Consider East Asia. It is sometimes suggested that Chinese or Japanese Buddhism are sui generis. They have superficial connections and resemblances to other Buddhisms; nonetheless, they remain distinctive of their own culture. On this basis, Buddhism may even be seen as an anomalous and peripheral component in Chinese history and culture. The specifically Chinese thinking and practice which developed under this rubric are to be understood in terms of Chinese culture, having relatively little connection with what may have happened at different periods in distant lands like India.

This perspective can sometimes be quite fruitful. It can also be severely limiting.

The dominant Chinese class of literati was for a long time heavily engaged in translating from Sanskrit into Chinese. This was the one significant, pre-modern external input into the continuum of Chinese culture. It stimulated the development of vernacular written forms. It stretched the meanings of Chinese language in new ways, which left an enduring impression. All in all, Buddhism has had a huge role in Chinese culture – and specifically in Chinese visual culture.

The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for Japan and Korea – and indeed, in slightly different ways, for Southeast Asia (including Indonesia for instance) and for central Asia, from Tibet to Mongolia. The Buddhist tradition has had a major, continuing impact across the Asian culture area; and it exhibits strong unitary aspects – the cultural patterns it has produced in diverse places and periods are recognisably related. Buddhism is thus a meaningful descriptive and analytic category. That assumption is central to the mission of the OCBS.

It studies the tradition from primary sources and in the languages of its contemporary representatives. Faculty members are, of course, familiar with the methods of the historical and social sciences; equally, in applying such methods to Asian cultures, they start from a deep appreciation of those cultures’ specificity. Similarly, it is intended that whoever holds the post in Buddhist Art and Archaeology will be familiar with the linguistic-conceptual and historical background from which the material emerges while at the same time drawing on impeccable art-historical expertise.