INCENTER

EntanglINg CENTERs: Religious, cultural and political interactions between the Khitan Empire, the Chinese Song Dynasty, the Tangut Empire and local Tibetan rulers between the 10th and 13th centuries

This research project deals with the contacts and exchanges between different centers of power coexisting in pre-modern Asia during a time of geo-political reorganization between the 10th and the 13th centuries. This project revolves around the question of religious, cross-cultural, and political contacts between the Khitan Empire, the Chinese Song Dynasty, the Tangut Empire, and Tibetan Local Rulers: contending centers of power where Buddhism was practiced on a local level or was a state-sponsored religion.

Based on the approach of comparative analysis of sources in Chinese and Tibetan and on various types of documents (textual, epigraphic, and visual sources) this research will highlight, by trying to get out from the sino-centric perspective, how and to what extent these centers were entangled and how they constructed, represented and legitimized themselves to each other from a religious, cultural, and political point of view.

Duration: 

From June 2023 to December 2025

Funded by: 

Lore Agnes Fellowship by

and a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the