Among the numerous early Buddhist manuscripts in Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script discovered in recent years in the ancient region of Gandhāra (modern Afghanistan and Pakistan), a large number are scholastic in nature. They shed much light on the intellectual, doctrinal, and institutional developments that Buddhism underwent in the early centuries CE, as it made its way from South Asia to Central Asia and China. This workshop focuses on a particular subgenre that is situated between canonical and independent scholastic works: texts that take one or more canonical texts as their point of departure, but then provide not a close commentary on these texts, but rather an independent discussion of topics that they give rise to. Over the course of three days, we will investigate six such texts in detail, and discuss them with invited experts in Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda scholastic literature, elucidating connections between Gāndhārī scholasticism in the larger Buddhist world.
Programme (PDF, 54 KB)
Thursday 28 May
9:30–10:30 Francesco Barchi and Stefan Baums: Welcome and Introduction
10:30–12:00 Rupert Gethin: Mapping a Buddha’s Mind: The Abhidharma Understanding of Consciousness (PDF, 465 KB)
13:30–16:30 Gudrun Melzer: A Gāndhārī Text on Meditation Stages
Friday 29 May
9:00–12:00 Stefan Baums: A Gāndhārī Catechism with Reference to the Cūḷavedallasutta
13:30–16:30 Kelsey Martini: A Gāndhārī Treatise on Four Madhyamāgama Sūtras
16:30–18:00 Collett Cox: A Gāndhārī Exegetical Text
Saturday 30 May
9:00–12:00 Francesco Barchi: A Gāndhārī Parallel to the *Āryavasumitrabodhisattvasaṃgītiśāstra
13:30–15:00 Gao Mingyuan: The Sarvāstivāda Abhidharmic Way of Thinking (PDF, 347 KB)
15:00–16:00 Hélène de Brux: A Gāndhārī Fragment with Reference to the Mind and Awakening
16:00–17:00 Discussion and Conclusion: Gāndhārī, Gandhāra, and Beyond
If you would like to attend the workshop, please register with: baums@lmu.de, f.barchi@hum.leidenuniv.nl