“Fact and Fiction on the
Advent of Buddhism in the ‘Golden Land'”
Nicolas Revire
Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Postdoctoral Fellow, Arts of Asia
Curatorial Documentation and Research, The Art Institute of Chicago
Sponsored by the Archaeology Brownbag Series and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Most scholars think that the generic name “Golden Land” (Skt, Suvarṇabhūmi; P., Suvaṇṇabhūmi) was first used by Indian traders as a vague designation for an extensive offshore region, presumably in Southeast Asia. Some Pali sources even specifically link Suvaṇṇabhūmi with the introduction of Buddhism to the region. The locus classicus is the Sri Lankan Mahāvaṃsa chronicle (5th or 6th century CE) which states that two monks, Soṇa and Uttara, were sent there for missionary activities in the time of King Asoka (3rd century BCE). No Southeast Asian textual or epigraphic sources, however, refer to this Pali legend before the second millennium CE. Conversely, what hard archeological evidence is there for the advent of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia? This lecture will reexamine and carefully confront the literary evidence and the earliest epigraphic and archeological data, dissociating material discoveries from legendary accounts, with special references to the Mon country of Rāmaññadesa (lower Myanmar) and Dvāravatī (central Thailand).
This event is free and open to the public. A recording will be available on the CSEAS YouTube channel following the event.
Nicolas Revire, born French, holds a doctoral degree from the Université Paris 3–Sorbonne nouvelle in France. He specializes in the Buddhist art and archeology of early Southeast Asia, with a research focus on premodern Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia. He is general editor of Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology (2014) and Decoding Southeast Asian Art: Studies in Honor of Piriya Krairiksh (2022). After nearly two decades of teaching at Thammasat University in Bangkok, he is presently the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Research Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago, serving both the Departments of Arts of Asia and Curatorial Documentation and Research.