Durable Words: Inscriptions in South and Southeast Asia
16 November 2010
13:30-17:00 hrs.
Venue: Gravensteen, room 11, , Pieterskerkhof 6, Leiden
Convenor: Jonathan Silk
Programme:
13.30-14.15
Thomas Cruijsen - The Cult of the Buddhist Dhāraṇī Deity Mahāpratisarā: New iconographical and epigraphical attestations from the Indonesian archipelago (9th-10th c. CE)
14.15-15.00
Peter Bisschop - Epigraphical Records on Early Śaivism
15.00-15.30 Coffee/Tea break
15.30-16.15
Oskar von Hinüber - Images and Texts. New and Unknown Buddhist Inscriptions and their Contexts in Indian Culture
16.15-17.00
Kamaleswar Bhattacharya - The Future of the Sanskrit Epigraphy of Cambodia
13.30-14.15
Thomas Cruijsen
The Cult of the Buddhist Dhāraṇī Deity Mahāpratisarā: New iconographical and epigraphical attestations from the Indonesian archipelago (9th-10th c. CE)
It is only during recent years that the Buddhist dhāraṇī deity Mahāpratisarā has received serious scholarly interest, both in regard to her iconographical representations and to the body of literature that is related to her. In this presentation, new materials will be presented, hailing from the Indonesian archipelago, that further testify to her popularity in the medieval Buddhist world towards the end of the first millenium CE.
Thomas Cruijsen is a Research Masters student in Indian Studies at the University of Leiden, specialising in Indian Buddhism, currently involved in research on a Kharoṣṭhī manuscript (1st/2nd c. CE) containing a previously unknown Mahāyāna sūtra in Gāndhārī.
14.15-15.00
Peter Bisschop
Epigraphical Records on Early Śaivism
The prominent position of the Śaiva religious tradition among the royal houses of early-medieval Brahmanical kingdoms has become the subject of significant study in recent years. This presentation will reconsider a few epigraphical records from the preceding period (ca. 4th-6th centuries CE) to trace the initial rise of Śaivism in ancient India. Specific attention will be paid to the role and organisation of the Pāśupatas and uncertainties that still abound.
Peter Bisschop studied Philosophy with Indology at the University of Groningen, where he submitted his PhD thesis on Early Śaivism and the Skandapurāṇa: Sects and Centres in 2004. From 2004-2005 he was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, after which he was appointed Lecturer in Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh. In July 2010 he returned to the Netherlands to take up the Chair of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia at Leiden University. He is a member of the research team engaged in the critical edition of the Skandapurāṇa and publishes widely on different aspects of early Śaivism.
15.30-16.15
Oskar von Hinüber
Images and Texts. New and Unknown Buddhist Inscriptions and their Contexts in Indian Culture
The sites of Kanaganahalli, Deokothar and Phanagiri have recently yielded new materials of interest and importance for our evolving understanding of Indian Buddhism and its place in the larger Indian cultural frame. This illustrated presentation considers the importance of Buddhist (and other) inscriptions for culture history and attempts to point out a few new directions for future research.
Prof. Dr. Oskar von Hinüber (born 1939) held the professorship for indology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg i. Brsg, from 1981 to his retirement in 2006. He is member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, and corresponding member of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien. His main fields of research are middle indo-aryan historical linguistics, cultural history particularly of Indian Buddhism, epigraphy, inscriptions and manuscripts from Gilgit; palm-leave manuscript tradition in Siam.
16.15-17.00
Kamaleswar Bhattacharya
The Future of the Sanskrit Epigraphy of Cambodia
Qualitatively as well as quantitatively, the Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia (ancient Kambuja) are the most important in 'Sanskritized' Southeast Asia (Indo-China and Indonesia). Some of the longest and finest Sanskrit inscriptions, in poetic style, were written there, between the 5th and the 14th century of our era. The work on them began in Leyden, in the last quarter of the 19th century, with Hendrik Kern but, for historical reasons, soon became a French specialty, illustrated by Auguste Barth, Abel Bergaigne, Louis Finot, and George Coedès (1886-1969), who completed in 1966 the publication of his eight-volume Inscriptions du Cambodge, comprising both Sanskrit and Khmer inscriptions. Confining itself to Sanskrit, this lecture aims to show what still remains to be done.
Kamaleswar Bhattacharya was born in undivided India and studied in Calcutta, Paris, and at the Sanskrit University of Varanasi. Docteur ès Lettres, Paris, 1962. Retired as Directeur de Recherche (première classe) from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1996. Was also Visiting Professor at Brown University, Providence (USA), at the University of Toronto (Canada), at Visvabharati University, Santiniketan (India), at the Adyar Library and Research Centre, Madras (India), and, after his retirement, at the University of Bonn (Germany).
Please contact Ms. Sandra van der Horst, a.e.l.horst@iias.nl if you require further information.