Gombar/Duychak Lecture 2022–23
“The Dynamic Spread of Buddhist Print Culture: Mapping Book Roads under Mongol Rule” Shih-shan Susan Huang, Associate Professor, Rice University, Dept. of Transnational Asian Studies Thursday, April 13th, 2023 | 7:00–8:30pm Conrad A. Elvehjem Bldg, Rm. L140Abstract
Elite Uighurs active in China under Mongol rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries played a major role as middlemen spreading Buddhist print culture. This talk examines selected individuals as sponsors, users, and transmitters of Buddhist books over long distances. It draws on Buddhist printed fragments excavated in Turfan, Xinjiang and an epigraphic source found in Quanzhou in southeast China. Taken together with the Mongol postal relay system, visualized in an online map using ArcGIS, the elite Uighurs’ vast network extending from China to the Uighur homeland in Central Asia can shed light on the dynamic spread of Buddhist print culture under Mongol rule.