From the Periphery to the Centre: Reassessing the Buddhist and Hindu Art and Architecture of Medieval Maritime Asia

TEMASEK HISTORY RESEARCH CENTRE

About the Webinar

The webinar, inspired by the intellectual agenda of the recently published 2-volume « The Creative South » (Singapore: ISEAS, 2022), reconsiders the creative contribution of the littoral and insular regions of Maritime Asia to shaping new paradigms in the Buddhist and Hindu art and architecture of the medieval Asian world. Current research increasingly shows that the Southeast Asian ‘peripheries’ were freer to innovate than the traditional ‘centres’, while the flourishing trade routes provided them with the necessary flow of human and material resources. As a result, the early kingdoms of Maritime Asia became well-springs of cults, ritual technologies, sacred art / architecture, and the new political models they underpinned. Far from being a mere southern conduit for the maritime circulation of Indic religions in the period from ca. the 7th to the 14th century, those regions transformed across mainland and island polities, the rituals, icons, and architecture that embodied these religious insights with a dynamism that often eclipsed the established cultural centres in Northern India, Central Asia, and mainland China. This webinar brings together new research aiming to recalibrate the importance of these innovations in art and architecture, thereby highlighting the cultural creativity of the monsoon-influenced Southern rim of the Asian landmass.

This webinar is supported by Temasek Foundation.

Programme

About the Speakers

Peter Sharrock is board member of the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme (SAAAP) http://www.soas.ac.uk/saaap/, SAAAP Outreach and Communications Manager, and Senior Teaching Fellow in History of Art & Archaeology, School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), London University.

Andrea Acri (PhD, Leiden University) is Associate Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Maître de conférences (Assistant Professor) in Tantric Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL University) in Paris. His main research and teaching interests include Śaiva and Buddhist tantric traditions, with focus on the comparative religious history of South and Southeast Asia.

Iain Sinclair (PhD, Monash University, 2016) is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Queensland School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry and a Lecturer and Researcher at Nan Tien Institute, Australia. He studies religion in Asia using primary sources in classical languages. His publications focus on classical Buddhist art and texts, tantrism, and the history of South Asia, the Himalayas and the Malayo-Javanese world.

Hudaya Kandahjaya focuses his research particularly on Borobudur and Indonesian Buddhism and has presented and published articles and books related to this subject.

Swati Chemburkar is an architectural historian whose work focuses on Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia. She directs a postgraduate diploma course on Southeast Asian Art and Architecture at Jnanapravaha, Mumbai. She is the editor of Art of Cambodia: Interactions with Cambodia, MARG, 2016.

Registration

This webinar will be delivered online entirely. You can join the webinar at the specified date and time using devices (computer, phone, or tablet) with internet connection.

Please register here to receive your unique link for joining the webinar.

If you have questions for the speakers, please key in your questions via the Q&A, stating your name and affiliation. The moderator will field them to the speakers during the Q&A session.