Table of Contents
- NEW PROGRAM> Summer School in Buddhist
Text Translation - University of Vienna - Sept. 15–26, 2014
- NEW BOOK> China and Beyond in the
Mediaeval Period: Cultural Crossings and Inter-Regional Connections, by
Wong and Heldt
Dear Colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to the
upcoming Khyentse Foundation Summer School in Buddhist Text Translation
'Translating the Buddhist Canon' at the University of Vienna. Best regards,
Gregory
Translating the Buddhist
Canon
Summer School in Buddhist
Text Translation
University of Vienna
Sponsored by the Khyentse Foundation Buddhist Translation
Studies (BTS) Program at the University of Vienna
Sept. 15–26, 2014
The two disseminations of Buddhism to Tibet witnessed a massive and
unprecedented transfer of Indian ideas and practices into a new linguistic and
cultural domain, which was in large part made possible through the efforts of
skilled translators. In the past few decades Buddhism has begun to move again,
this time remarkably to the foreign western world, where it is presenting many
challenges to those attempting to render its texts into their native languages.
In the course we will explore and attempt to find solutions to some of these
challenges by increasing our awareness of the theoretical issues involved and
by actively practising and honing our translation skills. The focus will be on
Mahāyāna, especially Madhyamaka compositions, but will also take into
consideration the early and Conservative Buddhist texts cited within them.
Course Instructor: Dr. Anne MacDonald (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Language of instruction: English
Prerequisites: 4 semesters Sanskrit and/or Tibetan
Course Fee: none
Accommodation: on request
Application Deadline:
Sept 12, 2014
Contact: Dr. Anne MacDonald
anne.macdonald@oeaw.ac.at
China and Beyond in the Mediaeval Period: Cultural Crossings and
Inter-Regional Connections
by Dorothy C. Wong and Gustav Heldt
Description
*This book is in the Cambria
World Sinophone Series
(General editor: Victor H. Mair)
For table of contents and other details, see the publisher's website at:
http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=599
This volume examines China’s contacts with neighboring cultures in Central,
South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia, as well as contacts among those cultures
from the beginning of the Common Era to the tenth century and beyond. During
this period, transregional and crosscultural exchanges were fostered by both
peaceful and aggressive activities and movements of peoples across Eurasia
along land and maritime routes. Such movements played an important role in
world history in the medieval period, and yet many aspects of cultural
exchanges across Eurasia remain understudied. The lack of knowledge is
particularly evident in treatments of Chinese history between the Han and Tang
empires. Examining relations with neighboring cultures during this period calls
into question notions of China as a monolithic cultural entity.
During the period covered in this volume, cultural contacts and exchanges
were fostered by both peaceful and aggressive activities and movements of
peoples along land and maritime routes of the so-called Silk Road. From the
earliest recorded times, the Silk Road was a channel for the transmission of
ideas, technologies, and artistic forms and styles across Eurasia, with
far-reaching impact from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Despite the centrality of exchange and hybridization to the history of
medieval East Asia, many aspects of its connections beyond China cultures and
history remain understudied. Similar, there is a lack of comprehensive
knowledge of the period between the Han and Tang empires in Chinese history. In
examining China’s relations with neighboring cultures during this period in
particular, this book does not begin with the usual monolithic and
stereotypical notion of China being an enduring and coherent cultural entity.
Rather, through the close analysis presented in each chapter, this study
expands the scope of inquiry to examine the mechanisms and contents of cultural
exchanges, and the fertile byproducts of these exchanges.
Perhaps one of the most notable mediaeval phenomena that created shared cultural
spheres across linguistic and political boundaries was the transmission of such
religious faiths as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Manichaenism
and Nestorianism. Buddhism’s spread eastward from India to finally become a
religion adopted in all of Asia had an especially significant impact on many
countries. In this sense, the Eurasian interactions can be considered common to
a medieval world interwoven by religion.
The twenty-one chapters reveal transmissions, transgressions, syntheses,
accommodations, and transformations that occurred when peoples and cultures
came into contact with one another. They explore the motivations for the
movements of peoples and goods—trade, war, diplomacy, acquisition of culture
and knowledge (and sometimes of talent), and evangelical Buddhism. They also
analyze the impacts of these exchanges through study of the artefacts,
concepts, technologies, and practices associated with these interactions from a
multidisciplinary perspective.
The focused study of the individual authors, each from her or his
disciplinary training (art history, cultural studies, history, literary
studies, religious studies, history of science, etc.), sheds light on the
crossing of boundaries of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and sometimes
temporal distance. Whether it is Tang China, Yamato Japan, Viking Sweden, or
Zoroastrian Central Asia, however, each chapter highlights the prominent place
of cultural crossings as both inter-regional movements and the fertile products
they produced.
Given that the expertise from a breadth of disciplines, this unique
interdisciplinary book will enjoy an equally broad readership of students,
teachers, and researchers engaged in comparative approaches to the history and
culture of Medieaval Eurasia at large.
