FW: Announcing next webinar

[Yang, Fenggang]

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The Center on Religion and the Global East is hosting the third webinar in its Mapping the Global East series. This webinar will take place on Sept 21 [Thurs] at 8pm EST (Fri., Sept 22 8am HKT). The three speakers are affiliated with the University of Arizona and will speak on the strategies of mapping religions of East Asia.

 

The webinar is free, but need register in advance for this meeting:

https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkcuqorj8oH9yGx4sF50_GX0Rvl56EclgT 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Creating a Digital Atlas of Buddhism in Hangzhou China Using the Regional Religious Framework

Philip Stoker, PhD
Associate Professor of Planning, University of Arizona

This presentation will highlight our project to digitize and present the locations, patterns, and history of Buddhism in Hangzhou China. This digital mapping project used the Regional Religious Systems framework to view the locations, development, and relationship of physical geography and Buddhism in Hangzhou using data from 900 to 2015 AD. We used a combination of videos, 3D visualizations, and interactive maps to highlight Buddhist temple locations, pilgrimage routes, and natural landscapes throughout the region. All these maps and visualizations were combined into an ArcGIS story map which can be publicly viewed through the Regional Religious Systems lab website. In addition to highlighting this project, the presenter will show how this approach can be used in other regions and can be broadened to include other religions and countries. Future strategies for data collection and visualization, as well as potential challenges will be discussed in an effort to form new collaborations and to encourage other researchers to apply this framework and approach to their own topics and interests.

Mapping Temple Amalgamation with Historical GIS: A Spatial Interpretation of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s Institutional Reform
Jeffery Wei Liu, Ph. D Candidate
The University of Arizona

       During the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (1328-1398), the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), his edict on temple amalgamation (siyuan guibing 寺院歸併) significantly contributed to Buddhist revival through institutional reform. This presentation adopts a regional approach focused on Hangzhou, and utilizes Records of Buddhism in Hangzhou (Wulin Fanzhi  武林梵志) as a primary source to spatially analyze the temple amalgamation policy. As an enhancement to the traditional historical analysis, this presentation will also include a practical training component on employing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for research. It will demonstrate the step-by-step process of mapping the temples in Hangzhou using GIS and will guide attendees on how to identify spatial patterns, effectively utilize the tools within GIS, and corroborate findings with other data sources. Additionally, this presentation will provide a brief tutorial on how to access and make the most of the OSAGE database for similar research purposes. Objectives include not only historical analysis but also training attendees in GIS mapping techniques and data extraction from the OSAGE database, and showcasing how this
technological approach can provide nuanced insights into the temples’ amalgamation process. The integration of GIS and the OSAGE database can effectively reveal commonalities among temples and facilitate a richer analysis. This hybrid approach not only enriches our understanding of Zhu Yuanzhang’s policies and their effects on Buddhism but also equips researchers with practical skills in GIS and usage of the OSAGE database, offering a comprehensive framework or examining historical phenomena and contributing to the methodological advancements in the field.

Measuring the Prestige Index in a Regional Religious System
Jiang Wu
Center for Buddhist Studies, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona, USA

A Regional Religious System (RRS) represents the spatial formation of a group of religious sites which have intricate connections with regionally distributed factors such as population, economy, transportation, etc. A variety of conventional spatial analysis techniques such as Hierarchical Regional Space (HRS), Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), Spatial Regression, Point Pattern Analysis, Overlay Analysis, Kernel Density can be performed with the religious sites data. However, these methods have treated religious sites as merely ordinary locations because the current datasets are all culled from locational information with various levels of accuracy. Therefore, there is a great need to develop new methods to assess religious sites and their related significance sophisticatedly.

In order to conduct further quantitative studies of religious sites, we need to understand what religious sites stand for and why they are important in a local area. In Chinese religion, a religious site can be large or small, owns more or less land, or has more or less resident clergy. They play various roles in local areas as connectors to local social and economic life.

One of the most important factors when Chinese people consider the importance of a religious site is its prestige. A prestigious site is more likely to receive more patronages, both cultural and economic, and is more likely to survive in China’s long and turbulent history. C.K. Yang, for example, argues that a temple’s prestige is more important than its sectarian affiliation. The prestigious temples tend to become the destination of pilgrimage and tourism. However, there never exists a quantifiable index to measure how prestigious a religious site is. This paper will consider the possibility of creating such an index to characterize religious sites more accurately and quantitatively. We will base our discussion on the data we collected in the Hangzhou area.

 

Moderators

Jonathan Pettit, University of Hawai'i

Richie Lee, Purdue University