Events

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Michael Feener, Asia Research Institute and Department of History, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

We know the contemporary Buddhist world of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma as one characterized by strong connections, and considerable awareness of a shared orientation towards particular authoritative texts and monastic traditions. Yet the historical processes that have produced such links, as well as self-consciousness among Buddhists about participating in a shared world of “Theravadin Buddhism,” remain quite poorly understood. This seminar addresses an important formative period for this Buddhist region, 1100 to 1500. Scholarly commonsense about this period of Buddhist mobility and transmission rests on problematic evidence, as the seminar will explain briefly. But what, then, can we say about 2nd-millennium connections and exchanges within this South and Southeast Asian Buddhist region? Drawing on recent research, Anne M. Blackburn will indicate what trade history teaches us about monks on the move in maritime Asia, and will propose some ways of understanding the importance of Lankan (now Sri Lankan) Buddhist connections in historical centers such as Pegu (Bago), Ayutthaya, and Chiang Mai.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Anne Blackburn is Professor of South Asia Studies and Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University. She taught at the University of South Carolina before joining Cornell’s faculty. She received her BA from Swarthmore College, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago.

Prof Blackburn studies Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, with a special interest in Buddhist monastic culture and Buddhist participation in networks linking Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia before and during colonial presence in the region. Her publications include Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture (Princeton, 2001), Approaching the Dhamma: Buddhist Texts and Practices in South and Southeast Asia, co-edited with A/Prof Jeffrey Samuels(BPS Pariyatti Editions, 2003), and Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka (Chicago, 2010). She is working on a new project, Monks, Texts, and Relics: Towards a Connected History of 2nd-Millennium Buddhisms in Southern Asia. Recently, she co-organized (with A/Prof Michael Feener) a workshop on “Orders and Itineraries: Buddhist, Islamic and Christian Networks in Southeast Asia, c. 900-1900,” held at the Asia Research Institute.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg