Far Eastern Undergrad Seminar

Catalog description

A defining feature of Mahayana Buddhism is the expensive conceptions of cosmos. What are the orientations of time and space in Buddhist worlds? How are they mapped and manifested in visual forms? What is the relationship between Buddhist ideas of the universe and the tangible material world, and where do human beings belong in these systems? Using these as guiding questions, our seminar explores how Buddhist worlds and worldviews are pictorialized in painting, sculpture, and architectural assemblies. We begin with the basics of Indian Buddhist cosmology, and related themes such as karma, rebirth, and the life and death of Buddha Sakyamuni. We will then explore the rise and popularity of the notion of 'pure lands' in China, and the ways in which they have captured the imagination of artists working in a variety of mediums. We will also examine artistic production motivated by prophecies of decline, visualization of mandalas and the mapping of sacred cosmography onto cities and landscapes in the Himalayas.