“Ritual Seals as Evidence for Silk
Road Studies”
By Prof. Paul Copp, University of
Chicago
Wednesday, May 25, at 7:30 p.m.
Knight Bldg., Room 102, at 521
Memorial Way, Stanford University
Strikingly
similar uses of seals (including ideas of seals) are widely attested in
religious and magical practices across Afro-Eurasian history, in cultures and
periods as disparate as medieval Britain, ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and
Tang China. This much is easily shown. What is much more difficult to answer
are questions of how to understand these connections. For example, can we--and
if so, in what precise ways can we--consider the rich and far-flung evidence
for these similar practices and conceptions as evidence for the trade and
cultural networks we now call the silk road? Surveying evidence especially from
China, India, and Central Asia (but considering broader connections), this talk
will ponder this question and the methodological issues connected with it.
Paul Copp is associate professor in
Chinese religion and thought at the University of Chicago. He is the
author of The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in
Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Columbia, 2014) and is currently at work on
a new book, tentatively titled "Seal and Scroll: Buddhism and
Manuscript Culture at Dunhuang."
Sponsored by the Silk Road Foundation and the Center
