Yehan Numata Program Lecture: "Handing Over Xuanzang’s Bones to a Mongolian Lama in Taiwan"

Yehan Numata Program in Buddhist Studies 2024-25

Handing Over Xuanzang’s Bones to a Mongolian Lama in Taiwan: Relic Repatriation and Sino-Japanese Buddhist Diplomacy in the Cold War

Abstract

A lecture on the roles that the 7th Changkya Hutugtu (1890-1957), a major lineage holder in the Geluk tradition in Inner Mongolia and Amdo, played in repatriating Xuanzang's relics from postwar Japan back to Taiwan, where he was exiled after 1949. This paper is part of Daigengna Duoer's research project on exiled Inner Asian Buddhism in Taiwan in the postwar period.

About the speaker

Daigengna Duoer is a historian specializing in religion in modern East and Inner Asia, with a particular focus on transnational Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in the twentieth century. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University and teaches classes on Buddhism and Asian religions. She earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Toronto. Her research has been supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Zeit-Stiftung Bucerius, the Mongolia Foundation, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, amongst others.

Daigengna is a host for the New Books in East Asian Studies Channel, a channel on the New Books Network. In addition to the study of religion, Daigengna is also interested in the study of religion in game media. She is one of the founders of the GAMING+ Project, an online resource for game studies, along with Kaitlyn Ugoretz and Keita Moore.”

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→ Related Reading Group Event: Friday, January 17, 2025

For questions and the reading group materials, please contact Christoph Emmrich at christoph.emmrich@utoronto.ca.