Webcast by Carmen Meinert
2021. Sacred Space and Time:Perspectives from Tantric Buddhists Material from the Tangut Empire (11th to 13th c.), Khyentse Lecture 2021, University of California, Berkely
Monographs and Editions by Carmen Meinert
The BuddhistRoad project has been creating a new framework to understand the dynamics of cultural... more The BuddhistRoad project has been creating a new framework to understand the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer across premodern Eastern Central Asia. This framework includes a new focus on the complex interactions between Buddhism and non-Buddhist traditions and a deepening of the traditional focus on Buddhist doctrines between the 6th and 14th centuries, as Buddhism continued to spread along an ancient, local political-economic-cultural system of exchange, often referred to as the Silk Roads. This volume brings together world renowned experts to discuss these issues including Buddhism and Christianity, Islam, Daoism, Manichaeism, local indigenous traditions, Tantra etc.
The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad (https://buddhistroad.ceres.rub.de/en/) aims to crea... more The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad (https://buddhistroad.ceres.rub.de/en/) aims to create a new framework to enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia. Buddhism was one major factor in this exchange: for the first time the multi-layered relationships between the trans-regional Buddhist traditions (Chinese, Indian, Tibetan) and those based on local Buddhist cultures (Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut, Khitan) will be explored in a systematic way. The first volume Buddhism in Central Asia (Part I): Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage is based on the start-up conference held on May 23rd–25th, 2018, at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) and focuses on the first two of altogether six thematic topics to be dealt with in the project, namely on “patronage and legitimation strategy” as well as “sacred space and pilgrimage.”
2013. Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia. The Challenge of Climate Change, edited by Carmen Meinert, Climate and Culture, Vol. 1, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 443 pages.
2011. Buddha in the Yurt—Buddhist Art from Mongolia, edited by Carmen Meinert, Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2 vols., English-Russian edition, 840 pages.
2011. Buddha in der Jurte—Buddhistische Kunst aus der Mongolei, edited by Carmen Meinert, München: Hirmer Verlag, 2 vols., German-Mongolian edition, 840 pages.
2010. Traces of Humanism in China—Tradition and Modernity, edited by Carmen Meinert, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 207 pages.
2010. Buddhist Approaches to Human Rights—Dissonances and Resonances, edited by Carmen Meinert and Hans-Bernd Zöllner, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 252 pages.
2004. Chinesische Chan- und tibetische rDzogs chen-Lehre: eine komparatistische Untersuchung im Lichte des philosophischen Heilskonzeptes ‚Nicht-Vorstellen‘. Ph.D. thesis, 400 pages.
Articles in peer-reviewed edited volumes by Carmen Meinert
2025. “Tibet I: The Imperial and Early Post-Imperial Period (7th–10th Cent.),“ by Carmen Meinert and Dylan Esler.
In Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online. Volume IV-1: History—South Asia; Western Central Asia; Southeast Asia; Tibetan Sphere of Influence, edited by Jonathan Silk et al. Leiden: Brill, 21,282 words., 2025
Buddhism in Central Asia III—Impacts of Non-Buddhist Influences, Doctrines, edited by Lewis Doney, Carmen Meinert, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Yukiyo Kasai, Leiden: Brill, 2023
The region east of the Blue Lake, which was part of the Tibetan Empire (ca. 8th c. to 842, Tib. B... more The region east of the Blue Lake, which was part of the Tibetan Empire (ca. 8th c. to 842, Tib. Bod chen po) and later the Tangut Empire (ca. 1038-1227, in Chinese sources known as Xixia 西夏), was an important multicultural area connecting the equally diverse oasis towns of the Hexi Corridor (Chin. Hexi zoulang 河西走廊) and the Tarim Basin with Sinitic and Tibetan cultural areas. The present chapter explores the development of the contested space between these cultures in a broader historical context. It also discusses religion, especially Chan in both its Chinese form and as adapted into Tibetan, its links to the famous Samyé Debate, and its use in a power struggle during the ninth and tenth centuries that relates to the well-known Tibetan master Gongpa Rapsel (892-975, Tib. dGongs pa Rab gsal). This expands our picture of how Chan masters, Buddhist works, and religious themes might have interacted on the micro-historical level through local and transregional exchanges in Eastern Central Asia. The chapter thereby brings together information on people, places, texts, and topics related to Chan Buddhism in order to actually locate them in geographical space in the contested region east of the Blue Lake. Network of Buddhist nodes in Eastern Central Asia Map by Jürgen Schörflinger
2020. "Introduction—Piety, Power, and Place in Central and East Asian Buddhism," in: Buddhism in Central Asia I—Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage, edited by Carmen Meinert and Henrik H. Sørensen, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 1–12.
2016. "Introduction—Dynamics of Buddhist Transfer in Central Asia," in: Transfer of Buddhism Across Central Asian Networks (7th to 13th Centuries), edited by Carmen Meinert, Leiden: Brill, 1-16.
2013. "Climate and Culture in East-Asia," in: Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia. The Challenge of Climate Change, edited by Carmen Meinert, Leiden: Brill, 1-20.
The grassland on the Tibetan Plateau-a vast area which is, as the Third Pole, of great importance... more The grassland on the Tibetan Plateau-a vast area which is, as the Third Pole, of great importance for the ecological and climatical equilibrium of the earth-is an ancient cultural landscape shaped as such over the last two millennia. However, due to various human activities and climatic changes over the past 50 years, its degradation and desertification has been accelerated. Although the Chinese government has recognised the problem and its scope, particularly since the 1990s, top-down interventions to resolve the severe environmental degradation have not yet been successful, and in parts even counterproductive. The current situation is the result not only of obvious political constellations, but also of various forms of experience, deeply anchored in collective patterns of perception and modes of interpretation. However, the example of a community-based anti-desertification project initiated in 2010-a cooperation of governmental institutions and nongovernment agents-appears as a feasible solution to the concrete problem, one that potentially reaches out far beyond the immediate scope of environmental conservation.
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Webcast by Carmen Meinert
Monographs and Editions by Carmen Meinert
Articles in peer-reviewed edited volumes by Carmen Meinert