2014/07/01 by Roxann Prazniak · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #Islamic Studies and History
paper · doi:10.1017/s0010417514000280
openalex publication_date 2014/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Buddhism contributed to the culture and politics of thirteenth-century Eurasian intellectual exchange, depositing literary, artistic, and architectural traces subsequently eclipsed by layers of Islamic and Eurocentric history. Within extensive cross-continental networks of diplomatic and commercial activity, Ilkhanid Buddhism and the Buddhist revival of which it was a part drew serious attention among contemporary travelers, scholars, and statesmen including Ibn Taymiyah, Roger Bacon, and Rashid al-Din. This article argues that awareness of a Buddhist scholarly and political elite in the Muslim heartland, with its center at Tabriz, generated a historically significant Eurasian Buddhist discourse during a critical passage in the turn to modernity.