Text and Bitext in Middle Cambodia

Text and Bitext in Middle Cambodia.

A virtual talk by Dr. Trent Walker, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University.

Date & Time: October 14, 2021, 2:00pm – 3:00pm Hawaii Time

View recording here

About the Webinar

Stone inscriptions carved at Angkor Wat and other Cambodian temples between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries cite or quote from over twenty different Buddhist titles. This talk identifies these titles on the basis of surviving palm-leaf manuscripts in Cambodia and situates them in the broader history of Southeast Asian Buddhism. Most of these titles were transmitted and performed as “bitexts,” including those composed in a bilingual Pali-Khmer sermon format. The epigraphic evidence confirms the primacy of bitexts in Theravada intellectual life during this period, forcing us to rethink the relationship between vernacular and cosmopolitan discourse in mainland Southeast Asia.

About the Speaker

Trent Walker (PhD in Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley, 2018) is the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, where his research focuses on the intellectual history of Buddhist translation in mainland Southeast Asia. He also serves as the Director of Preservation and Lead Scholar for the Khmer Manuscript Heritage Project, an initiative of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center to make over two million pages of palm-leaf and bark-paper manuscripts from Cambodia freely accessible online. His recent publications include articles on Cambodian Dharma songs, Thai literary history, and translation practices in southern Vietnam.

Part of our UHCSEAS Fall 2021 Webinar Series.

The first talk in this series is by Dr. Lesley Pullen, on Patterned Splendour: Textiles Depicted on Javanese Sculpture, 8th to 15th century; on September 30. More info here.