Andrew Harris
S. 4 - 62
doi:
10.1553/medievalworlds_no9_2019s4
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
doi:
10.1553/medievalworlds_no9_2019s4
Abstract:
This paper serves as the first focused study since 1918 exploring the sub-structural remains of Theravāda Buddhist monasteries, known to scholarship as »Buddhist terraces«, at the Cambodian Khmer capital of Angkor Thom. Thought to have been constructed between the late 13th-16th centuries, prayer halls (vihara or praḥ vihar) and other Theravāda buildings are seen by traditional scholarship to be the products of an officially undocumented but visible religious transition from the Khmer Brahmano-Buddhist royal cult, manifested through the construction of universal temple-mountains and esoteric religious practices, to a more socially-inclusive monastic tradition which abandoned epigraphy, the deification of kings, and large-scale religious building. Data acquired from two seasons of site investigations within Angkor Thom has revealed an expansive collection of over seventy »Buddhist terraces« demarcated by sīmā boundary stones, suggesting not only a notable Theravāda building campaign within this cosmologically designed Mahāyāna Buddhist urban space but also the conversion and incorporation of Brahmano-Buddhist monuments as landmarks of the new religion. The interaction of Buddhist monastic architecture with non-religious urban infrastructure, too, most notably the road-grid of Angkor Thom previously mapped through LiDAR and GIS, has revealed intriguing patterns of construction that appear to match a configuration with the southerly temple of Angkor Wat, heavily restored as a royally patronized Theravāda sanctuary in the mid-16th century. Understanding the significance of this shift is necessary to understanding the re-appropriation of the vast urban ritual landscape of Angkor, and in turn serves as a valid study for further understanding the significance and retransformation of ritual space transcending specifically-delineated historical epochs.
Angkor, Cambodia, Buddhism, Theravada, monasteries, ritual, 16th century, archaeology, survey, mapping
Published Online:
2019/06/28 11:26:47
Document Date:
2019/06/28 11:19:00
Object Identifier:
0xc1aa5572 0x003abd78
Rights:All rights reserved.For questions regarding copyright and copies please contact us by email.
medieval worlds provides a forum for comparative, interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to overcome disciplinary boundaries, regional limits and national research traditions in Medieval Studies, to open up new spaces for discussion, and to help developing global perspectives. We focus on the period from c. 400 to 1500 CE but do not stick to rigid periodization.
medieval worlds is open to submissions of broadly comparative studies and matters of global interest, whether in single articles, companion papers, smaller clusters, or special issues on a subject of global/comparative history. We particularly invite studies of wide-ranging connectivity or comparison between different world regions.
Apart from research articles, medieval worlds publishes ongoing debates and project and conference reports on comparative medieval research.
Table of Contents
Editor’s Preface
Walter Pohl and Ingrid Hartl
Monasteries and Sacred Landscapes
An Old Ritual Capital, a New Ritual Landscape:
Understanding the Transformation of Angkor Thom, Cambodia:
through the Construction and Placement of Theravāda »Buddhist Terraces«:
Andrew Harris
The Monasteries of Athos and Chalkidiki (8th-11th Centuries): A Pioneering Front?
Michel Kaplan
Pro qualitate loci et instantia laboris:
Monasteries and their Human and Natural Environments in Late Antique Gaul
Matheus Coutinho Figuinha
The Limitations of Asceticism
Albrecht Diem
Byzantine Connections
Greeks and »Greek« Writers in the Early Medieval Italian Papyri
Edward M. Schoolman
Resenting Byzantine Iconoclasm. Its Early Reception in Italy
through an Inscription from Corteolona
Francesca Dell’Acqua and Clemens Gantner
Mercantile and Religious Mobility between Byzantines, Latins and Muslims,
1200-1500: On the Theory and Practice of Social Networks
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou
»A Universal Narrative of Humanity«. Travelling to the ›Other‹
from Constantinople: Priscus of Panion (5th c. CE)
and William of Rubruk (13th c. CE)
Pia Carolla
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