Stories in Stone: Conversations between the Play in Full and the Divine Tales at Borobudur
Stories in Stone: Conversations between the Play in Full and the Divine Tales at Borobudur
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7 October 2024, 2.30pm - 4.00 pm
Classroom 22 (Cendana), Yale-NUS College
Stories change in the retelling, and their meaning shifts accordingly. I want to explore such changes in retelling and meaning as they arise in the enigmatic 10th Century Javanese Buddhist monument, Borobudur. The first gallery of its elaborately carved reliefs features two narrative layers running in parallel: on top, a retelling in stone of the Lalitavistara—narrating a Mahāyāna version of Śākyamuni’s awakening; below this, selected tales found also in the Divyāvadāna. Focusing on the Lalitavistara, I want to first examine how the story changes in focus or meaning when it is retold visually and in stone, in this particular context. I will then explore how themes are magnified, sharpened or thrown into relief at selected points by the juxtaposition of representations of avadānas directly beneath.
Amber Carpenter is Senior Research Fellow at the Einstein Forum (Potsdam) and Visiting Professor at King’s College, London. Before that she taught for several years at Yale-NUS College, joining her two primary areas of research, in ancient Greek and in classical Indian Buddhist philosophy, into a single activity: philosophy. Some fruits of this work have just appeared as Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave (co-edited with Pierre-Julien Harter, 2024). She has held research fellowships with the Templeton Trust and the University of Melbourne, and jointly headed the Integrity Project, which produced the edited volume of Portraits of Integrity (2020). In addition to several journal articles in Greek philosophy, focusing especially on Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind, she wrote Indian Buddhist Philosophy (2014).
Note that this speaker will be joining us virtually.
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