Dear list members,

Following are two seminars hosted by the Australian Centre for Asian Art and Archaeology which may be of interest:

Professor Eugene Yuejin Wang:  'Whose and What Body to Consecrate?  On Reliquary Boxes from the Famensi Crypt'

In 1987, Chinese archaeologists uncovered a crypt in the Famen Monastery near Xi’an, last sealed in 873. The crypt yielded four sets of reliquaries donated by the Tang emperors to enshrine the Buddha’s finger bones. Most notable among them is an eightfold set of nesting reliquary boxes, arranged in the manner of Russian dolls, featuring an elaborate cryptic decorative program. Was it a coincidence that the last interment of the reliquaries occurred around the time of the emperor’s death? Who engineered the interment and how? What do the reliquaries tell us about the imperial politics of the time? Unpacking the nesting caskets and thinking outside the boxes, Professor Wang’s lecture will decode the encrypted message embedded therein.

Date: Tuesday 26 August 2008
Time: 5pm–6.30pm
Location: Mills Lecture Theatre, R.C. Mills Building, Fisher Road, University of Sydney   http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?ref=H15L22

Dr Peter Skilling: 'New Discoveries in the Buddhist Art of South India: The Life of the Buddha from Phanigiri, Andhra Pradesh'

The rich legacy of the Buddhist art of South India is well-known. It includes the stupa complexes of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda, with their carved relief panels illustrating jatakas and the life of the Buddha. These and other sites such as Goli, Jaggayyapeta, and Ghantasala, have been studied for over one hundred years. Recent discoveries and excavations have significantly transformed the map of ancient Buddhist India. One of the most impressive of the new sites is Phanigiri in Andhra Pradesh—a hill-top monastic complex with a large stupa and numerous other structures. A well-preserved inscription from the time of King Rudrapurusadatta (c. 290–315) connects Phanigiri to the Ikshvaku dynasty. Stylistically and epigraphically the site shows close relations to Nagarjunakonda, but at the same time the art of Phanigiri reveals a new and vigorous idiom within the Andhra styles.
The phase presented in this lecture dates from the first to the third centuries CE. Two architraves from a gateway of the stupa were unearthed in 2005. One is carved with scenes from the life of the Buddha. The second architrave is devoted to post-Nirvana scenes, as yet unidentified, featuring monks, relics, and snakes. Other fragments and artefacts include jataka medallions and stone footprints of the Buddha.

Date: Tuesday 2 September
Time: 4.30pm – 6pm (Please note different time)
Location: The Refectory, Main Quadrangle, University of Sydney (http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?ref=D15H22)

Kind regards
AABS Executive