Dr Peter Sharrock
BA (Cantab), MA (SOAS), PhD (SOAS)
Overview
Department of Art and Archaeology
(Teaching Fellow in the Art & Archaeology of Southeast Asia)
He is now focusing on the evidence in Indochina for the influence of tantric or esoteric Buddhism, developed in the great monasteries of the Ganges valley and diffused and developed in different ways through much of Asia.Contact Details
- Name:
- Dr Peter Sharrock
- Email address:
- ps56@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- 0207 435 8819
- Fax:
- 020 7898 4699
- Address:
- School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Building:
- Brunei Gallery
- Office No:
- B408
- Office Hours:
- Tuesdays 11:00-13:00
PhD Publications
PhD Conferences
PhD Affiliations
Interests / Disciplines
Peter Sharrock experienced the American war in Indochina for four years as the Reuters correspondent and discovered how, as the French said, Indochina ‘attaches to the skin’.
The war put the large Angkor temple complex out of reach and this was prolonged as Cambodia closed on itself and underwent the agony inflicted by Pol Pot. He finally reached Angkor in 1990, when landmines abounded and control of temples passed daily between the government and the Khmers Rouges.
His doctorate is on a new interpretation of the Buddhism and imperial politics of the greatest king of ancient Cambodia, Jayavarman VII.
He has developed a 'coherentist' approach to the history of Southeast Asia in which the very limited written sources – temple dedications inscribed in stone – are supplemented by trying to capture the religious and political messages embedded by kings in the decoration of state temples and in sacred icons and by monitoring the international flow of ideas across the states lying between the great centres of learning and technology in India and China.
Research
History and art history of the Khmer empire of Angkor; the temple art and architecture of Southeast Asia from 400CE to 1400 CE; Buddhism and Hinduism and their impact on the formation and development of states in Southeast Asia; Sanskrit and local languages in the sacred epigraphy of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Champa (Vietnam).
Expertise
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Available for
Regional Expertise
- South East Asia
Country Expertise
- Cambodia
