The Map And The World: Representing Realms Of Buddhist Thought

An international assembly of scholars will guide attendees of “The Map and the World: Representing Realms of Buddhist Thought” in an exploration of Buddhist art and artifacts as they illuminate Buddhist concepts. The conference, which will take place June 22-23 at the Bangkok National Museum, brings together scholars working on China, Japan, India, and Nepal as well as Southeast Asia. Presentation topics include the Japanese cartography and world maps, cosmic diagrams, religious manuscripts, Lao temple murals, and pilgrimage rituals and sacred landscapes in India and Thailand. This conference offers a selection of recent, provocative examples of scholarship, from rigorous traditional work to cutting edge digital applications, such as a study of the revelations of digital mapping of a major Tibetan monastery.

With the recent surge in interest in spatial data, spurred by such developments as the release of Google Earth and NASA Worldwind, the ways in which space is defined, represented, and understood across time and space may be usefully re-examined as well. The Buddhist tradition, manifest across much of Asia and beyond, offers a rich and varied range of visual expressions of cosmology and cosmography. Examples range from literal translations to visual media of descriptions provided by sacred texts; to objects whose form reflects the intersections of religious thought with political, social, or economic dynamics of cultural contexts; to works that negotiate Buddhist traditions as these confront other epistemological traditions.

The conference is organized by noted art historian Dr. Pattaratorn Chirapravati of California State University, Sacramento, together with Dr. Justin McDaniel of the University of California, Riverside, and the Geographic Information Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Chirapravati, whose “Votive Tablets in Thailand” (Oxford University Press) showed a similar interest in religious and artistic connections across the Buddhist world, here takes a step further to engage not only the breadth of geographical area but across a range of artistic media as well. Dr. McDaniel, a specialist in religious texts, is about to embark upon a major project developing a digital library of information on Thai and Lao monasteries, a project undertaken jointly with “Map and the World” collaborators Dr. Chirapravati and the UC Berkeley Geographic Information Science Center.

The conference is the first event to take place in the newly remodeled auditorium of the Bangkok National Museum. The Museum, with its long history as a center of cultural activity, now has a state of the art venue for lectures and presentations utilizing digital technology. The new facilities make the Museum an attractive option for scholarly conferences and workshops in the future.

All those interested are welcome. Admission to the conference is free of charge, thanks to support by the Pacific Rim Program of the Office of the President, University of California. Registration is required. For further information or to register for “The Map and the World,” see the conference website.