The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

13 February

Mr Charles Allen: “Asoka and the development of the Cakravartin image”

Charles Allen is best known as an oral and narrative historian of South Asia. However, in recent years his interests have extended to early Indian and Buddhist history, with such books as The Buddha and the Sahibs and The Buddha and Dr. Führer, both dealing with the work of Orientalists in the recovery of South Asia’s Buddhist history. For the last three years his research has focussed largely on Emperor Aśoka and the processes that led to his disappearance from Indian history and his rediscovery in the nineteenth century. In this lecture Allen will examine the degree to which Aśoka and his immediate successors helped reshape the Buddhist concept of the Chakravartin or Wheel-turning ruler, as evinced in Aśokan and post-Aśokan iconography.

All lectures take place at 5.30pm at Balliol College lecture room 23.

For more information visit www.ocbs.org