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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!

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.

On 3 March 2026, members of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, Prof. Anna Andreeva and Prof. Andreas Niehaus, will deliver two lectures—“Japanese–Belgian/Ghent Relations” and “Japanese Art Objects in Belgium”—as part of the Japan Lecture Café Series 2026. The lecture series is organized on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of friendship between Japan and Belgium and brings together scholars and the wider public to reflect on the long-standing cultural and historical connections between the two countries.

Within the framework of this series, the East Asia Platform, in cooperation with Ghent University’s Institute for Japanese Studies (Department of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy), is organizing five lunchtime lectures in the Sint-Baafshuis (Kapel) in the city centre of Ghent. The first lecture took place on 10 February. Each session runs from 12:00 to 14:00 and consists of a one-hour lecture in the Kapel, followed by a one-hour networking reception in the Foyer. The events are held at Kapittelstraat, 9000 Ghent, and offer an opportunity for academic exchange as well as informal discussion.

On February 18, 2026, early career researchers of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies participated in a meeting with Aike Rots, Professor of East Asian Religions at the University of Oslo. The discussion was moderated by GCBS member Dr. Paride Stortini. Professor Rots introduced his current and upcoming externally funded projects, including the ERC Consolidator Grant project Maritime Goddesses: Transnational Connections, Blue Environments, and Ritual Care in East and Southeast Asia (MARGO; 2026–2031), and Coastal Lives in Flux: Environmental Crisis, Resistance, and Ritual Innovation Across Asia (CLiF; 2026–2030), funded by the Norwegian Research Council (FRIPRO). Earlier in his career, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant for the project Whales of Power: Aquatic Mammals, Devotional Practices, and Environmental Change in Maritime East Asia (WhoP; 2019–2025), which is now resulting in a monograph. He is also the author of Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan: Making Sacred Forests (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Drawing on his extensive experience with competitive funding, Professor Rots shared practical advice on writing strong grant proposals, especially for applicants to the European Research Council grants and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowships. He noted that one common pitfall is that proposals can become too heavy with theory or specialized jargon, making it difficult for reviewers to clearly grasp the core idea of the project. Clear and straightforward language helps reviewers quickly understand what the project is about and why it matters. He also encouraged applicants to make sure they are proposing a project they truly want to carry out and can realistically complete within the given timeframe.

Professor Rots further emphasized the importance of being concrete about how time and funding will be used. A strong proposal should clearly describe planned activities, such as research tasks, collaboration with PhD students or postdoctoral researchers, fieldwork, and publication strategies, including open-access dissemination where relevant. For individual fellowships in particular, it is crucial to demonstrate a good fit with the host institution and supervisors, and to explain how both sides will benefit from the collaboration. He also suggested reading successful proposals when possible and politely asking colleagues for advice, while respecting confidentiality.

The meeting concluded with an extended Q&A session, during which participants discussed their own project ideas and raised practical questions about application procedures. The exchange provided valuable insights and inspiration for researchers preparing future grant applications.

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.

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.

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.

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.