[INDOLOGY] Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series: DANIEL STUART on Trayastriṃśa, April 22, 2026

[Charles DiSimone]

Dear Friends,

I am pleased to announce the next talk in the Gandhāra Corpora Lecture
Series, which will also be a talk in the Spring 2026 Permanent Training in
Buddhist Studies of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Title:
"The Contours of Paradise: Pleasure Gardens and Figurations of the Self in
the Heaven of the Thirty-Three"
Speaker:
*Prof. Daniel Stuart*, University of South Carolina/ Uni Hamburg

Timing:
Wednesday, April 22 @ 17.00 CET (please note this talk exceptionally occurs
on a Wednesday!)

Location:
Locaal 1.13  (1st Floor Classroom)
Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
9000 Gent, Belgium
(also online)

Abstract:
This presentation introduces newly edited Sanskrit material from a
manuscript of the *Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna*. This text contains the most
extensive surviving Sanskrit account of Buddhist cosmology. Likely composed
in Greater Gandhāra in the fourth century CE, it presents a visionary
narrative in which a Buddhist yogic practitioner experiences the five
realms of the cosmos: the human realm, hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals,
and deities. Focusing on descriptions of the heavenly realms within the
sphere of sensual desire, this talk explores how these depictions relate to
broader developments in Buddhist thought. In particular, it examines the
relationship between traditional cosmological models, emerging scholastic
taxonomies, visionary yogic practice, and conceptions of the
interpenetration of phenomena that became central to major strands of
Mahāyāna philosophy.

Bio:
Daniel M. Stuart is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious
Studies at the University of South Carolina and is currently a Visiting
Professor at the University of Hamburg under the auspices of the Alexander
von Humboldt Foundation. He holds an MA in Sanskrit Literature and a PhD in
Buddhist Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. He has
worked extensively on sūtra and narrative literature, śāstric texts, and
Buddhist manuscripts in various Asian languages and scripts. He works with
textual materials in Sanskrit, Pāli, Hindi, Gāndhārī, Buddhist Chinese and
literary Tibetan. His research focuses on the history of traditional
Buddhist contemplative practices from their origins in premodern South Asia
into the global present. He is the author of five books: Thinking about
Cessation (2013), A Less Traveled Path (2015), The Stream of Deathless
Nectar (2017), S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight (2020), and Insight in
Perspective (2024).

All are welcome. The Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series is in-person and
hybrid online. 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%7CCharles.DiSimone%40ugent.be%7Ce3757a7f934b49d4abd408de8c25cdd3%7Cd7811cdeecef496c8f91a1786241b99c%7C1%7C0%7C639102291413617398%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JDry9qvv3cFjZh40MLLV4sBQrUNTJbCQkGKEVU3cgD4%3D&reserved=0>

(registering once will ensure you will receive links to all future talks in
the series)

Please note some additional talks in the series scheduled in the next weeks

April 30 @17.00 CET
*Samara Broglia de Moura*: “New archaeological data on the extension of the
Kushan empire and post-Kushan groups in the Himalayan range”

May 7 @17.00 CET
*Alex Meng*: "Poet’s Myths: Asuras in Aśvaghoṣa’s Epics"

and more to come!

Friendly Greetings,
Charles DiSimone

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