Old Roads, Religious Mobility, and Paradigms of Long-Distance Transmission: Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in a Transit Zone between Eurasian Frontiers

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES

Old Roads, Religious Mobility, and Paradigms of Long-Distance Transmission: Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in a Transit Zone between Eurasian Frontiers

ABSTRACT
Graffiti inscriptions and rock drawings mark an ancient network of capillary routes that connected Central Asian Silk Routes with major South Asian arteries for religious mobility and trade. The presentation aims to showcase developments of digital imaging and mapping techniques to document and promote the tangible cultural heritage of epigraphic and petroglyphic complexes in the Upper Indus transit zone of northern Pakistan. In order to better explain patterns of religious, cultural and commercial exchanges, paradigms of long-distance transmission provide useful alternatives to gradual diffusion by point-to-point contact expansion based on models of ‘Old Roads’ between Chinese, Central Asian and Indian empires.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jason Neelis, Associate Professor of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010), conducts research on cross-cultural exchanges along intertwined networks for migration, trade, and religious and cultural transmission within and beyond the north-western borderlands of South Asia. He currently directs a project on Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in the Upper Indus region of northern Pakistan.

ORGANIZER
The event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.