Workshops on the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Statuary - Day 1

Register here for Day 1

Register here for Day 2

Recent archeological excavations undertaken by the Shaanxi Archaeological Academy have uncovered the two so far earliest Buddhist statues in China. Uncovered from an Eastern Han-period (23-220 CE) family tomb, they predate other early pieces of free-standing Chinese Buddhist statuary by approximately 200 years. Although they appear to have been locally produced, their stylistic features display marked similarities to the Gandhāran art from present-day northwestern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The discovery of these startling new statues thus brings into question established chronologies of the development of Buddha images across Asia, and it points to early Inner Asian networks of trade and religious exchange that have received little scholarly attention so far.

This workshop consists of two parts. On Day 1, the Center for Chinese Studies and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA will host an archeological presentation by the director of the Shaanxi Archaeological Academy, Dr. Sun Zhouyong, and his team of excavators, followed by a podium discussion centered on the archaeological, art-historical, and historical context of the newly discovered statues. On Day 2, a roundtable hosted by the Center for Buddhist Studies at UCLA will bring together a diverse group of specialists to discuss what these newly-excavated pieces of statuary mean for the study of Buddhism and Buddhist art.

Day 1: February 24, 2022 @ 4pm PST; February 25, 2022 @ 8am CST
Day 2: February 25, 2022 @ 4pm PST; February 26, 2022 @ 8am CST


Day 1: Archeological Presentation Participants

Sun Zhouyong (director of the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Archaeology) is a specialist in prehistoric and Bronze Age archaeology.

Li Ming (deputy director of the Yangling Imperial Mausoleum Museum) specializes on Sui-Tang epigraphy and archaeology.

Zhao Zhanrui (research fellow of the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Archaeology)
is field archaeologist specializing on Sui-Tang mortuary archaeology

Lothar von Falkenhausen (Distinguished Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History) works on archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age, focusing on ritual and economic archaeology as well as trans-Asiatic contacts.

Minku Kim (Assistant Professor of Art History, Chinese University of Hong Kong) specializes on China between the Han and Six Dynasties (206 BCE-589 CE), particularly in relation to Buddhism.

He Yanxiao (PhD candidate in Ancient History, University of Chicago) works on social and cultural history of Greek Central Asia, relationship between Rome and the east, history writing in the ancient world.

Li Min (Associate Professor of East Asian Archaeology, UCLA) works on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age archeology of China, ritual landscape and material culture

Day 2: Roundtable in Buddhist Studies Participants

Robert L. Brown is Professor of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at the University of California Los Angeles and Curator in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Eric Greene is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University and publishes widely on Chinese Buddhism in its earliest phase of development.

Sonya Lee is Associate Professor of Chinese Art and Visual Cultures at the University of Southern California, where she also holds a joint appointment in Art History, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Religion.

Diego Loukota is Assistant Professor of Indian and Central Asian Buddhism in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California Los Angeles and is also the Inner Asian Section Chair for the American Oriental Society.

Wannaporn Rienjang is Lecturer in the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology at Thammasat University. Trained in archeology and Gandharan Studies, she is a Project Consultant for the Gandhara Connections Project at the University of Oxford.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies