Translating Buddhism into a Visual Language: Current Research in the Art of Kucha (Leipzig Kucha Studies 7)

This seventh volume of Leipzig Kucha Studies marks a decade of the long-term research project at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities devoted to the Buddhist cave paintings of the Kucha region along the Northern Silk Road. The fifteen contributions collected in this volume cover a broad range of current research on Kucha art: from the reconstruction of vanished archaeological sites to the study of musical instruments; from innovative techniques for depicting narrative content to the identification of the literary sources represented; and from stylistic analyses of various iconographies and the identification of prototypes in the Mediterranean, Iran and South Asia to early temple architecture and Chinese influence thereon.

Kucha art is fundamentally narrative, and most of the essays explore the literary sources, such as Sutras, Vinayas, and Jatakas, that were translated into visual form in the murals. Over the past decade, hundreds of painted scenes have been identified and connected to a wide range of texts. The present volume advances this work through numerous new identifications of pictorial narratives, including sermons, legends, parables, and the iconography of individual figures. Taken together, these studies represent a significant step forward in the study of Kucha, broadening and deepening our understanding of the region through diverse and complementary approaches. They provide an essential basis for situating the culture and religion of Kucha within the wider historical developments of Central Asia and beyond, and for appreciating a culture that, while engaging with surrounding traditions, maintained a strikingly distinctive identity.