New discoveries in the Buddhist art of South India, The life of the Buddha from Phanigiri, Andhra Pradesh

Conférence de Peter Skilling, Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, enregistrée le 12 décembre 2007 à l'EFEO. Dans le cadre des Conférences Iéna : Art, archéologie et anthropologie de l'Asie (EFEO – MUSÉE GUIMET) Cycle de conférence 2007-2008 : Images et Imagination : le Bouddhisme en Asie. Recent discoveries and excavations have significantly transformed the map of ancient Buddhist India. One of the most impressive of the new sites is Phanigiri in Andhra Pradesh – a hill-top monastic complex with a large stupa and numerous other structures. The phase presented in this lecture dates from the first to the third centuries CE. Two architraves from a gateway of the stupa were unearthed in 2005. One is carved with scenes from the life of the Buddha. The second architrave is devoted to post-Nirvana scenes, as yet unidentified, featuring monks, relics, and snakes. Other fragments and artefacts include jataka medallions and stone footprints of the Buddha. The lecture is based on a visit made to the site in March, 2005. Peter Skilling is a member of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (Bangkok and Paris). He has lived in Thailand for over thirty years. His research interests include the art and archaeology of India and Southeast Asia, in particular as related to the history of Buddhism. He has edited “Mahasutras: Great Discourses of the Buddha” (2 vols., The Pali Text Society, Oxford, 1994, 1997) and is editor and co-author of “Wat Si Chum” (River Books, Bangkok, 2007). At present he is preparing a corpus of the Pali inscriptions of Thailand.