This presentation asks about the bases on which we can establish sound interpretations. It also asks a more specific version of this question, namely: how can we meaningfully connect Buddhist texts and art from ancient Southeast Asia? 

To plumb this topic, I examine two bodies of ancient Indo-Javanese art which scholars have tried to interpret using texts: the pre-14th century CE Nganjuk Bronzes and Borobudur, the 9th-century Buddhist stūpa. Scholars from as far back as the 20th-century Dutch Orientalist N. J. Krom (1883-1945) to those at the cutting edge of the field today like Andrea Acri (2016) and Julie Gifford (2017) have wrestled with this problem—but not always satisfactorily. Through examining the limitations unveiled, but also possibilities disclosed, by connecting the Nganjuk Bronzes and Borobudur to premodern texts across the Sanskrit Cosmopolis, I explore what epistemological principles should undergird interpretation in Southeast Asian Buddhist art history.