Department of Asian Studies
Subject: State and Buddhism Under the Sui Dynasty
Supervisor: Yuri Pines
Abstract: I’m doing a research into the state-Buddhism relation under the Sui 隋 dynasty (581-618). I investigate how the Sui rulers used Buddhism to advance multiple imperial projects, and how the Buddhist clergy (the sangha) attempted to leverage the state-Buddhism relation to their advantage. Both of these two perspectives will be presented in the context of changes in Sui’s overall policies, namely, the re-establishment of new institutional order, the domestic consolidation and foreign expansion, and the dynasty’s eventual collapse. I focus on some milestones that caused changes in the court-sangha relations.
Bio: I’m from China. I spent the past six years in HongKong and Israel pursuing two Masters degrees. The research focus of my first MA (HKU) is on the doctrinal differences between Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen. In my second MA (HUJI), I explore the economic rationale behind Northern Zhou’s persecution of Buddhism. Now I work on the state-Buddhism relation in the late sixth and early seventh China. My PhD dissertation deals with this subject in a double perspective: that of the state’s religious policy on the one hand and that of the Buddhist response on the other. Outside academia, I am a big fan of documentary photography and Argentine Tango.
President Stipend 2020/21