Indian Ocean Buddhism

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Buddhism is now a global religion. How did it become one? Well before the digital age, traveling Buddhists and Buddhist objects moved across vast geographies, transforming communities along the way. The Indian Ocean — connecting West Asia to East Asia via South and Southeast Asia — was (and remains) crucial to Buddhist circulations. Looking at textual and visual materials from premodern times to the present day, this course shows how changing trans-regional conditions shape local Buddhisms, how Buddhist collectives around the Indian Ocean arena shape one another, and how trade, religion, and politics interact. (ASIAN-GE, HIST-HAN)