Home > Events > Ancient Buddhist Voyaging from India and Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia

This lecture traces the earliest evidence of trans-ocean sailing craft and Buddhist landings from the Indian Subcontinent and Sri Lanka eastward across Monsoon Asia. Buddhist monks and merchants commissioned Austronesian-speaking navigators to sail them in sea craft – wood plank haul lashed and stitched together with outriggers – across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Destinations were to seats of kingdoms and trade centers where the Buddhist word and its faith developed in a healthy or vigorous way, especially in Southeast Asia.

David Blundell (Ph.D. Anthropology, UCLA) has contributed articles and books on Southern Asian ethnology and history. He currently teaches at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan. His books include Masks: Anthropology on the Sinhalese Belief System (New York: Peter Lang). Dr. Blundell’s research and course offerings include methodology and studies in the anthropology of religion, ethnographic film, life history accounts, language and culture, symbolic anthropology, Southern Asia as a cultural area, and aesthetic anthropology.

Cost: Free and open to the public.

For more information please contact

Barbara Gaerlan
Tel: 310-206-9163
cseas@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu/cseas/

Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Center for India and South Asia