[INDOLOGY] "Economic Class in Early South Asian Buddhism: Perspectives from Epigraphy and the Divyāvadāna" Matthew D. Milligan, March 30, 2021

[Charles DiSimone]

Dear Friends,

With all apologies for crossposting, but this should be of interest to some
folk on the list. Below please find information on the third lecture
in the Ghent
Center for Buddhist Studies <http://www.cbs.ugent.be/node/1> Spring Lecture
Series (Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies (PTBS)) generously sponsored
by the Tianzhu Foundation. Matthew D. Milligan Trinity University (San
Antonio, TX) will give a lecture on March 30, 2021 at 19.00 Belgian
time. All lectures in this series will be held remotely over Zoom.
Interested parties are welcome to attend the series or individual talks. To
get the Zoom link, please register by writing to CBS at ugent.be *by the
morning *of March 30. The link will be sent out the day of the talk.

With my kind regards,

Charles DiSimone


*Economic Class in Early South Asian Buddhism: Perspectives from Epigraphy
and the Divyāvadāna*


*Matthew D. Milligan Trinity University (San Antonio, TX)*

To date, most studies of classical South Asian Buddhist demographics have
focused on varṇa and conversion, mercantile professions, and, more
recently, finally, on gender. Unfortunately, even when scholars have turned
their gaze onto demographics they have primarily relied upon anachronistic
and generalized readings of literature and/or century old tabulations of
inscriptions. As far as I can tell, there have been no attempts to
critically examine economic class through close readings of texts and
historical documents together. In this paper, I will evaluate the
definition of “economic class,” decouple it from classical Sanskrit
concepts of idealized varṇa, and introduce some new data from texts and
inscriptions to examine the lived realities of “class" from approximately
300 BCE until at least the 5th c. CE when the *Divyāvadāna* was composed.

*Bio*

Matthew D. Milligan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity University
in San Antonio, TX. He is also a Harwood Research Fellow at the American
Institute for Economic Research. He works on the intersections of Buddhism,
Economics, and Philology and has published numerous articles on the
economic history of Buddhism in South Asia. In addition to forthcoming
articles in the *Journal of Contemporary Religion *and *South Asian Studies*,
he is completing a book manuscript titled *Of Rags and Riches: The
Disruptive Business of Early Buddhism*. His latest project involves
decolonizing the field of engaged Buddhist Economics in the United States.

Dr. Charles DiSimone
Department of Languages and Cultures
Ghent University


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