Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies

23/10/2026

Here is an update on the second part of our fieldwork to Buddhist sites in Anyue district of Sichuan, the area of China most densely populated with religious sites dating between the Tang and Qing dynasties. After having spent one week in Anyue town as our base, we moved to the remote Shiyang village for the second part.

Our group had also the great pleasure to by guided for three days by Prof. Yang Xiaodong from Zhongshan University, Guangzhou. He has studied the sites since ca. 20 years and probably is the scholar most familiar with the region and the hybrid and special types of Buddhism having developed there.

After two weeks of intense fieldwork in these two areas, we moved on to the megacity of Chongqing. After having been confined to the tiny and remote Shiyang, the encounter with Chonqing was a huge contrast. There, Chongqing University and the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts had arranged workshops for us, with professors Christoph Anderl, Bernard Faure, Wendi Adamek and Anna Sokolova holding lectures. GCBS professor Anderl continued to Chengdu after that, accompanied by Anna Sokolova and Longyu Zhang, in order to give a featured presentation at Sichuan University. Other participants from GCBS in the fieldwork were PhD researchers Chentong Liu and Wen Hui.

We are looking back at three intensive weeks of joint research in a wonderful group. Besides manifold impressions and unforgettable memories, we have collected materials on over 60 sites, documented them with close to 8.000 high-resolution photographs and 3D images, and established important connections to local researchers.

06/10/2026

We are now halfway with our two-week field trip to Anyue district in Sichuan, the region most densely populated with Buddhist rock carvings in China, some of them very remote and difficult to reach. The field studies are led by Prof. Christoph Anderl (GCBS), Prof. Wendi Adamek (Univ. of Calgary), and Prof. Bernard Faure (Columbia Univ.), and participants include doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from Ghent University, Hong Kong University, Zhejiang Normal University, Xiamen University, University of Calgary, and Florida State University.
Here are some impressions from the fieldwork activities, enjoy the photos!

04/09/2026

We are very proud of our PhD student DUAN Xi who successfully defended his PhD thesis "Materialising Frontier Authority: Institutions, Commemoration and Spatial Order in Late Imperial Menghua" (supervisors: Prof. Dr. Ann Heirman - Ghent University, Prof. Dr. Christoph Anderl - Ghent University, Prof. Dr. Lia Wei - Sorbonne Alliance / INALCO) on September 3rd, 2026.

MANY CONGRATULATIONS!!

The exam commission consisted of Prof. Dr. Jo Steenbergen (chair, Ghent University), Dr. Mathieu Torck (rapporteur, Ghent University), Emeritus Prof. Dr. Timothy H. Barrett (examiner, SOAS, University of London), Prof. Dr. Megan Bryson (examiner, University of Tennessee), Dr. Mariia Lepneva (examiner, Ghent University), Prof. Dr. Sara Mondini (examiner, Ghent University).

Enjoy the photographs from the Doctoral defence meeting!

21/08/2026

Come do a postdoc with us. How to apply is linked in the comments.

The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS) (www.cbs.ugent.be ), located at Ghent University, Belgium, is seeking candidates for postdoctoral fellowships which run between 3 and potentially 6 years. This fellowship is open to scholars worldwide. There are two fellowship opportunities: the Junior FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship, which is open to those who have received their PhDs within the past three years and the Senior FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship, which is open to those who have received their PhD no earlier than three years ago and no later than six. Those who have successfully obtained a Junior Fellowship are automatically eligible to apply for a Senior Fellowship after thus offering a total fellowship length of six years.

The GCBS is a thriving community for Buddhist Studies and offers an international research environment with faculty and staff from all over the world. Our research focus spans the historic regions of Buddhist transmission from South and Central Asia and on to East Asia across a number of historic periods favoring textual methodologies in the primary sources of the traditional languages of Buddhist Transmission (Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, etc.). We are pleased to support projects focussed on South/Southeast/Central Asian, Tibetan/Himalayan, and East Asian Buddhist manifestations.

23/07/2026

GCBS doctoral student, Longyu Zhang, organized the panel "Buddhist and Nestorian Texts as Multilingual Contact Zones: Phonological, Lexical and Grammatical Evidence" at the 2026 EACS held recently in Venice, pictured here with co-panelists Chia-Wei Lin (Lausanne University) and Haoxue Yang (Seoul National University). Huzzah!

10/07/2026

Continuing GCBS's efforts to further academic cooperation between Belgium and Thailand, through the kind organization of the Thai Embassy we hosted Ajahn Fookij yesterday, who visited us from The UK. We were joined by Dr. Natchapol Sirisawad of Chulalongkorn University, and legendary scholar of Buddhism, Dr. Peter Skilling. Of course, Thai was on the menu for lunch.

08/07/2026

GCBS researcher Dr. Xiaoming Hou participated in the ongoing “Translation across the Four Directions”: Buddhist Translation Institutions,
Canon Formation, and the Translingual Shaping of Asian Civilizations conference held at the Mount Kuaiji Advanced Institute of Buddhist Studies where she presented a talk titled, “Where Meditation and Wisdom Converge: The Translation and Conceptualization of sīzé 思擇 and niànhuì 念慧”

06/07/2026

We are looking very much forward to a one-day workshop on July 10th with guest lectures by Taiwanese scholars, and project presentations by researchers of our department, as well as discussions concerning future collaboration in various fields of Chinese Studies, including Buddhist Studies.

Workshop “New Perspectives on Chinese History, Buddhism, and Cultural Heritage,” July 10, 2026 We are very happy to announce a workshop “New Perspectives on Chinese History, Buddhism, and Cultural Heritage: Taiwanese Scholars and Ghent University Researchers in Dialogue,” which will take pla...

08/06/2026

Continuing the GCBS cooperation with the Thai Buddhist community we had another fruitful meeting today with Thai Ambassador to Belgium, H.E. Mrs. Kanchana Patarachoke, who came to visit us with the knowledgeable Venerable Chandako. We had an expansive discussion about the finer points of the translation of Buddhavacana and various other delightful topics.

06/06/2026

We are very proud of GCBS researcher Massimiliano Portoghese who successfully defended his PhD thesis "The Advent of Buddhist Monastic Bodies in China: Symbolic Appearance, Identity Markers and Social Perceptions" (main supervisor: Prof. Ann Heirman; co-supervisor: Prof. Christoph Anderl) on Friday, June 5th! The exam commission consisted of Prof. John Kieschnick (Stanford University), Prof. Ester Bianchi (University of Perugia), Prof. Sylvie Hureau (École Pratique des Hautes Études), and Prof. Anna Andreeva (Ghent University), headed by Prof. Michael Meeuwis (Ghent University).
Many congratulations!!!