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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:20260416T095315Z
UID:law-and-slavery-silk-road-how-did-buddhist-mo-en-1-7650@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\nThe selling and buyin
 g of human beings as slaves were highly sensitive\, controversial\, and pr
 ofitable on the trading networks along the Silk Road. Manuscripts excavate
 d from Cave 17 in Dunhuang (敦煌) and tombs in the Astana graveyard in T
 urfan contain records documenting how Buddhist institutions and individual
  monks and nuns were involved in the slave trade as buyers\, owners\, sell
 ers\, and transaction witnesses.\n\nExamining lawsuits\, contracts\, and d
 eathbed testaments concerning slave ownership related to Buddhist monks an
 d nuns\, this article explores what roles the Buddhist clergy had played i
 n the slave trade on the Silk Road\, and the legal implications of such in
 volvement. It shows that despite disapproval of slave ownership in Buddhis
 t canon law and strict regulations on slave trade in laws of the Tang Dyna
 sty (618–907\, 唐)\, Buddhist monks and nuns showed little concern over
  these restrictions when participating in the trading of slaves in the loc
 al markets in Dunhuang and Turfan.\n\nWhen ownership of their personal sla
 ves was challenged\, they were not reluctant in seeking legal intervention
  by initiating lawsuits in the lay court. In these practices\, such Buddhi
 st monks and nuns have received evident support from the secular legal sys
 tem. The local government not only placed official seals on a Buddhist mon
 k’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 adopti
 ve 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 Buddhis
 t studies. She is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the Universi
 ty of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on the legal interaction between Bu
 ddhism and law. Her recent publications include: “Buddhism in Court: Cle
 rical Privileges and the Jurisdiction of the Buddhist Clergy in Indian Bud
 dhist Monastic Law.\,” History of Religions 60.2 (2020): 103–131 and\;
  “The Fall of a Chinese Buddhist Monk: Law and State Governance in Post-
 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.zoom.u
 s/meeting/register/u5Moc-2qrD4uGNAbbupYaH4WkoHL8PMCQWgP until 13th of Janu
 ary 2022.
LOCATION:Online Event
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/en/events/law-and-slavery-silk-road-how-did-buddh
 ist-mo-en-1/
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