2016 - 2017

0687-4475-01
  Buddhist Texts Along the Silk Road                                                                   
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Roy TzoharGilman-humanities260Tue1600-2000 Sem  1
 
 
University credit hours:  4.0

Course description
The seminar examines the way in which Buddhist texts were composed and distributed, along with other intellectual and material commodities, along the central Asian trading routes. As a case study we will focus on the Kuṣāṇa empire, which at its height extended from Turfan in modern day Xinjiang to the Gangetic plain, controlling the trade routes which connected the Roman empire with South, central and East Asia. During the seminar we will read selections from a variety of primary texts, including some Mahāyāna sūtras, Buddhist philosophical treatises, and the poetic works of Aśvaghoṣa, and on the basis of textual evidence, archeological findings and iconography will discuss the political, economic, linguist and religious context under which the Kuṣāṇas operated.

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