Published by De Gruyter

Beyond Boundaries

Religion, Region, Language and the State

Edited by: Lewis Doney, Gethin Rees, Jason Neelis and Ananya Vajpeyi

ISSN: 2510-4446

e-ISSN 2510-4454

Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State publishes books on the religious cultures of Asia. Moving beyond geographical, chronological, disciplinary and historiographical boundaries, the books in this series explore the cultural materials and interactions of people groups in central, south, and south-east Asia, from late antiquity to the close of the medieval period. The series is open to monographs, collected volumes, editions, and translations.

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Book 2024

For My Blemishless Lord

A Study of Three Śrīvaiṣṇava Medieval Commentaries on Tiruppāṇ Āḻvār’s Amalaṉ Āti Pirāṉ

Suganya Anandakichenin

Volume 11 in this series

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For my Blemishless Lord presents the text and translation of the exquisite poem Amalaṉ Āti Pirāṉ by Tiruppāṇ Āḻvār, which is part of the Śrīvaiṣṇava canon, the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham (6th – 9th centuries CE), together with the three Śrīvaiṣṇava commentaries in Tamil-Sanskrit Manipravalam (13th – 14th centuries) by key figures in the medieval religious history of South Asia, namely, Periyavāccāṉ Piḷḷai, Aḻakiya Maṇavāḷa Perumāḷ Nāyaṉār, and Vedānta Deśikaṉ.

Offering the first fully annotated, complete translation of these exegetical writings, this volume analyses the language, commentary techniques, and theological positions of the commentators. Looking also at cultural, religious, and other allusions made by them, it places them in their literary, social, and religious backgrounds during a period of budding dissent within the Śrīvaiṣṇava community, to which they contributed at least in part.

This rich resource is made available in English for the first time for students of Tamil and Manipravala, theology, religious history, and philology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110773231
ISBN:: 9783110773231
ISBN:: 9783110773170
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Hinduism
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

Bringing Buddhism to Tibet

History and Narrative in the DBA' BZHED Manuscript

Lewis Doney, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 10 in this series

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Bringing Buddhism to Tibet is a landmark study of the Dba’ bzhed, a text recounting the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. The narrative of Buddhism’s arrival in Tibet is known from a number of versions, but the Dba’ bzhed—preserved in a single manuscript—is the oldest complete copy. Although the Dba’ bzhed stands at the head of a long tradition of history writing in the Tibetan language, and has been known for more than two decades, this book provides a full transcription of the Tibetan for the first time, together with a new translation.

The book also introduces Tibetan history and the Dba’ bzhed with several introductory chapters on various aspects of the text by experienced scholars in the field of Tibetan philology. These detailed studies provide analysis of the text’s narrative context, its position within traditional and current historiography, and the organisation and structure of the text itself and its antecedents.

Bringing Buddhism to Tibet is essential reading for anyone interested in Tibetan history and kingship, the nature of Tibetan historical narrative or the traditions of text transmission and codicology. The book will also be of general interest to students of Buddhism and the spread of Buddhism across Asia.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110715309
ISBN:: 9783110715309
ISBN:: 9783110715323
ISBN:: 9783110715224
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: East Asia
Subject:: China
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Buddhism
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

Powers of Protection

The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections

Gergely Hidas, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 9 in this series

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This sourcebook explores the most extensive tradition of Buddhist dhāraṇī literature and provides access to the earliest available materials for the first time: a unique palm-leaf bundle from the 12th–13th centuries and a paper manuscript of 1719 CE. The Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha collections have been present in South Asia, and especially in Nepal, for more than eight hundred years and served to supply protection, merit and auspiciousness for those who commissioned their compilation. For modern scholarship, these diverse compendiums are valuable sources of incantations and related texts, many of which survive in Sanskrit only in such manuscripts.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110713367
ISBN:: 9783110713367
ISBN:: 9783110713046
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: South Asia, other
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Asia-Pacific
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Buddhism
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

Primary Sources and Asian Pasts

Peter C. Bisschop, Elizabeth A. Cecil, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 8 in this series

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This conference volume unites a wide range of scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, religion, art, and philology in an effort to explore new perspectives and methods in the study of primary sources from premodern South and Southeast Asia. The contributions engage with primary sources (including texts, images, material artefacts, monuments, as well as archaeological sites and landscapes) and draw needed attention to highly adaptable, innovative, and dynamic modes of cultural production within traditional idioms. The volume works to develop categories of historical analysis that cross disciplinary boundaries and represent a wide variety of methodological concerns. By revisiting premodern sources, Asia Beyond Boundaries also addresses critical issues of temporality and periodization that attend established categories in Asian Studies, such as the “Classical Age” or the “Gupta Period”. This volume represents the culmination of the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy project Asia Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State, a research consortium of the British Museum, the British Library and the School of Oriental and African Studies, in partnership with Leiden University.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110674088
ISBN:: 9783110674088
ISBN:: 9783110674262
ISBN:: 9783110674071
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: South Asia, other
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theories, Methods, and Auxiliary Sciences
Subject:: Methods
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2023

Sri Ksetra Museum Collection Inventory

Charlotte Galloway, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 7 in this series

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The Sri Ksetra Museum Inventory provides public access to this significant collection for the first time. The Inventory records the majority of the Museum collection up until 2015. Nearly all of the artefacts date to Myanmar’s Pyu period of the first millennium. Many of the objects have been documented for the first time, having been kept in storage in some cases unseen for nearly one hundred years. As only a limited amount of collection material can be publicly displayed in the Museum the Inventory provides immediate access to resource materials that would otherwise be out of reach. From intact votive tablets in diverse styles, to fragments of terracotta plaques and stone sculptures this is the most comprehensive collection of Pyu material culture in Myanmar. With the rise of interest in Pyu scholarship since the UNESCO listing of The Pyu Ancient Cities in 2014, this inventory, which also includes more recent finds from the important Pyu site of Khin Ba, will broaden scholars’ appreciation of Pyu culture and open avenues for future research across many disciplines.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110674064
ISBN:: 9783110674064
ISBN:: 9783110674309
ISBN:: 9783110674057
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2020

Excavations at Paithan, Maharashtra

Transformations in Early Historic and Early Medieval India

Derek Kennet, J. Varaprasada Rao, M. Kasturi Bai, British Museum, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 5 in this series

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This book reports on excavations at Paithan in India revealed the development of two early Hindu temples from the 4th century to the 9th: the key formative phase of Hinduism. The temples started as small shrines but were elaborated into formal temples. In relation to these changes, the excavations revealed a sequence of palaeobotanical and palaeofaunal evidence that give insight into the economic and social changes that took place at that time.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110653540
ISBN:: 9783110653540
ISBN:: 9783110653533
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: India
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Asia-Pacific
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2019

Inscriptions of the Aulikaras and Their Associates

Dániel Balogh, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 4 in this series

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The Aulikaras were the rulers of western Malwa (the northwest of Central India) in the heyday of the Imperial Guptas in the fifth century CE, and rose briefly to sovereignty at the beginning of the sixth century before disappearing from the spotlight of history. This book gathers all the epigraphic evidence pertaining to this dynasty, meticulously editing and translating the inscriptions and analysing their content and its implications.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110649789
ISBN:: 9783110649789
ISBN:: 9783110646641
ISBN:: 9783110644722
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: India
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Asia-Pacific
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2019

A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture

Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja – Critical Edition

Gergely Hidas, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 3 in this series

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This volume is the first in-depth study of a recently discovered Sanskrit dharani spell text from around the 5th century CE surviving in two palm-leaf and three paper manuscript compendia from Nepal. This rare Buddhist scripture focuses on the ritual practice of thaumaturgic weather control for successful agriculture through overpowering mythical Nagas. Traditionally, these serpentine beings are held responsible for the amount of rainfall. The six chapters of the Vajratundasamayakalparaja present the vidyadhara spell-master as a ritualist who uses mandalas, mudras and other techniques to gain mastery over the Nagas and thus control the rains. By subjugating the Nagas, favourable weather and good crops are guaranteed. This links this incantation tradition to economic power and the securing of worldly support for the Buddhist community.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110621051
ISBN:: 9783110621051
ISBN:: 9783110620498
ISBN:: 9783110617658
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: South Asia, other
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Asia-Pacific
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Buddhism
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2020

Framing Intellectual and Lived Spaces in Early South Asia

Sources and Boundaries

Lucas den Boer, Elizabeth A. Cecil, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 2 in this series

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The contributions to this book address a series of ‘confrontations’—debates between intellectual communities, the interplay of texts and images, and the intersection of monumental architecture and physical terrain—and explore the ways in which the legacy of these encounters, and the human responses to them, conditioned cultural production in early South Asia (c. 4th-7th centuries CE). Rather than an agonistic term, the book uses ‘confrontation’ as a heuristic to examine historical moments within this pivotal period in which individuals and communities were confronted with new ideas and material expressions.

The first half of the volume addresses the intersections of textual, material, and visual forms of cultural production by focusing on three primary modes of confrontation: the relation of inscribed texts to material media, the visual articulation of literary images and, finally, the literary interpretation and reception of built landscapes. The second part of the volume focuses on confrontations both within and between intellectual communities. The articles address the dynamics between peripheral and dominant movements in the history of Indian philosophy.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110557176
ISBN:: 9783110557176
ISBN:: 9783110556452
ISBN:: 9783110553161
Subject:: Asian and Pacific Studies
Subject:: South Asia
Subject:: India
Subject:: South Asia, other
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Hinduism
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2022

Translation and State

The Mahābhārata at the Mughal Court

Michael Willis, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 1 in this series

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In 1587, Abū al-Faz̤l ibn Mubārak – a favourite at the Mughal court and author of the Akbarnāmah – completed his Preface to the Persian translation of the Mahābhārata. This book is the first detailed study of Abū al-Faz̤l's Preface. It offers insights into manuscript practices at the Mughal court, the role a Persian version of the Mahābhārata was meant to play, and the religious interactions that characterised 16th-century India.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110501520
ISBN:: 9783110501520
ISBN:: 9783110501216
ISBN:: 9783110498370
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Language and Literature
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Comparative Studies
Subject:: Hinduism
Subject:: Religion in Asia
Publisher:: De Gruyter