Current trends in Humanities/Masters’ Academy 15.01.2025 ; 3 p.m.

09 01 2025

The Masters’ School Seminar/ Masters’ Academy will be held on January 15, at  3 p.m.

Our guest is  Prof. Isabelle Charleux.

Prof. Isabelle Charleux, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris

Intercultural “Translations” of Architectural Models: The Example of Architectural Replicas of a Nepalese Stupa in Mongolia

As religions expand across vast territories, works of art, like sacred scriptures, are often adapted into new cultural forms to make them more familiar and enable their indigenization. The “translation” of architectural models from one culture to another frequently results in distortions, with differences often becoming more apparent than similarities (Smith 1998; Wood 2008). To understand the discrepancies between an original model and its replica, it is essential to investigate how the model was transmitted and the reasons behind these differences. Are they the result of limited knowledge of the original, distortions in scaled-down models, or constraints imposed by local techniques and materials? Alternatively, could these differences reflect deliberate choices by builders and their vision of what the original looks like? To address these questions, it is necessary to study the transmission of legends, historical accounts, and iconography through texts, oral narratives, and portable images, as well as, when available, the biographies of individuals involved in these transmissions.
Notable Buddhist examples of “translated architectures” include the replica of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodhgaya (India) in Beijing and the “Tibetan temples” constructed by Manchu emperors
Kangxi and Qianlong near their summer palace in Chengde (Jehol, China) (Chayet 1985; Griswold 1965). The present paper focuses on the stupa of Bodnath (Tib. and Mo. Jarung Khashor), which is one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites of the Kathmandu valley in Nepal. Its cult was very popular in 19th and early 20th century Mongolia, particularly in Buryatia. This is evidenced by the translation of a renowned guidebook to Bodnath into Mongolian, a collection of Mongolian oral narratives, numerous paintings and amulets featuring the Bodnath Stupa alongside a Tibetan prayer, and the presence of architectural replicas in Mongolia, that likely served as substitutes for pilgrimages to Bodnath. I will focus on these architectural replicas, exploring how Nepalese architecture was “translated” into the Mongol context. Furthermore, I will investigate whether the original building’s meaning was reinterpreted in the replication process and whether the architectural replica was accompanied by the replication of associated cultic practices.

References:
Chayet, Anne, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains [The temples of Chengde and their
Tibetan models], Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations, 1985.
Griswold, Alexander B., “The Holy Land Transported: Replicas of the Mahābodhi Shrine in Siam and
Elsewhere.” In Paranavitana Felicitation Volume on Art and Architecture and Oriental Studies, edited
by Nicholas A. Jayawickrama, 173–222. Colombo: M. D. Gunasena and Co., 1965.
Smith, Jonathan Z., “Constructing a Small Place”, in Benjamin Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowsky eds.,
Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land, New York: New York University Press, 1998: 18-31.
Wood, Christopher, Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art, Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 2008.

BIO:

Prof. Isabelle Charleux is Director of Research at CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris), Deputy Director of the GSRL, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-PSL, Paris. Isabelle Charleux obtained her Habilitation in 2012 and since then she has been attached to the EPHE Doctoral School. She is an editor in chief of the journal Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines (EMSCAT, published by the EPHE) (http://emscat.revues.org/) An art historian by training, she also uses methods from history and anthropology Her
research interests focus on material culture and religion in Mongolia and China (Inner Mongolia) in modern and contemporary times, in particular borrowing mechanisms, the circulation of motifs, techniques and artists, phenomena of cultural hybridisation, and the material culture of holy places. After a first book on the temples and monasteries of Inner Mongolia (Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, Paris, 2006), she published a work in English on the Mongolian pilgrimages to Wutaishan from the 18th to the early 20th century (Nomads on Pilgrimage. Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940, Brill, 2015). She also worked on miraculous images in Mongolia; on the visual representations of great ancestors and authority figures in the Mongolian world from the 13th to the 21st century, and on the interactions between Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism(s) in Qing and Republican China; as well as on the Buddhist revival in contemporary Inner Mongolia. Her current work focuses on the study of religion outside monasteries – more particularly pilgrimage practices and oboo worship; representations of sacred space through the evolution of the geography of sacred places, representations of the master spirits of mountains and waters, and ancient cartography. She is also interested in contemporary representations of the past through the interpretations and uses of heritage. She led with Dorothy Wong (University of Virginia) a project on “Miraculous Images in Global Perspectives” from 2020 to 2022, and with Jake Dalton and Marissa Smith (Berkeley), the project “Points of Transition: Ovoo and the ritual remaking of religious, ecological, and historical politics in Inner Asia” (France Berkeley Fund Application) from 2018 to 2019. From 2008 to 2015 she was responsible for the research project of the Zaya Gegen monastery in Tsetserleg within the Monaco-Mongolian Joint Expedition – Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Monaco and Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia. She participated in the National Research Agency project “Digital information system for the use of texts in the ornamentation of Buddhist monuments: experimentation on the tomb of Emperor Qianlong” led by Françoise Wang-Toutain (UMR 8155 and UMR 694 MAP – GAMSAU team). From 2016 to 2020, she was an appointed member of Section 38 of the National Committee for Scientific Research (CNRS): “Anthropology and comparative study
of contemporary societies”. From 2002 to 2011, she taught art history and Chinese archaeology at the University of Paris-IV Sorbonne. She currently organizes with Virginie Vaté and Grégory Delaplace the monthly seminar of the CEMS (Center for Mongolian and Siberian Studies)–GSRL, and regularly gives lectures at the EPHE (https://www.ephe.psl.eu/anthropologie-du-religieux-cours-du-ccf) and at the INALCO. She is also a research fellow of several Chinese institutes (International Center for Buddhist Studies, People’s University (Renmin Daxue), Beijing; Wutai International Institute of Buddhism and East Asian Cultures, Wutaishan; Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot). In 2021, she received the Medal of Friendship (Nairamdal) awarded by the government of the Republic of Mongolia. She is a member of the scientific committee of several academic journals.