The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road is a collection of lectures Dr. Lancaster delivered at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of the West, California. These lectures describe the search for models that can deal with the study of how Buddhism spread from the Ganges Basin and established itself throughout the Southeast area of Eurasia. Additionally, the book contains many images of Buddhist sites, many of which were taken by the film crews and exhibition teams led by Professor Sarah Kenderdine and Professor Jeffrey Shaw, the leading figures in new media art. These images formed part of the large museum exhibits that opened at the City University of Hong Kong and the Buddha Museum at Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan. The book recounts the magnificent history of the world of Maritime Buddhism from a diverse range of aspects—the various Buddhist traditions, pilgrims and monks, causes and conditions, norms and rituals, cross-cultural relations between East and West, as well as the intricacies of navigation technology, and migrations of the Austronesian peoples—all remarkable and crucial elements of the transmission of Buddhism brought to new heights of importance. In this book, the iconic cycle formed by the northern overland and southern maritime trading routes was described by Dr. Lancaster as “The Great Circle of Buddhism.”

This book attempts to evaluate the role of the Malay Peninsula as a crossroads in the great wave of commercial relationships along the maritime Silk Road from the first centuries of the Christian era to the 14th century. Through these exchanges, representatives of all the civilizations of Asia entered into contact along its shores. They left in this place a part of themselves, as can be seen in the great stylistic diversity of the religious and commercial artefacts which have been found in the area. These artefacts have been analysed and categorized afresh in the light of more precise information provided in Chinese texts concerning the nature of the political entities developing at the time: often dynamic city states or more modest chiefdoms.

The Maritime Silk Road foregrounds the numerous networks that have been woven across oceanic geographies, tying world regions together often far more extensively than land-based routes. On the strength of the new data which has emerged in the last two decades in the form of archaeological findings, as well as new techniques such as GIS modeling, the authors collectively demonstrate the existence of a very early global maritime trade. From architecture to cuisine, and language to clothing, evidence points to early connections both within Asia and between Asia and other continents--well before European explorations of the Global South. The human stories presented here offer insights into both the extent and limits of this global exchange, showing how goods and people traveled vast distances, how they were embedded in regional networks, and how local cultures were shaped as a result.

This translation of collected articles by Yan Chen (1916–2016) examines the role of the Maritime Silk Road in the formation of world civilizations. Analyzing the Maritime Silk Road’s political, economic, cultural, and technological influence, Chen argues that this expansive trade network was vital to the spread of traditional Chinese culture.

As key nodes that connected ancient silk routes traversing China, Japan and India, trading hubs, towns and cities in Java and Sumatra and other places in Asia were key destination points for merchants, monks and other itinerants plying these routes.Recent archaeological excavations in countries bordering the South China Sea and around the Indian Ocean unveiled remarkable similarities in artifacts recovered both on land and from the sea. The similarities underlined the many facets of regional exchanges and cross-cultural influences among people and places in these networks. Some of the findings indicate a distinct Chinese presence in the commercial, social and religious activities of these early Asian trading posts.This book collects papers from the symposium on Ancient Silk Trade Routes — Cross Cultural Exchanges and Their Legacies in Asia. It explores several threads arising from this regional exchange of goods and ideas, in particular, the cross-cultural dimensions of the exchanges in the areas of textile trade, ceramic routes, trading hubs, arts and artifacts and Buddhism.

When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900, he uncovered one of the world’s great literary secrets: a time capsule from the ancient Silk Road. Inside, scrolls were piled from floor to ceiling, undisturbed for a thousand years. The gem within was the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This key Buddhist teaching, made 500 years before Gutenberg inked his press, is the world’s oldest printed book. The Silk Road once linked China with the Mediterranean. It conveyed merchants, pilgrims and ideas. But its cultures and oases were swallowed by shifting sands. Central to the Silk Road’s rediscovery was a man named Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born scholar and archaeologist employed by the British service. Undaunted by the vast Gobi Desert, Stein crossed thousands of desolate miles with his fox terrier Dash. Stein met the Chinese monk and secured the Diamond Sutra and much more. The scroll’s journey—by camel through arid desert, by boat to London’s curious scholars, by train to evade the bombs of World War II—merges an explorer’s adventures, political intrigue, and continued controversy. The Diamond Sutra has inspired Jack Kerouac and the Dalai Lama. Its journey has coincided with the growing appeal of Buddhism in the West. As the Gutenberg Age cedes to the Google Age, the survival of the Silk Road’s greatest treasure is testament to the endurance of the written word.