Building Asia: Buddhist Kingship as a Basis for Defining Asia in Antiquity

Abstract

In this presentation, I put forth the theory that much of what we know as Asia today was conceived of as a contiguous whole as early as the 6th century and that instantiations of Buddhist kingship provided the points of contact between diverse polities across the region. Taking the Northern Wei empire (386–534 CE) as a case study—a polity that was formed and governed by Taghbach peoples from Inner Asia but which founded its capital deep in the Central Plains of China—I will argue that rising empires in East Asia supported institutions of Buddhist kingship as a means of consolidating power over their multi-ethnic citizenry while also enabling their relations with foreign empires and polities. In short, I will highlight processes of the transference of Buddhist kingship across South, Central, and East Asia, showing that enduring connections in the means and ideologies of governance existed between these ethnically, culturally, and linguistically divergent areas to the extent that we can talk about a shared repertoire of Buddhist statecraft that has been, perhaps, the salient defining feature of Asia since Antiquity.