This book introduces the reader to different cases of cultural intersections between Tibet and China in the field of Buddhism. The ten chapters provide a series of insights into Sino-Tibetan exchanges within religious practices and doctrines, material culture and iconography.
Spanning from pre-modern encounters in Central Asia to contemporary forms of Sino-Tibetan hybridity in Chinese-speaking environments,
Sino-Tibetan Buddhism Across the Ages produces further evidence that, beginning with the very introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, there were constant and fruitful contacts and blending between the Buddhist traditions developing in China and those of Tibet.
Contributors are Urs App, Ester Bianchi, Isabelle Charleux, Martino Dibeltulo Concu, Alison Denton Jones, Weirong Shen, Penghao Sun, Wei Wu, Fan Zhang, and Linghui Zhang.
Ester Bianchi, Ph.D. (2003), University of Venice and Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, is Associate Professor of Chinese Religions and Philosophy at the University of Perugia. Her publications include
The Iron Statue Monastery, Tiexiangsi: A Buddhist Nunnery of Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary China (Olschki 2001).
Weirong Shen, Ph.D. (1998), Bonn University, is Professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Philology at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of
Leben und historische Bedeutung des ersten Dalai Lama dGe ’dun grub pa dpal bzang po (1391-1474) — Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der dGe lugs pa-Schule und der Institution der Dalai Lama (Monometa Serica 2002).
"The running theme of each individual chapter in this volume is that from the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet to the present day, there has been constant and beneficial contacts as well as melding between the various Buddhist traditions developed in China and Tibet. With each chapter offering a fascinating insight into this running thread, this volume would prove deeply interesting to those with an interest in either Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism. More broadly, this volume would also be of interest to those interested in crosscultural religious interaction."- Joseph Chadwin,
Religious Studies Review 47/4 (2021)
Scholars of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, religious studies, and the history of China, Tibet, or Sino-Tibetan relations.