Colloquia

Symposium
September 28, 2007
Dunhuang Manuscripts and Painting

An International Symposium Honoring James and Lucy Lo

1 30 pm
6 00 pm
101 McCormick Hall
Organized by the Buddhist Studies Workshop and co-sponsored by the Tang Center for East Asian Art, with additional support from the Princeton University Library, the Program in East Asian Studies, the Department of Religion, Yale University Council on East Asian Studies, the American Trust for the British Library, and the Mercer Trust
Artwork by: . Artwork title: Manuscript fragment with stamped images of the Buddha. Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on the Names of the Buddhas, chapter 4

Leading scholars working on Buddhist art and manuscripts from northwestern China gathered at Princeton University to present research in a public forum and to honor more than 60 years of contributions to the field by James and Lucy Lo. In 1943, the Los traveled to Dunhuang, an oasis town along the ancient silk routes, to photograph the nearly 500 Buddhist caves dating from the 4th to the 14th century filled with sculptures and murals. They produced an unparalleled set of nearly 3,000 black-and-white photographs. While there, they also acquired nearly 80 medieval manuscripts, most of them fragments, which are now part of the collection of the Princeton University Library.

The participants included Huaiyu Chen (Arizona State University), Jacob P. Dalton (Yale University), Jean-Pierre Drège (École Pratique des Hautes Études), Fan Jinshi (Dunhuang Academy), and Susan Whitfield (British Library). Their papers addressed advances in the conservation and study of wall paintings, the history of the Chinese book, advances in digital technology and web resources for the study of Silk Road materials, Tibetan manuscripts, and the Princeton collection of Dunhuang manuscripts.

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