From the Periphery to the Centre
Buddhist Innovations and Networks across Mediaeval Maritime Asia
Will be published approx. on 15. October 2026
Book
Hardback
978-90-04-75868-1 (ISBN)
Description
The navigation skills of monsoon sailing brought unprecedented interactions of ideas, cultures, and horizons across Buddhist Asia in the mediaeval period. The interconnected seaways from the Bay of Bengal through the South China Sea to the Sea of Japan underpin a variegated intellectual framework of political, artistic, architectural, and religious thought and practice that drew in travelling monks from disparate locales to take Buddhism beyond the monastic cloisters of the Indian subcontinent. The geographical pivot of this mobile network was the southeastern corner of Asia, with its flatlands and massifs, rivers and volcanoes, coasts and islands. What had been regarded by an early generation of colonial and post-colonial scholars as the peripheral or transit zone between the ancient cultural powerhouses of the regions roughly coinciding with the nation-states of 'India' and 'China', became in the 8th to the 14th centuries a flourishing centre of innovation and creativity in ritual, architecture, and iconography.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
ISBN-13
978-90-04-75868-1 (9789004758681)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Andrea Acri (Ph.D. Leiden University) is Associate Professor of Tantric Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE, PSL University) in Paris. His research focuses on Saiva and Buddhist tantric traditions in South and Southeast Asia, examining textual and artistic remains, their circulation along the maritime routes, and how they have been adapted in local contexts. He is Principal Investigator of the ERC project MANTRATANTRAM (2024-2029).
Peter D. Sharrock (BA Cantab, PhD SOAS) is the board member of the SOAS-Alphawood Group directing relations with Regional Partners, Summer Programmes, Publications and Alumni Liaison. He researches the art history of the Angkorian Khmer Empire and Vietnam to uncover the paradigm shift effected by Buddhists in the early states of Maritime Asia from the 9th to the 14th century.
Peter D. Sharrock (BA Cantab, PhD SOAS) is the board member of the SOAS-Alphawood Group directing relations with Regional Partners, Summer Programmes, Publications and Alumni Liaison. He researches the art history of the Angkorian Khmer Empire and Vietnam to uncover the paradigm shift effected by Buddhists in the early states of Maritime Asia from the 9th to the 14th century.