Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State
Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State was a project funded by the European Research Council with research carried out at the British Museum, the British Library, SOAS, University of London, and Leiden University. The lead researchers were Dr. Michael Willis, Dr. Sam van Schaik, Dr. Nathan W. Hill and Dr. Peter Bisschop.[1] The project was one of thirteen synergy grants awarded in 2013 and the only synergy grant in the humanities for that year.[2] The project ran from 2014 to 2020.
Objectives[edit]
The project is focussing on the history and culture of early medieval India, specifically the period of the Gupta dynasty (circa 320-510 CE). Although characterised as a ‘golden age’ in modern scholarship — and marked by developments that shaped South Asia for more than a thousand years — research on this pivotal moment is fragmented and compartmentalised. The purpose of the project is to move beyond these limitations and to recover a more compelling picture of this influential period and its impact on India and her neighbours. The project achieves this aim through the development of online research tools, a series of workshops, and publications.[3]
Research Aims[edit]
The project is interdisciplinary in design and aims to:
- Investigate the constitution of the Gupta kingdom and its relationship with surrounding states
- Chart the polities that flourished concurrently in central and southeast Asia
- Define and analyse specific appropriations inspired by Indian examples and map how Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali, the media of political and religious discourse, came to be used across Asia beside regional languages such as Pyu, Kannada and Khotanese
- Scrutinize how temples and monasteries emerged as autonomous socio-economic institutions with stable endowments, thereby possessing the resources needed to become long-standing trans-regional nodes of learning, ritual practice
Research Themes and Open Sources[edit]
Concerns about prevailing 'silos of knowledge' emerged primarily in management studies in the 1990s.[4] This analysis has had little impact beyond the commercial sector, however, especially in cultural and historical research where modern nation states, regional languages, and established disciplinary protocols have reinforced the status quo. In moving beyond these constraints, three research themes have been developed to cross the disciplines and regions covered by the project. The project design involves making all core data and analysis freely available online.
Digital Output[edit]
A key output and the project's main digital legacy is SIDDHAM, The South Asia Inscriptions Database. SIDDHAM is an online resource for languages with substantial epigraphic traditions: Sanskrit, Prakrit, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Persian, Arabic, Tibetan, Pyu, Burmese, Mon, Khmer and related languages. The database embraces south, central, and south-east Asia with a chronological horizon from the early centuries BCE to the nineteenth century.
British Museum Publications[edit]
The British Museum, as host institution to the project, has undertaken several publications relevant to the collections and museum-specific research.
- Akira Shimada and Michael Willis, eds., Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument in Context (London: British Museum, 2016).
- Elizabeth Errington, Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan: Explorations, Excavations, Collections 1832–1835 (London: British Museum, 2017).
- Elizabeth Errington, The Charles Masson Archive: British Library, British Museum and Other Documents Relating to the 1832–1838 Masson Collection from Afghanistan (London: British Museum, 2017).
- Janice Stargardt and Michael Willis, eds., Relics and Relic Worship in Early Buddhism: India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma (London: British Museum, 2018) ISBN 9780861592180 Search this book on
. - Sam van Schaik, Daniela De Simone, Gergely Hidas and Michael Willis, eds., Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: Finds from the Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment (London: British Museum, 2021) ISBN 9780861592289 Search this book on .
De Gruyter Publications[edit]
The research project also has a series with the publisher De Gruyter, all of which are open access in conformity with Plan S protocols.
- Dániel Balogh, Inscriptions of the Aulikaras and Their Associates (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110649789
- Gergely Hidas, A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110621051
- Lucas den Boer and Elizabeth A. Cecil, Framing Intellectual and Lived Spaces in Early South Asia: Sources and Boundaries (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110557176
- Lewis Doney, ed., Bringing Buddhism to Tibet (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110715309
- Derek Kennet, J. Varaprasada Rao and M. Kasturi Bai, Excavations at Paithan, Maharashtra: Transformations in Early Historic and Early Medieval India (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110653540
- Peter C. Bisschop and Elizabeth A. Cecil, eds., Primary Sources and Asian Pasts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110674088
Brill Publications[edit]
Project members in the Netherlands have brought out volumes with Brill Publishers in addition to De Gruyter.
- Hans T. Bakker, The World of the Skandapurāṇa (Leiden: Brilll, 2014). ISBN 9789004270091 Search this book on ..
- Peter Bisschop, Universal Śaivism: The Appeasement of All Gods and Powers in the Śāntyadhyāya of the Śivadharmaśāstra (Leiden: Brill, 2018). ISBN 978-90-04-38246-6 Search this book on .
Barkhuis Publications[edit]
The publisher Barkhis in Eelde in the Netherlands has published two project volumes related to the Hunnic people.
- Dániel Balogh, ed., Hunnic Peoples in Central and South Asia (Barkhuis, 2020) ISBN 9789493194014 Search this book on .
- Hans T. Bakker, The Alkhan (Barkhuis: 2020) ISBN 9789493194007 Search this book on .
Other Publications[edit]
- Sam van Schaik, "Married Monks: Buddhist Ideals and Practice in Kroraina,"South Asian Studies 30 (2014), pp. 269–77. doi:10.1080/02666030.2014.962322
- Michael Willis, "The Dhanesar Kherā Buddha in the British Museum and the ‘Politische Strukturen’ of the Gupta Kingdom in India," South Asian Studies 30 (2014), pp.106-13. doi:10.1080/02666030.2014.962326
- Michael Willis, "Detritus to Treasure : Memory, Metonymy and the Museum," in Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces : Exhibiting Asian Religions in Museums, ed. Bruce M. Sullivan (London, Bloomsbury), pp. 145–52.
- Nathan Hill, The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese (Cambridge: University Press, 2019)
Project Archive[edit]
Research generated under this project is archived in Zenodo and tagged with the project number 609823.
References[edit]
- ↑ https://asiabeyondboundaries.org/about/ (Retrieved June 2016)
- ↑ "European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - ERC Synergy Grants: 13 frontier research projects to get €150 million". Europa.eu. 2013-12-18. Retrieved 2015-06-20.
- ↑ https://www.soas.ac.uk/south-asia-institute/events/asia-beyond-boundaries/ (Retrieved June 2016)
- ↑ For example: Lessard, Donald R., and Srilata Zaheer. "Breaking the Silos: Distributed Knowledge and Strategic Responses to Volatile Exchange Rates." Strategic Management Journal 17, no. 7 (1996): 513-33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2486730.
External links[edit]
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