Please join us for our third event of three this spring, featuring discussions of recent titles in South Asian Studies via Zoom webinar:

BUDDHIST-INFLECTED SOVEREIGNTIES ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN: THE PALI ARENA, 1200–1550

ON ZOOM, registration required. Register here:  https://dartmouth.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bQrgUfm9QoSNOFlQjqclAQ

Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties across the Indian Ocean draws attention to the varied, historically contingent, and sometimes competing, arguments for and about sovereignty that operated in the Pali arena during the first half of the second millennium AD. It was a time of expanding interaction within the Indian Ocean just prior to Portuguese colonial presence in Southern Asia. Developing a linked series of case studies and examining territories now subsumed within the nation-states of Sri Lanka, Burma/Myanmar, and Thailand, Blackburn examines sovereign arguments expressed textually, as well as in the built environment, by persons with an interest in the teachings and institutions associated with Gotama Buddha. These cases show that no single model of Buddhist-inflected sovereignty dominated the Pali arena during this time, and that there was no stable vision of “Buddhist kingship.” Rather, over time, there was an accrual of possible models and pathways for argumentation about how sovereigns could and should relate to buddha-sāsana. Taking inspiration from diverse sources transmitted through multiple forms and media, arguments for and about sovereignty in the Pali arena were contested and rapidly changing. As the Indian Ocean increasingly shaped the flow of people, objects, and ideas, more peoples and territories participated in the Pali arena, attracted by its intellectual and aesthetic resources.

Speaker 

Anne Blackburn, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Cornell University

Commentators

Azfar Moin, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, University of Texas, Austin

Philip Friedrich, Independent Scholar

Moderator

MK Long, Lecturer in Religion, Dartmouth College

SPONSORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ASIAN SOCIETIES, CULTURES AND LANGUAGES & THE BODAS FAMILY SOUTH ASIA PROGRAMMING FUNDS AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE