Foreword (Victor H. Mair) Acknowledgements Abbreviations Conventions Introduction: Cultural Crossings (Dorothy C. Wong and Gustav Heldt) Part I. Networks of Exchange Chapter 1: Crossing a Boundary: Where, When, How (Lewis Lancaster) Chapter 2: Buddhism and the Maritime Crossings (Tansen Sen) Chapter 3: An Agent of Cultural Transmission: Jianzhen’s Travels to Japan, 743–763 (Dorothy C. Wong) Chapter 4: Dimensions of Endtime at Baoshan (Wendi L. Adamek) Part II. Silk Road Crossings Chapter 5: The Sogdian Experience in China: Sinicization or Accommodation? (Albert E. Dien) Chapter 6: Chinese Filial Cannibalism: A Silk Road Import? (Keith N. Knapp) Chapter 7: Images of Sun and Moon Gods in Dunhuang Murals between the Sixth and Tenth Centuries (Yuanlin Zhang) Chapter 8: Islamic Silver for Carolingian Reforms and the Buddha-Image of Helgo: Rethinking Carolingian Connections with the East, 790–820 (Eric Ramírez-Weaver) Chapter 9: From Hellenistic Scientific Device to Islamic Astrolabe: Transmission of a Non-Chinese Scientific Instrument in Late Mediaeval China (Kam-Wing Fung) Part III. Textual Centres and Peripheries in China and Beyond Chapter 10: Our Woman in Central Asia: Women Diplomats of the Han Court (Anne Behnke Kinney) Chapter 11: Ominous Dress: Hufu (“Barbarian Clothing”) during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) (Suzanne Cahill) Chapter 12: The Mother of Laozi and the Female Emperor Wu Zhao: From One Grand Dowager to Another (Norman Harry Rothschild) Chapter 13: Tracking the Wa-Kan Dialectic at Nara (Joan R. Piggott) Chapter 14: Literary Diplomacy in Early Nara: Prince Nagaya and the Verses for Envoys from Silla in Kaifuso (H. Mack Horton) Chapter 15: Abe no Nakamaro at the End of the Silk Road (Gustav Heldt) Part IV. Buddhist Art and Iconography Chapter 16: Interstices of Compassion: The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in China and South and Southeast Asia, 5th–10th Century (Denise Patry Leidy) Chapter 17: Avalokitesvara Images at Candi Borobudur (Takashi Koezuka) Chapter 18: Saved by the Bell: The Six Kannon and Bonsho (Sherry Fowler) Chapter 19: Dharani Pillars in China: Functions and Symbols (Liying Kuo) Chapter 20: Notes on the Jewel Casket Sutra in Japan (Skt. Ratnakarandamudra sutra, J. Hokyoin kyo) (John M. Rosenfield) Chapter 21: Concerning the Role and Iconography of the Astral Deity Sudrsti (Miaojian ) in Esoteric Buddhism (Henrik H. Sorensen) Epilogue: The Silk Road as Real Space (David Summers) About the Contributors References Index