2012 Conference

The 2012 UKABS conference was made possible by a bequest from Sara Boin-Webb, and was hosted by the Centre for the History of Religion in Asia at Cardiff University. The event took place on 7th and 8th July at St Michael’s College, Llandaff, Cardiff, and featured an impressive line-up of international speakers. The programme was convened by Professor Paul Harrison and the papers will be collected for publication.

St Michael’s College staff looked after us with great care, and after-dinner entertainment was provided by two local storytellers with an interest in Buddhist narrative, Steve Killick and Mark Rivett.

List of papers (in programme order):
Paul Harrison (Stanford): ‘Early Mahāyāna: Laying out the field’
Peter Skilling (EFEO and Chulalongkorn): ‘Ensuring the Continuity of the Three Jewels, or, Why become a bodhisatva?’
David Drewes (Manitoba): ‘The Forest Hypothesis’
Douglas Osto (Massey): ‘Altered States and the Origins of the Mahāyāna’
Daniel Boucher (Cornell): ‘Recruitment and Retention in Early Buddhist Sodalities’
Shizuka Sasaki (Kyoto): ‘Mahāyāna and Abhidharma’
Johannes Bronkhorst (Lausanne): ‘Reflections on the Origins of Mahāyāna’
Juhyung Rhi (Seoul): ‘Looking for Mahāyāna Bodhisattvas: Early Mahāyāna and Deities in Indian Buddhism’
Ingo Strauch (Berlin): ‘The Character of Early Mahāyāna in Gandhāra as represented in the Bajaur Mahāyāna Sūtra’