Unfortunately and due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has been cancelled.

Free and Open to the Public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Using a large SNA dataset for Chinese Buddhist history (c.17,000 actors) we will focus on the fountainhead of Chinese Buddhism - a constellation formed by three seminal figures: the monk Daoan, his student Huiyuan, and the Indian translator Kumārajīva. In the time between c.360 and 420 CE, each was at the center of an active community of collaborators and patrons. According to the available records, historical network analysis illustrates how the stable growth of Buddhism after the 4th century is a direct result of the activities of Daoan, Huiyuan and Kumārajīva and their students. Without the varied and influential activities of these three, Buddhism might have remained a religion of foreigners (like later Manichaeism and Nestorianism), or stayed a fad among aristocrats (like the xuanxue movement). I will also argue that the impact of the constellation should be considered a main reason for why Chinese Buddhism has always defined itself as Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Marcus Bingenheimer is Associate Professor in Religion at Temple University. His main research interests are the history of Buddhism in East Asia and early Buddhist sutra literature. Beyond Buddhist Studies, Marcus is interested in computational approaches to scholarship and how to do research in an age of digital information.