Light on "Art in the Dark" : on Buddhist practice and worship in the Mogao Caves
- This piece has partly been written in response to a series of claims put forward by Robert Sharf almost a decade ago in his article \(\textit {Art in the Dark}\) in which he argues that the Buddhist caves in Dunhuang (and elsewhere in China and Central Asia) were not for worship, but were created as a sort of ancestral memorials, or decorated mausoleums meant to be left in the dark. Given that the implications of such reading of Buddhist cave-art in the Sinitic cultural-sphere would surely have a profound impact on our overall understanding of Buddhist ritual practices and cave-art, should Sharf’s readings turn out to be correct, the evidence and speculations he uses as underpinnings for his line of argument in particular merit closer scrutiny. Moreover, as he touches upon a range of other related issues, all of which concern Buddhist ritual practices one way or another, it seems worthwhile to devote a lengthier essay to a more detailed discussion.
| Author: | Henrik Hjort SørensenORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-85266 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.46586/rub.br.200.177 |
| Series (Serial Number): | BuddhistRoad Paper (5.6) |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2022/01/13 |
| Date of first Publication: | 2022/01/13 |
| Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
| Tag: | BuddhistRoad, Project ID: 725519 |
| Pagenumber: | 40 |
| Note: | BuddhistRoad, Project ID: 725519 |
| Relation (DC): | info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/725519 |
| Institutes/Facilities: | Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien (CERES) |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | Religion / Andere Religionen |
| OpenAIRE: | OpenAIRE |
| Licence (German): |  Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International |
