080068 SE Seminar: Inalienability in East Asian Buddhist Art (2016S)

What does it mean to donate an object to an institution as a ‘perpetual loan’? Why would one create paintings with body parts as gifts? How is it possible to possess an event as an object? All these questions involve objects and their relationships to communities and individuals, and all concern the desire for inalienability in Buddhism. Although 'desire for inalienability' would seem to contradict a religion invested in quelling desire and understanding impermanence, inalienability is a fundamental construct in how Buddhism functions. Far from divesting itself of permanence, Buddhism employs notions of durability and stasis through materiality as the means to salvation in manifold ways. In this course we will explore how the inalienability of objects and relationships operates toward soteriological ends in medieval East Asian Buddhism through the investigation of devotional art and sacred space.