Introduction / Birgit Kellner -- Buddhism in the West? : Buddhist Indian sailors on Socotra (Yemen) and the role of trade contacts in the spread of Buddhism / lngo Strauch -- Non-Buddhist customs of Buddhist people : visual and archaeological evidence from North-West Pakistan / Anna Filigenzi -- Translation, transcription, and what else? : some basic characteristics of Chinese Buddhist translation as a cultural contact between India and China, with special reference to Sanskrit ārya and Chinese sheng / Toru Funayama -- Stone hymn : the Buddhist colophon of engraved on Mount Tie, Shandong / Lothar Ledderose -- "To overcome the tyranny of time" : stars, Buddhas, and the arts of perfect memory at Mt. Asama / Anna Andreeva -- In the footprints of the Buddha : Ceylon and the quest for the origin of Buddhism in early modern Japan : a minor episode in the history of the Japanese imagination of India / Fabio Rambelli -- From geographical periphery to conceptual centre : the travels of Ngagchang Shakya Zangpo and the discovery of Hyolmo identity / Davide Torri -- lndo-Tibetan relations in Tibetan polemical discourse : reconsidering cultural dynamics between tradition and innovation / Markus Viehbeck -- Revisiting the emic perspective : lessons to be learnt from the worldly-other-worldly distinction·in Tibet and beyond / Jonathan Samuels