Post-Imperial Tibetan History and Karakhoto Texts

12 April 2023 - Maho Iuchi (Kyoto)
Post-imperial Tibetan History and Karakhoto Texts
online guest lecture at the BuddhistRoad project, CERES, Ruhr University Bochum

So far, the history of Tibet in the early post-imperial period has been understood based on limited references in later historical sources, as there was an overwhelming lack of contemporaneous sources, especially in comparison to other periods. In this context, the Tibetan texts excavated from Karakhoto have great value as a body of sources contemporary with post-imperial Tibet. That is, they provide much-needed insights into a historical void. In this talk, Maho Iuchi will discuss some of the Tibetan Texts from Karakhoto in the Stein Collection of the British Library that show the influence of post-imperial Tibet and their relation to the Tangut Empire (ca. 1038–1227, in Chinese sources known as Xixia 西夏).

Maho Iuchi is a Tibetologist. She is Associate Professor of the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research and Graduate School of Letters at Kyoto University and specializes in Tibetan history of post-imperial period. Her recent publications include: Iuchi, Maho. An Early Text on the History of Rwa sgreng Monastery: The Rgyal ba’i dben gnas rwa sgreng gi bshad pa nyi ma’i ’od zer of ’Brom shes rab me lce. Cambridge (MA), London: Harvard University Press, 2016; Takeuchi, Tsuguhito and Maho Iuchi. Tibetan Texts from Khara-khoto in the Stein Collection of the British Library. Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 2016.

Report of guest lecture