[INDOLOGY] Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series: Ashwini Lakshminarayanan “Visualising Rituals in Gandhāra” June 5, 2025

[Charles DiSimone]

Dear Friends,

I am pleased to announce the first speaker in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture
Series, an ongoing guest speaker series that is part of the ERC funded Gandhāra
Corpora Project
<https://research.flw.ugent.be/en/projects/corpora-greater-gandh%C4%81ra-tracing-development-buddhist-textuality-and-gilgitbamiyan>
.

*Title:* Visualising Rituals in Gandhara

*Speaker:* Ashwini Lakshminarayanan
<https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/lakshminarayanana>, Cardiff University

*Timing:* Thursday, June 05, 2025 @16.00

*Location:* Ghent University, Faculteitszaal, Blandijn faculteit Letteren
en Wijsbegeerte (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent)

In-person and ONLINE

All are welcome. Please register for the series through this Google Form:
https://forms.gle/TwffQCPuVipUpMvk6
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforms.gle%2FTwffQCPuVipUpMvk6&data=05%7C02%7CMariia.Lepneva%40UGent.be%7C3cb6c468031b4ded2a9608dd8d77ac53%7Cd7811cdeecef496c8f91a1786241b99c%7C1%7C0%7C638822267736942779%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gyiWO1MB0D0%2FKOT1qkbWj7F%2BZXjoz5YIwt1veZUFPsE%3D&reserved=0>

Details may also be found here
<https://www.cbs.ugent.be/guestlecture/guest-lecture-visualising-rituals-in-gandhara-by-ashwini-lakshminarayanan-june-05-2025/>
.

*Abstract:*

It has long been recognised that the bases of Buddha and Bodhisattva schist
statues from the ancient region of Gandhāra depict to some extent scenes
that echo ritual practices that were normative for the region. While they
have been the focus of sporadic assessments in the last decades, this paper
is a systematic analysis of statue bases coming from ancient Gandhāra, a
region located in the Northwest part of the Indic subcontinent, within the
wider context of Gāndhārī donative inscriptions and Chinese travelogues.
Dating broadly from the second century CE onwards, the statues bases, this
paper argues, were a new venue to visually reinforce the ritual efficacy.
As part of the systematic analysis, this talk showcases a work in progress,
shedding light on the conventions used on statue bases and the actions of
figures represented within them.

*Short bio:*

Dr Ashwini Lakshminarayanan is a Maria Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at
Cardiff University leading the project ‘GRAVE: Gandharan Relic rituals and
Veneration Explored’. This project analyses the visual material from
Gandhāra (present day Pakistan and Afghanistan between the 1st and the 4th
centuries CE) in its socio-religious context, focussing on contemporary
Gandhari relic donative inscriptions and later Chinese accounts of relic
veneration in the region. Besides rituals, Ashwini Lakshminarayanan’s work
also focuses on gender, multi-cultural and multi-religious interactions
within the Kushan kingdom.

*Looking ahead:*

I also take a moment to announce our next speaker, Lewis Doney (Bonn) who
will give a talk on June 10, 2025 titled: "A Corpus of Ritual Literature
from Dunhuang and its Links Further West". A separate announcement for this
talk will follow but those interested may simultaneously register via the
same link above.
[image: Lakshminarayan Poster.jpg]

Prof. Dr. Charles DiSimone
Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies & Indology
Department of Languages and Cultures
Ghent University
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