MWU is holding a series of lecture titled “The Culture and History of the Silk Road” inviting five foremost experts as lecturers. We invited Dr. Akira Miyaji as the lecturer for the second of five lectures.

We had Dr. Miyaji deliver a lecture on cave shrines and murals of Bamiyan last autumn. This time he described the ambiguity as seen in Indian　Buddhism and Hinduism using ample pictures and illustrations. In the first section of the lecture, Buddhism-related topics were introduced such as caitya (sacred tree; sacred column) worship that go back to pre-Buddhist religion, stupa as a symbol of “life” and “death” and reliefs of goddess given on the pylon and vedika (fence) of stupas.

In the second section, Hindu-related topics were presented such as Lingam worship and Hindu goddess worship and reliefs of goddess given to the temples Khajuraho group of monument. After the lecture we had an active Q & A session about the reason why the reliefs were given to the vedika of the stupa, celestial maiden depicted on earthen plates, miniatures, Hindu temple structures, comparison of pagoda and stupa.