The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road recounts the magnificent history of the world of Maritime Buddhism from a diverse range of aspects - the various Buddhist traditions, pilgrims and monks, causes and conditions, norms and rituals, cross-cultural relations between East and West, as well as the intricacies of navigation technology, and migrations of the Austronesian peoples - all remarkable and crucial elements of the transmission of Buddhism brought to new heights of importance. In this book, Dr. Lewis Lancaster innovatively shifts the focus to documenting the dynamic networks and systems of interchange in Eurasia, instead of the common approach of historical, event-structured analysis. The fascinating history of the spread of Buddhism begins in the early years of the Common Era, when animal caravans began treading across the inland routes between India and China, evolving as sea routes flourished over the centuries. It emerges that Buddhism flowed and thrived along with the beating pulse of the trading networks. The northern overland and southern maritime trading routes converged, conjuring forth and iconic cycle described by Lancaster as "The Great Circle of Buddhism." This book summarizes a transformative account of the development and spread of Buddhism. It represents both the fruit of a lifetime of dedicated scholarship and also an enthusiasm for collaboration. This text was created to accompany the advanced exhibits created to reveal a new understanding of the spread of Buddhism. It is also noteworthy in two other ways. First, in the best tradition of scholarship, it constitutes a challenge to received opinions and assumptions. Second, it makes use to a remarkable extent of an unusually diverse range of evidence, including DNA, wood preserved in mud, and metallurgical analysis, in addition to the usual textual and archeological evidence, not to mention the highly advanced photograph and projections for the exhibit it was written to accompany. --Michael K. Buckland, Professor Emeritus, University of California , Berkeley Dr. Lewis R. Lancaster is Emeritus Professor of the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is also the founder and Director of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI). He has published and edited numerous books on Buddhism, including Prajnaparamita and Related Systems, The Korean Buddhist Canon, Buddhist Scriptures, Early Ch'an in China and Tibet, and Assimilation of Buddhism in Korea. He is a leading figure in the digitalization endeavors of Buddhist texts, a contemporary practice in the Buddhist scholarly world today. He is also now guiding the Atlas of Maritime Buddhism project.