Languages & Art, How the Kushans Communicated in an Urban Setting

Prof. Liu’s lecture is the first of the lecture series — Understanding Epochs of Asian Lives in Pre-Common Era — jointly pursued by Let’s Talk Tattva and Oxford Public Philosophy. Prof. Xinru Liu, Professor Emeritus of History, Ancient India, Silk Road and World History at College of New Jersey talks about the Kushan dynasty along historical, geographical, religious and cultural axes. Prof. Liu draws on various kinds of sources to animate the life-world of the Kushans, that enable us to think closely about the impact of their rule onto the thought-schema of successive life-worlds as well as, with some sound reasoning, onto the formation of certain traditional conceptual frameworks. Dr. Deven M. Patel who, thanks to the effort of team Oxford Public Philosophy and Kas in particular for connecting all of us, joined Prof. Liu to discuss the vibrant material culture of the Kushans and its consequent cultural reverberations across territorial and cultural boundaries. Dr. Patel is an Associate Professor of Sanskrit Language and the Literatures of South Asia.