Mariia Lepneva – Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies

Reading group meeting, presentation by Yuchen Liou, February13, 2026

The first meeting of the Chinese Reading Group of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies this year featured a presentation by Yuchen Liou, a joint PhD candidate at National Chengchi University and Ghent University. Her research focuses on Chinese Buddhism, particularly Esoteric Buddhism of the Tang dynasty. Her dissertation, “Tang Society and the Formation of Chinese Buddhist Rituals: Contrasting Royal and Local Rituals,” examines rituals for “Protecting the Country and Preventing Calamities,” with special attention to the role of astrology in ritual practice.

In this and several upcoming sessions, the reading group is studying the esoteric ritual manual “Supreme Buddha Crown Buddha Cultivation Ritual Manual” 尊勝佛頂脩瑜伽法軌儀, translated by Śubhakarasiṃha (善無畏, 637–735). The meeting provided a forum for close reading of primary sources, focusing this time of the opening verses of the text, and stimulated discussion of methods for studying Chinese Esoteric Buddhist ritual texts, emphasizing the need to compare electronic versions available through CBETA with earlier witnesses preserved amid Dunhuang manuscripts.

Doctoral school “Anyue Buddhist Sites: Iconography, Inscriptions, and Fieldwork Methodologies”, April 20-24, 2026

Abstract: This course explores Buddhist sites in the Anyue area of Sichuan, including the analysis of their iconographic features, and the identification of Esoteric and “hybrid” elements, in addition to discussing fieldwork methodologies. The course assumes a background in Buddhist Studies and/or engagement with East Asian art. Lectures and presentations will be in English. Materials supplied for discussion include ”historical” photographs taken by the instructors.

Doctoral school: Call for applications:

We are pleased to announce the following Doctoral School Specialist Course for PhD students at Ghent University (Belgium):

“Anyue Buddhist Sites: Iconography, Inscriptions, and Fieldwork Methodologies”

April 20-24, 2026

Venue: Ghent University

Lecturers:
Prof. Wendi Adamek, University of Calgary
Prof. Henrik Sørensen, Ruhr University Bochum
Prof. Christoph Anderl, Ghent University

We offer a scholarship for a maximum of four international PhD students. To apply please send a one-page motivation letter and your CV to Christoph.Anderl@ugent.be by February 25. The selected candidates will be notified by March 1.

Schedule

April 20 (Monday): Methodologies in the Studies of Chinese Buddhist Sites

10:00-10:15: Welcome (Anderl)

10:15-12:00: ‘Practicescape’ methodologies: Part 1 (Adamek)

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-15:00: ‘Practicescape’ methodologies: Part 2 (Adamek)

15:15-16:45: Seminar on methodologies with breakout groups (supervision: Adamek / Anderl)

April 21 (Tuesday): Fieldwork in a Historical and Contemporary Perspective

10:00-12:00: “Looking back to fieldwork experiences in the 1990s” (based on “historical” photographs) (Adamek)

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-15:00: PhD Students’ presentations 1

15:15-16:45: Seminar/Exercise: Working with historical photographs (supervisors: Adamek, Sørensen, Anderl)

April 22 (Wednesday): The Iconography of Anyue and Chongqing Buddhist Sites

10:00-11:00: Iconographical Novelties in the Buddhist Sculptural Art at Fowan on Mount Bei in Dazu (Sørensen)

11:00-12:00: Experiences from virtual and physical fieldwork in the framework of the FROGBEAR project (Anderl)

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-16:00: PhD students’ presentations 2

April 23 (Thursday): Fieldwork and Data Collection at Anyue Buddhist Sites 1 / Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuan

10:00-12:00: MA students’ presentations (“Minor Anyue Buddhist sites”)*

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-15:00: On sources and resources for the study of the Buddhist sculptural sites in Sichuan: Methodology, systematics, and the handling of relevant data (Sørensen)

15:20-17:00: On the phenomena of Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuan? Part I: How to understand, identify and contextualise Chinese Esoteric Buddhism. Part II: Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuanese sculptural sites (Sørensen)

April 24 (Friday): Fieldwork and Data Collection at Anyue Buddhist Sites 2 / Future Perspectives

10:00 – 12:00: Introduction to the New “Sichuan Buddhist Sites” Database Infrastructure (Bell / Schrupp)**

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-15:00: Exercises: How to approach the sculptural sites in Anyue dating from the post-Tang period (Sørensen)

15:15-16:00: Future perspectives: fieldwork in Autum 2026 / Final discussions

Evening: Informal social gathering of all participants

* Throughout the Spring term, ca. 18 MA students will work on topics concerning Anyue Buddhist sites in the framework of the course “Buddhism: Text and Material Culture”. During the DS, they will present some of the results of their work.

** A technical database framework is currently constructed for the project and will be introduced during the Doctoral School.

New PhD students join ERC project “Corpora in Greater Gandhāra”

We are pleased to welcome Arghyadip Mondal and Zhengyan Fan as new PhD researchers at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS). They join Prof. Charles DiSimone’s ERC Starting Grant project, “Corpora in Greater Gandhāra: Tracing the development of Buddhist textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan manuscript networks in the first millennium of the Common Era.”

Arghyadip Mondal‘s academic work lies at the intersection of Buddhist Studies, Sanskrit philosophy, manuscript cultures, and comparative literature. He holds a Master’s degree in Sanskrit from Jadavpur University, specializing in Advaita Vedānta, and he has graduated with top academic distinctions throughout his studies.

His research interests include Indian and Buddhist philosophy, manuscriptology and palaeography, gender and ecological thought in classical literature, and cross-cultural literary reception. He is trained in several classical and modern languages, including Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, German, English, Bengali, and Hindi, and he has teaching experience in Sanskrit, German, and English. Alongside his academic work, he is actively involved in social education initiatives and perform Bengali folk music and Rabindra Saṅgīt.

Zhengyan Fan received an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Hamburg (2025). His earlier research primarily focused on Yogācāra and Vajrayāna buddhism.

New member: Chentong Liu

We are pleased to welcome Chentong Liu as a new doctoral member of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS). Chentong joined Ghent University in 2025 as a PhD student after an interdisciplinary academic trajectory that combines engineering, art theory, and Buddhist art history. She previously obtained a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Ocean University of China (2021) and a Master’s degree in Art Theory from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (2025).

Chentong’s PhD project focuses on Esoteric Buddhist stone carvings in Anyue (Sichuan) during the Tang and Song dynasties, with particular attention to their ritual, iconographic, and stylistic features. Her research combines traditional art-historical and iconographic analysis with digital methods, aiming to offer a systematic and spatially informed understanding of these important yet understudied monuments.

A key innovation of the project is the use of GIS-based digital analysis, especially ArcGIS, to map and visualize the spatial and temporal distribution of Esoteric Buddhist carvings in the Anyue region. By building a dedicated database that records location, subject matter, iconography, and stylistic traits, the project seeks to clarify patterns of development and regional interaction. Through this approach, Chentong’s research sheds new light on the growth of Esoteric Buddhism in Anyue and its broader connections with religious practices and artistic traditions in other regions of China.

Publication highlights (Q4 2025): Papers by GCBS members in T’oung Pao, JEACS, and Journal of Chinese Religions

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 methodological diversity and scholarly depth of current research at the GCBS and contributes to ongoing debates in Buddhist and Chinese studies. Below, we briefly present each publication in turn.

Revisiting Huairang: The Fragments of the Baolin zhuan Preserved in the Keitoku dentō shōroku and Their Implications for Tang-Song Chan Historiography

Author: Laurent Van Cutsem

T’oung Pao

Volume 111: Issue 5-6

Online Publication Date: 16 Dec 2025

Publisher: Brill

Pages: 584–662

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685322-11105003

The Baolin zhuan 寶林傳 is a cornerstone in the formation of Chan historiography, yet it survives today only in two incomplete historical textual witnesses. Its tenth and final fascicle, likely covering the lives and teachings of Huineng 慧能 (638–713) and his first- and second-generation successors, is lost. Building on earlier Japanese scholarship, Shiina Kōyū 椎名宏雄 further identified and explored fragments of this missing fascicle preserved in five later works. This article examines the fragments concerning Huairang 懷讓 (d. 744) preserved in the Keitoku dentō shōroku 景德傳燈鈔錄 and investigates the influence of the Baolin zhuan’s account on Chan historiography in the Five Dynasties and early Song periods.

Keywords: Nanyue Huairang; Chan/Zen Buddhism; Buddhist historiography; Baolin zhuan; Zutang ji; Jingde chuandeng lu; Tiansheng guangdeng lu; Keitoku dentō shōroku

The Dynamics of Chinese Buddhism in the Ming and Qing: Social Network Analysis Based on a Combined Dataset

Author: Mariia Lepneva

Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies

Volume 6, Issue 2

Online Publication Date: 29 December 2025

pp. 77–99

https://doi.org/10.25365/jeacs.2025.6.2.lepneva

The revival of Buddhism during the late Ming and early Qing has long captivated scholarly interest. Recently, a significant methodological advancement has emerged through the application of social network analysis, leverag-ing the extensive “Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism” dataset. This paper seeks to further refine scholarly understanding of this revitalisation by incorporating monks of the Vinaya tradition, largely absent from the original dataset. To achieve this, it proposes an innovative approach that integrates period-specific data from the original dataset with newly collected data. The analysis corroborates scholarly emphasis on the centrality of Chan master Miyun Yuanwu 密雲圓悟 (1567–1642) in the late Ming, employing both degree and betweenness centrality. However, the integration of the Vinaya segment reconfigures the arrangement of Chan lineages vis-à-vis the High Qing imperial cluster, providing new perspectives on the early Qing and eighteenth century, particularly emphasising the role of Vinaya monks who served as Mount Baohua (Baohua shan 寶華山) abbots. These findings underscore the significance of the Vinaya tradition through quantitative metrics, enhancing scholarly understanding of the history of the Buddhist community during this period.

Exploring the Cultural Perceptions and Symbolism of Tonsure in Early Buddhist China

Author: Massimiliano Portoghese

Journal of Chinese Religions

Volume 53, Number 2

Online Date: December 2025

pp. 185-212

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2025.a975819

The practice of tonsure, an essential component of Buddhist ordination rituals, faced significant disapproval from Chinese society from the very advent of Buddhism in China. Beginning in the Han dynasty, shaving one’s head emerged as a powerful marker of identity that challenged established etiquette norms and directly opposed the state’s control over ceremonial practices. This article aims to explain why, among the various Indian customs that entered China, the act of shaving the head became such a contentious issue. To achieve this, it will first analyze the arguments both for and against monastic tonsure that are found in Buddhist apologetic sources. Additionally, the article will attempt to place this specific body modification in the broader cultural context of hair in pre-Buddhist China in order to explore several perspectives beyond the well-known charge of monastics lacking the virtue of filial piety.

Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Mengqiu Tian in Dunhuang, Septemeber-October, 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 Buddhist art and visual culture along the Silk Road, renowned above all for the Mogao cave complex and its exceptionally rich corpus of mural paintings spanning several centuries. Between September and October this year, I conducted two months of fieldwork in Dunhuang, supported by an FWO Long Stay Abroad grant, with the primary aim of studying mural representations of Maitreya’s paradise dating from the eighth to the tenth centuries, with particular attention to compositions that incorporate narrative vignettes from the Buddha’s life.

The core of my research was carried out at the Mogao Grottoes, supplemented by a one-day research visit to the Yulin Grottoes. During my stay, I commuted daily by shuttle bus between my apartment in Dunhuang city and the Dunhuang Academy. Mornings were typically devoted to on-site examination of murals, often conducted in collaboration with a colleague from the Institute of Archaeology at the Dunhuang Academy, while afternoons were spent consulting secondary literature and visual materials at the Academy’s library. I benefited greatly from the library’s outstanding holdings, which include a remarkably rich collection of monographs, journals, painting albums, and manuscript reproductions related to Dunhuang Buddhist art and cave temples.

Beyond access to primary materials and research infrastructure, the Dunhuang Academy also offers an excellent platform for international scholarly exchange. During my stay, I participated in several academic activities, including The Workshop on New Directions in the Study of Silk Road Material Culture, jointly organized by the Dunhuang Academy and Fudan University. I also visited The First Exhibition of Reproductions of Dunhuang Polychrome Sculpture and delivered a lecture entitled “Chinese influence on the 絵過去現在因果経 (Illustrated Sūtra of Cause and Effect in the Past and Present).” These activities allowed me to engage with specialists from a wide range of disciplines, thereby not only deepening my expertise in Buddhist art history but also broadening my scholarly perspective.

In sum, this fieldwork period proved to be immensely productive. The combination of direct engagement with mural material, access to exceptional research resources, and opportunities for academic exchange has laid a solid foundation for future publications, and I am confident that the research conducted in Dunhuang will lead to concrete scholarly outcomes in the near future.

New member: Xiaoming Hou

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 exegetical traditions. Her current FWO-funded project, Visualizing Doctrine: A Study of Exegetical Diagrams in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (8th–10th Centuries), examines exegetical diagrams (fenmen tu 分門圖 and kewen 科文) from Dunhuang and their role in the transmission of scholastic knowledge. It investigates how diagrammatic and material practices shaped scholastic reasoning and pedagogical methods in local Buddhist communities, reframing these diagrams as epistemological tools situated between text and image.

She received her Ph.D. in 2022 from EPHE/PSL (École Pratique des Hautes Études/Université Paris Sciences et Lettres) in Paris, Department of Religions and Systems of Thought. Her doctoral thesis, Pratiquer le bouddhisme en chinois: traduction et reconstruction des enseignements sur la méditation bouddhique du IIe au VIe siècles en Chine, explores the interdependent dynamics between meditation and exegesis in early medieval China.

Fieldwork of GCBS researcher Mariia Lepneva in Vietnam, December 1-6, 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 identified a work by an abbot of Baohua Mountain—the site I am studying in my ongoing FWO postdoctoral project on its transformation into a new center of the Vinaya tradition in China—that was long considered lost in China but has been preserved in Vietnam. I also discovered early editions of two additional Vinaya texts, as well as another Vinaya commentary written in Nanjing in the seventeenth century.

Entrance of the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies

Library of the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies

On December 4, I delivered a talk at the Trần Nhân Tông Institute—a research institute dedicated to Chán studies under the umbrella of Vietnam National University. In her lecture, she introduced the activities of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, presented an overview of her research project, and highlighted the crucial role of Vietnam in the regional circulation and preservation of Buddhist texts.

On December 5, I visited two monasteries in Hanoi. Chùa Quán Sứ (舘使寺) is famous for its repository of Buddhist text, and Chùa Bà Đá ̣̣(formerly known as Linh Quang tự 靈光寺), where a number of Buddhist texts that I am interested in was printed in the nineteenth century. My last day in Vietnam, December 6, was dedicated to fieldwork in Hải Phòng, a major port city in the northern part of the country, kindly arranged by my host Dr. Nguyễn Tô Lan (), Institute of Philosophy, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. In the morning, we visited Phúc Lâm Tự (福林寺), a monastery that preserves a remarkable set of sutra woodblocks. We also stopped by the Haiphong City Museum as well as two nearby communal houses, which served roles similar to city god temples (城隍庙) and functioned as local council halls where community affairs were traditionally decided. In the afternoon, we traveled to one more Buddhist monastery Khánh Vân Tự (慶雲寺)—better known as Chùa Quảng Luận—where we had a meaningful and engaging conversation with Venerable Thích Quảng Nghĩa.

Observing a prayer in the monastery Chùa Quán Sứ, Hanoi.

Sutra woodblocks at Phúc Lâm Tự, Haiphong

Buddha statue at the monastery Chùa Quảng Luận, Haiphong

Discussion with Venerable Thích Quảng Nghĩa at the monastery Chùa Quảng Luận, Haiphong

Guest lecture “The Last Words of a God-King: A Corpus of Tibetan Buddhist Narrative Histories” by Dr. Reinier Langelaar, November 25, 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 ERC-funded project “Corpora in Greater Gandhāra: Tracing the development of Buddhist textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan manuscript networks in the first millennium CE” at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title: The Last Words of a God-King: A Corpus of Tibetan Buddhist Narrative Histories

Speaker: Dr. Reinier Langelaar (IKGA, Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Timing: Nov 25, 2025 @ 17.00 CET

Location: Faculteitszaal, Blandijn
Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte
Blandijnberg 2
9000 Gent

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:

This lecture will present a highly influential corpus of Buddhist historiographies, composed and expanded upon from perhaps the 12th c. CE onward. These works are attributed, as so-called ‘treasure texts,’ to the 7th-c. emperor Songtsen ‘the Profound’ (Tib. srong-btsan sgam-po), himself claimed to be an emanation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. This corpus constitutes a literary meeting ground for a series of pivotal developments in the realm of Tibetan Buddhist religion, political philosophy, and perceptions of Tibet and its people at large. Weaving compelling tales of Tibetan society’s history, it played a central role in formulating and propagating understandings of Tibet as a Buddhist realm under Avalokiteśvara’s special protection. Though eminently focused on Tibet, these works are also embedded in interregional webs of cultural exchange, potentially drawing inspiration from Indian sūtra literature, Newari Buddhism, Chinese and Khotanese notions of bodhisattva kingship, and more. This talk will introduce this body of works, discuss the particular text-historical and methodological challenges it presents, and show what we may hope to gain from its study.

Bio:

Reinier Langelaar is a researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS). His research interests include religious history, pre-modern ethnic identity, religious history, as well as kinship and genealogy. His work has employed historical, text-critical, ethnographic and comparative methods, and has appeared in journals such as Inner Asia, The Medieval History Journal, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. At present, he is key researcher in the FWF-funded Cluster of Excellence ‘EurAsian Transformations.’ In 2025, he was awarded an ERC starting grant for the project FOUNT: ‘The Narrative Foundations of Tibetan Buddhism,’ to be hosted at the AAS (2026-31).

Guest lecture “Sustaining Digital Heritage Beyond Funding: Building on the DiGA Project” by Jessie Pons, November 20, 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 the ERC-funded project “Corpora in Greater Gandhāra: Tracing the development of Buddhist textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan manuscript networks in the first millennium CE” at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title: Sustaining Digital Heritage Beyond Funding: Building on the DiGA Project

Speakers: Prof. Jessie Pons (CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

&co.:
Serena Autiero (Thammasat University, Bangkok), Frederik Elwert (CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Cristiano Moscatelli (Independent Researcher), Abdul Samad (KPDOAM)

Time: Nov 20, 2025 @ 17.00 CET

Location: Faculteitszaal, Blandijn
faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte
Blandijnberg 2
9000 Gent

All are welcome. The Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series is in-person and hybrid online. Please register for the series through this Google Form.

Abstract:
From 2021 to 2024, the DiGA project (“Digitization of Gandharan Artefacts: A project for the preservation and study of the Buddhist art from Pakistan”) documented a collection of approximately 1,500 Gandharan sculptures preserved at the Dir Museum in Chakdara, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP), Pakistan. These sculptures originated from a dozen archaeological sites in the Shah-kot/Talash zone (around present-day Chakdara), excavated by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, KP, and the Department of Archaeology at Peshawar University in the 1960s and 1970s. As one of the few Gandharan sculptural corpora with established archaeological provenance, this collection provides a solid foundation for reassessing key questions in Gandhara studies, particularly regarding the history of Buddhism on the right bank of Swat River. The database of the collection is now available on the heidICON platform, ready to lend itself to exciting research avenues.

With the project officially coming to an end, however, new questions emerge: how can such a project remain active and relevant beyond its institutional and financial framework? How can its data continue to be curated, enriched, and mobilized for research and public engagement once the funding period ends? This presentation will report some of the project’s activities in the post-funding phase. It will share results from recent research based on the DiGA corpus, sketch the outline of a research program building on the project’s legacy, and discuss ongoing initiatives with KPDOAM on community engagement. Ultimately, this talk invites reflection on the broader question of how digital heritage projects can evolve sustainably once their formal lifecycle has ended.

Bios:
Jessie Pons (CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum):
Jessie Pons is Professor for the History of South Asian Religions at the Center for Religions Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Trained as an art historian, Jessie Pons explores how religion and art intersect and how material objects shape religious communication, lived experiences, and scholarly interpretation.

Serena Autiero (Thammasat University, Bangkok):
Serena Autiero is an archaeologist and material culture historian. She is currently a researcher at Thammasat University. Her research interests include cultural exchange in Afroeurasia in pre-modern times, globalization studies, and a special focus on the Indian Ocean World. She authored several publications in international journals and co-edited Globalization and Transculturality from Antiquity to the Pre-Modern World for Routledge.

Frederik Elwert (CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum):
Frederik Elwert is associate professor at the Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum. His background is in religious studies and sociology. He has applied digital humanities methodologies in different areas of the study of religions.

Cristiano Moscatelli (Independent Researcher):
Cristiano Moscatelli specialises in Gandharan studies. His research interests focus on Buddhist visual and material culture and on the interactions between Buddhism and local religious systems in the ancient north-western Indian subcontinent. In addition to his work with DiGA, he was a research fellow with the eartHeritage project – A cultural rescue initiative for earthen heritage, investigating clay and stucco Buddhist sculpture from Central Asia through the development of a digital database for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of archaeological data.

Abdul Samad (KPDOAM):
Abdul Samad is Secretary of Tourism, Culture, Archaeology and Museums, Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Pakistan as well as Director General of Archaeology & Museums KP. He has two decades of experience in South Asian archaeology, history, and culture, extensively exploring Pakistan’s rich heritage, focusing particularly on the Gandhara and Kalash civilizations. As the Director of the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he has led numerous initiatives to preserve and promote the cultural legacy of KP through national and international Projects.