RAS Art Focus

in collaboration with the Consulate General of India in Shanghai

From India to Dunhuang: The Making of Buddhist Sacred Space

Tuesday, 1 December 2026

5:45 am Registration

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

We continue our autumn Art Focus series, presented in collaboration with the Consulate General of India in Shanghai and convened by art historian Julie Chun. The series explores the transmission of Buddhism, and with it, Buddhist imagery from India to China. This vast and fascinating topic provides our speakers an opportunity to share their areas of expertise and distinctive perspectives, offering insight into how religious ideas and visual traditions traveled across geographies and were circulated, transformed, and interpreted along the way.

For our third lecture in the four-part series, we are honored to host Dr. Neil Schmid, Research Professor at the Dunhuang Academy.

Lecture topic:

As Buddhism traveled from India across Central Asia to China, it conveyed not only texts and teachings but also images, architectural forms and distinct ways of creating sacred space. This lecture explores how these traditions were transmitted and transformed at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang. Beginning with the Buddhist cave temples of India and following their movement through Central Asia, the talk investigates how the cave, shrine, Buddha image, meditation space, and painted narrative were continually reimagined in new, highly diverse cultural environments. At Dunhuang, these inherited traditions developed into extraordinarily complex visual worlds in which architecture, sculpture, and painting worked together to make Buddhist sacred realms present to the devout. The Mogao Caves thus reveal both the remarkable continuity of Buddhist visual culture across Asia and its equally remarkable capacity for transformation and innovation.

This event is complimentary for members and institutional members of RAS China. To subscribe or renew your membership, please visit: https://ras-china.org/memberships​

About the speaker:

Dr. Neil Schmid is Research Professor at the Dunhuang Academy, where his scholarship focuses on the Buddhist art, religion, and cultural history of Dunhuang and the Silk Roads. His work examines the movement of religious ideas, images, and practices across medieval Eurasia, with particular attention to the ways in which Indian, Iranian, Central Asian, and Chinese traditions were transformed at Dunhuang. He has published widely on Dunhuang Buddhism and visual culture, and is currently completing a monograph on Iranian and Central Asian influences on donor portraits in the Mogao Caves.