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SUMMARY:Law and Slavery on the Silk Road: How did Buddhist Monks and Nuns 
 participate in the Slave Trade?
DTSTART:20220114T150000Z
DTEND:20220114T170000Z
DTSTAMP:20260418T115403Z
UID:law-and-slavery-silk-road-how-did-buddhist-monks-a-7650@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Guest Lecture by Cuilian Liu (Pittsburgh)\n\nThe lecture is li
 ve available at Zoom. Please pre-register until 13 January 2022\, 12 pm. Z
 oom lecture times: 4 pm (Amsterdam\, Berlin\, Rom\, Stockholm\, Wien)\; 10
  pm (Peking)\; 10 am (New York\, Toronto\, Miami)\n \n\nThe selling and b
 uying of human beings as slaves were highly sensitive\, controversial\, an
 d profitable on the trading networks along the Silk Road. Manuscripts exca
 vated from Cave 17 in Dunhuang (敦煌) and tombs in the Astana graveyard 
 in Turfan contain records documenting how Buddhist institutions and indivi
 dual monks and nuns were involved in the slave trade as buyers\, owners\, 
 sellers\, and transaction witnesses.\n\nExamining lawsuits\, contracts\, a
 nd deathbed testaments concerning slave ownership related to Buddhist monk
 s and nuns\, this article explores what roles the Buddhist clergy had play
 ed in the slave trade on the Silk Road\, and the legal implications of suc
 h involvement. It shows that despite disapproval of slave ownership in Bud
 dhist canon law and strict regulations on slave trade in laws of the Tang 
 Dynasty (618–907\, 唐)\, Buddhist monks and nuns showed little concern 
 over these restrictions when participating in the trading of slaves in the
  local markets in Dunhuang and Turfan.\n\nWhen ownership of their personal
  slaves was challenged\, they were not reluctant in seeking legal interven
 tion by initiating lawsuits in the lay court. In these practices\, such Bu
 ddhist monks and nuns have received evident support from the secular legal
  system. The local government not only placed official seals on a Buddhist
  monk’s market certificate of slave purchase filled with abusive terms\,
  but also ruled in favor of a Buddhist nun to protect her rights as the ad
 optive mother but ignored her enslavement of a free commoner’s daughter\
 , a severe crime against the Tang law.\n\n\nCuilan Liu is a scholar of Bud
 dhist studies. She is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the Univ
 ersity of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on the legal interaction betwee
 n Buddhism and law. Her recent publications include: “Buddhism in Court:
  Clerical Privileges and the Jurisdiction of the Buddhist Clergy in Indian
  Buddhist Monastic Law.\,” History of Religions 60.2 (2020): 103–131 a
 nd\; “The Fall of a Chinese Buddhist Monk: Law and State Governance in P
 ost-Imperial China\,” Journal of Law and Religion 35.3 (2020): 432–449
 .\n\n\nTo join the lecture\, please register at https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zo
 om.us/meeting/register/u5Moc-2qrD4uGNAbbupYaH4WkoHL8PMCQWgP until 13th of 
 January 2022.
LOCATION:Online-Veranstaltung
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/de/events/law-and-slavery-silk-road-how-did-buddh
 ist-monks-a/
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