Drawing upon numerous manuscripts from China and Central Asia, the articles presented in this volume by leading scholars in the field examine a broad range of topics on the multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic communities along the Silk Road in the medieval period, and cover such topics as the social history of Kucha, book history in Dunhuang, the spread of Manichaeism, the political history of Turkic and Khotanese Kingdoms, and the travelogue of the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang. They demonstrate that Han Chinese, Khotanese, Sogdians, Tocharians, Tibetans, and Uyghurs have all contributed to constructing a sophisticated international network across Asia. Contributors are: Bi Bo, Chao-jung Ching, Jean Pierre Drège, Ogihara Hirotoshi, Xiaohe Ma, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Xinjiang Rong, Tokio Takata, Xiaofu Wang, Wenkan Xu, Yutaka Yoshida, Lishuang Zhu, Peter Zieme.

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies is the central publication for the study of two closely related languages, Tocharian A and Tocharian B. Found in many Buddhist manuscripts from central Asia, Tocharian dates back to the second half of the first millennium of the Common Era, though it was not discovered until the twentieth century. Focusing on both philological and linguistic aspects of this language, Tocharian and Indo-European Studies also looks at it in relationship to other Indo-European languages. This issue addresses topics such as the function and origin of the present suffix "-sk," verbal endings, the words for "fear" and "perfume," secular documents, and Tocharian glosses in Sanskrit manuscripts. Birgit Anette Olsen is a researcher and instructor at the University of Copenhagen and author of Derivation and Composition and The Noun in Biblical Armenian. Michaël Peyrot is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna. Georges-Jean Pinault is professor at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. Thomas Olander is a researcher and instructor at the University of Copenhagen.

This book unravels some of the complex factors that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India, such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies (TIES) publishes central topics on the two closely related languages Tocharian A and B, attested in Central Asian Buddhist manuscripts dating from the second half of the first millennium AD. It focuses on philological and linguistic aspects of Tocharian, and its relation with the other Indo-European languages

As one of the most central categories of the Tocharian verb, the subjunctive is of utmost importance for the reconstruction of the verbal system, the most rewarding domain of Tocharian historical grammar. Michaël Peyrot provides a thorough analysis of the formation of the subjunctive in both Tocharian languages, and establishes its meaning on the basis of a systematic investigation of a wealth of published and unpublished texts. A careful reconstruction of the Proto-Tocharian stage provides a solid base for the comparison with Indo-European and the derivation of the Tocharian subjunctive from the proto-language. With its focus on the wide variety of intricate morphological patterns, The Tocharian Subjunctive is at the same time a study of the whole Tocharian verbal system.

Volume two of Marylin Rhie’s widely acclaimed and formative multi-volume work presents a comprehensive, scholarly and detailed study of the Buddhist art of China and Central Asia from 316-439 A.D. during the formative early periods of Buddhism in the Eastern Chin and Sixteen Kingdoms Period. Using texts translated from the Chinese together with stylistic and technical analyses, the chronology and sources of the art are more clearly defined than in previous studies for the regions of South and North China (other than Kansu) and the important sites of Tumshuk, Kucha and Karashahr on the Northern Silk Route in eastern Central Asia. Furthermore, by incorporating extensive religious and historical materials, this work not only contributes to clarifying the regional characteristics of the art, but also offers new insights into the broader, interregional relationships of this politically fragmented period.

As one of the most debated categories of Tocharian nominal morphology, grammatical gender is in this book investigated from the point of view of Indo-European comparative reconstruction, by applying the methods of historical linguistics, Tocharian philology, and typological linguistics.

The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad aims to create a new framework to enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia. Buddhism was one major factor in this exchange: for the first time the multi-layered relationships between the trans-regional Buddhist traditions (Chinese, Indian, Tibetan) and those based on local Buddhist cultures (Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut) will be explored in a systematic way. The second volume Buddhism in Central Asia II—Practice and Rituals, Visual and Materials Transfer based on the mid-project conference held on September 16th–18th, 2019, at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) focuses on two of the six thematic topics addressed by the project, namely on "practices and rituals", exploring material culture in religious context such as mandalas and talismans, as well as “visual and material transfer”, including shared iconographies and the spread of ‘Khotanese’ themes.

Anyone reading English translations of Buddhist texts will encounter a host of names, terms, and phrases whose meanings are not clear even though they appear in English. Buddhism is famous for its specialized terminology and translation alone may not communicate its full meaning. East Asian Buddhist diction is layered with several languages -Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese -and the only way to make one's way through this linguistic maze without getting lost is with the aid of a good dictionary. The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, a revised and expanded version of A Dictionary of Buddhist Terms and Concepts (1983), is a welcome addition that serves this purpose. Written clearly for the general reader, the Dictionary contains over 2,700 entries. While it is designed primarily for use with the Soka Gakkai's translations of Nichiren's works, the Dictionary contains a wealth of terms found in all other traditions of Buddhism. Definitions are given for technical terms, historical figures, doctrinal texts, institutions, and place names. The entries provide complete cross-references so that readers may know and further pursue meanings of term equivalents as rendered in other ways or languages. Ten appendixes provide maps and world lists that enable the reader to find terms in English, Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, or Japanese. Like all Buddhist masters, Nichiren presented his particular message in the wider context of other Buddhist teachings and practices. To know the particular, one must also understand the general context, and the Dictionary, in addressing both levels, provides essential knowledge not only for students of Nichiren Buddhism but for anyone reading Buddhist texts.