The Fifth International Symposium

“Image in Motion”: New Perspectives on Buddhist Arts

February 9-10, 2008
Auditorium, Asian Centre (1871 West Mall, UBC, Vancouver)

Sponsored by UBC Tzu-chi Buddhist Forum

Conference Program

Day One – – February 9, 2008

Breakfast & Registration 7:30-8:30
Welcome 8:30-8:50

Session 1 (8:50-10:50) Text and Image: Interacting through Ritual (Chair: A. Murphy)
1.1. P. Granoff (Yale): The Objects of Tantric Ritual: Some Preliminary Questions (8:50-9:10)
Discussant 1.1 (Gregory): 9:10-9:20
1.2. R. Sharf (Berkeley): Yet Another Reading of the Famensi Nested Reliquaries (9:20-9:40)
Discussant 1.2 (Wang): 9:40-9:50
1.3. E. Wang (Harvard): Repentance Ritual: In the Beginning Was the Word, and Then What? (9:50-10:10)
Discussant 1.3 (Robson): 10:10-10:20
Open discussion: 10:20-10:50

Coffee Break 10:50-11:00

Session 2 (11:00-12:20): Image and Body-language (Chair: A. Sathaye)
2.1. J. Dalton (Yale): Image as Body, Body as Image: Prāṇapratiṣṭhā and the Development of the Tantric Subtle Body (11:00-11:20)
Discussant 2.1 (Yiengpruksawan): 11:20-11:30
2.2. G. Schopen (UCLA): “Body Language and the Bodhisattva: Anxiety, Depression, and the Pensive Pose before it got to China” (11:30-11:50)
Discussant 2.2 (Tarabout): 11:50-12:00
Open discussion: 12:00-12:20

Lunch 12:20-2:00

Session 3 (2:00-4:00) Merging Texts and Images into Different Shapes: The Depictions of a Buddha’s Realm, the Parinirvana, and Sinners’ Hells in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Chair: C. Laffin)
3.1. J. Stone (Princeton): Nichiren’s “Great Mandala”: Assembly, Text, and the Logic of Image Empowerment (2:00- 2:20)
Discussant 3.1 (Groner): 2:20-2:30
3. 2. M. Yiengpruksawan (Yale University): The Interstitial Buddha (2:30-2:50)
Discussant 3.2 (Hirasawa): 2:50-3:00
3.3. C. Hirasawa (UBC): The Development of Salvation Motifs in Japanese Hell Painting (3:00-3:20)
Discussant 3.3 (E. Sharf): 3:20-3:30
Open discussion: 3:30-4:00

Coffee Break 4:00-4:10

Session 4 (4:10-5:30) Reading the Images through Texts?: Insights and Oversights (Chair: J. Chiu)
4.1. R. Brown (UCLA): The Act of Naming Avalokitesvara in Sri Lanka (4:10-4:30)
Discussant 4.1 (A. Murphy): 4:30-4:40
4.2. J. Benn (McMaster): “Do not Point to Any Shape and Call it the Dao”: Heterodoxy and Images in Medieval China (4:40-5:00)
Discussant 4.2 (Young): 5:00-5:10
Open discussion: 5:10- 5:30

Visiting Tzu-chi Canada Headquarter 6:00~~
Day Two — February 10, 2008
Breakfast 7:30-9:00

Session 5 (9:00-11:00) Texts, Images and the Dharanis/Tantra Practices (Chair: A. Aklujkar)
5.1. G. Tarabout (National Centre for Scientific Research [CNRS], Paris): Tantrics Without Tantras: Tales and Images of Magic in South India (9:00-9:20)
Discussant 5.1 (Brown): 9:20-9:30
5.2. K. Shinohara (Yale): Visions, Images and the Efficacy of Dharanis: Some Preliminary thoughts (9:30-9:50)
Discussant 5.2 (Benn): 9:50-10:00
5.3. D. Berti(National Centre for Scientific Research [CNRS], Paris): Ritual Bricolages: Texts, Drawings and Tantric Practitioners in North India (10:00-10:20)
Discussant 5.3 (Ahuja): 10:20-10:30
Open discussion: 10:30-11:00

Coffee Break 11:00-11:10

Session 6 (11:10-12:30) Text, Iconography and Talisman (Chair: Groner)
6.1. N. Ahuja (Jawaharlal Nehru University): Some Visual and Textual References to [the] Talismanic [function of] Iconography in Ancient India (11:10-11:30)
Discussant 6.1 (Dalton): 11:30-11:40
6.2. J. Robson (University of Michigan): “Evidence from Japan about a Chinese Buddhist Text that Claims to Be From India: Reading Texts within Talismans” (11:40-12:00)
Discussant 6.2 (R. Sharf): 12:00-12:10
Open discussion: 12:10-12:30

Lunch 12:30-2:00

Session 7 (2:00-4:00) The “Perduring” Signs: Cave and Shrine Images (Chair: Benn)
7.1. S. Young (Princeton University): “Reading the Dharma-Treasury Transmission in the Cave of Great Perduring Saints” (2:00-2:20)
Discussant 8.1 (Shinohara): 2:20-2:30
7.2. A. Rospatt (Berkeley): The Pictorial Representation of the Svayambhū-purāṇa in situ: The Murals at the Shrine of Śāntipur at Kathmandu (2:30-2:50)
Discussant 8.2 (Dalton): 2:50-3:00
7.3. J. Chen (UBC): Whose Shadow?: Another Look at the Provenance of the Buddha’s Images Cast by Huiyuan (334-416) and Budhabhadra (359-429) (3:00-3:20)
Discussant 7.3 (Young): 3:20-3:30
Open discussion: 3:30-4:00

Final Session (4:00- 4:20): further reflections (open discussion)