EVENT DETAILS

"Trail of Light: Iranian Influences on Mahayana Buddhism" A Talk by Dr. Hamid Sardar

Please join us on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, 6:00-8:00 pm in UC Irvine's Humanities Gateway (HG) 1010 for a talk titled "Trail of Light: Iranian Influences on Mahayana Buddhism" by Dr. Hamid Sardar (Independent Scholar).

In the context of Tibetan Studies, we often hear the terms “Indo-Tibetan” and “Sino-Tibetan”, but we never hear of anything resembling “Irano-Tibetan”. It were, as if the interactions between the cultures of Iranian-speaking world and Tibet were somehow non-existent nor worth considering. This bias can be perhaps explained by the fact that early Tibetologists were mostly scholars of Indian and Chinese studies. Their primary focus was to translate Buddhist sutras from the Tibetan and compare them to extant manuscripts in other languages such as Sanskrit and Chinese. The knowledge of old Iranian languages, except in deciphering a few manuscript fragments surviving in Soghdian and Khotanese was, therefore, not deemed relevant to the field. But in the last decades of the 20th century, as Tibet Studies opened up to non-philologists, namely historians, archaeologists and ethnographers, the influences of the Iranian-speaking world on Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism became undeniable. This lecture will briefly review some past research in this area and point to some topics for future study.

This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

This event is presented by UC Irvine's Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture.

Venue's address: UC Irvine, Humanities Gateway Building (4100 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697), Room HG 1010

Closest parking structures are Mesa Parking Structure and Student Center Parking Structure. Parking permits are required at all time at UC Irvine's campus and daily or hourly permits could be purchased from manned or automated kiosks in the parking structures.