In the history of religion, Central Asia was the crossroads of ancient civilisations with multicultural and multilingual societies. Its uniqueness was determined by complex dynamics of religious and cultural exchanges gravitating around an ancient communication network, known as the Silk Roads. These facilitated interchanges not only of goods but also of religious fields such as Buddhism, Eastern Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam. From around the 6th century onward, Buddhism was the dominant religious factor in this exchange; its transfer predetermined the transfer of adjacent aspects of culture. Islam gradually entered Eastern Central Asia from the 10th/11th century and finally replaced the importance of Buddhism by the middle of the second millennium, whereas in Tibet Buddhism remained the dominant religious field until the present.
The geographical region we refer to as Central Asia extends from the Pamir Mountains in the west to the Gobi Desert in the east, and from the Altai Mountains in the north to the Himalayan Mountain Range in the south. Thereby the region connects in the east to Chinese, in the south to Indian, and in the west to Persian cultural spheres.
The chair of Central Asian Religions in Past and Present at CERES has two foci: Tibetan and Central Asian (including Old Uyghur) religious history. Tibetan religious history extends from the emergence of the Tibetan Empire in the 7th century up to contemporary developments, and deals mainly with Buddhism. Central Asian religious history is more concerned with the contact dimension of Buddhism with Manichaeism and Eastern Christianity between the 6th to the 14th century. It also deals with religions in the West Uyghur Kingdom in the Turfan oasis. Although the two concentrations are primarily philological and deal with sources in different languages (Tibetan, Chinese, and Old Uyghur), the vast visual culture is also taken into account. Further approaches arise via transversal topics.
Emphasising a broad philological approach, our courses provide a basic understanding of the religious history of the region through its various historical periods from past to present.
