Prof. Johan Elverskog
Thursday April 26, 2012 04:15 -05:45 PM Stanford Humanities Center Levinthal Hall
Abstract: The meeting of Buddhism and Islam is often conceived within a single moment, namely, the Turkic destruction of the famous monastery Nalanda, which purportedly ushered in the demise of Buddhism in India. And no doubt one reason this single event has come to symbolize the on-going 1300 year process of Buddhist-Muslim interaction lies in the fact that it readily confirms our preconceived imaginings: Islam is bad and violent, while Buddhism is good and peaceful. Yet clearly it was not so simple. The aim of this talk is therefore to problematize this image by exploring the cultural exchanges that took place between Buddhists and Muslims on the Silk Road.
Professor Elverskog's book on the subject is extremely interesting:
Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (Philadelphia and Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).
See my review notice in _The Silk Road_, Vol. 8 (2010), pp. 133-134, which can be accessed on line via the link at http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/toc/newsletter.html.
Dan Waugh
