Exploring the Narrative World of the Buddhist Cave Temples of Kucha
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- Main Building
- Room
- Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT)
- Event type
- Lecture
About this event
Once flourishing as one of the major Buddhist kingdoms along the Silk Road, Kucha still preserves numerous cave temple sites that testify to the prosperity of its unique Buddhist culture.
These cave temples, together with the murals that adorn their interiors, constitute invaluable visual sources for understanding the distinctive cultural traditions of the 'Tocharian Buddhism', which once thrived along the northern edge of the Tarim Basin.
This lecture will first provide an overview of Buddhist culture in Kucha and its archaeological sites. It will then focus on an analysis of the concept of 'ancient India'; as fashioned within the interior spaces of Kucha cave temples dating from the 5th to the 7th centuries, in order to elucidate the characteristics of the highly sophisticated visual culture developed by Kucha Buddhism.
Attendance
This event is free and open to all, and will be followed by a reception afterwards.
Sponsor and organiser
The Buddhist Forum series is kindly sponsored by the Khyentse Foundation. It has been organised by the SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies.
About the speaker
Satomi Hiyama is Assistant Professor of Buddhist Art History at the Department of Eastern Philosophy and Culture on the Faculty of Letters of Toyo University, as well as External Researcher of the research centre Buddhist Wall Paintings of Kucha on the Northern Silk Road at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. Her research focuses on the wall paintings of Buddhist rock-cut monasteries along the Silk Road, with special focus on Kucha and Dunhuang. She was Research Fellow of the Asian Art Museum, State Museums of Berlin from 2010 to 2016, and completed her PhD at Freie Universität Berlin in 2014. Her publications include: G. Vignato & S. Hiyama, Traces of the Sarvāstivādins in the Buddhist Monasteries of Kucha (Leipzig Kucha Studies 3, 2022); I. Konczak-Nagel / S. Hiyama / A. Klein (eds.), Connecting the Art, Literature, and Religion of South and Central Asia: Studies in Honour of Monika Zin (2022); H. Habata & S. Hiyama (eds.), Variety of Jātaka and Avadāna Transmission (2025).
