DharmaNexus.

Publication highlights (Q1 2026): Observances, Feasts, and Scripts

GCBS’s former member Dr. Yi Ding published his new book “Observances, Feasts, and Scripts: The Varieties of Zhai in Chinese Buddhism from the Second to the Tenth Century” as part of the Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism.

This book is the first monograph written in English to offer a comprehensive analysis of the varieties of zhai, a multifaceted term with deep historical and religious significance in Chinese Buddhism. Drawing on a wide array of sources—including canonical texts, apocryphal writings, hagiographies, and ritual documents—this book unveils zhai as a ritual complex encompassing temporary observances, communal feasts, and modes of interaction between the seen and unseen realms. These practices, rooted in both lay and monastic traditions, illustrate the intricate interplay between food, community, and ritual in Indian and Chinese Buddhism.

Part I traces how Indian Buddhist temporary observances were adapted, debated, and reimagined in the Chinese context. Part II explains the sponsored feast as a mechanism for lay-monastic interaction and merit-making. It also examines how Buddhists engaged with deities and spirit saints through remote invitations and ritual offerings. Part III focuses on “scripts” used for receiving the Eightfold Observance and conducting sponsored feasts, thus revealing their evolution from simple master-disciple interactions to complex communal events.

Observances, Feasts, and Scripts is an essential resource for scholars interested in food-related religious practices and the history of Buddhism. Through its meticulous examination of Chinese, Pāli, Sanskrit, and Tibetan materials, the book offers a fresh perspective on Chinese Buddhism as an intercultural endeavor. It sheds light on relevant scholastic debates, the creation of apocrypha, translation strategies, and ritual innovations in medieval China. By moving beyond teleological frameworks such as Sinicization, it emphasizes the agency of cultural, doctrinal, and social factors in shaping these practices. Additionally, it engages with the cognitive dimensions of ritual and highlights ritual logic as a cross-cultural analytical lens.

Citation: Ding, Yi. Observances, Feasts, and Scripts: The Varieties of Zhai in Chinese Buddhism from the Second to the Tenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2026.