A History of Uyghur Buddhism: A Conversation with Johan Elverskog

A History of Uyghur Buddhism: A Conversation with Johan Elverskog

In the past decades, the Uyghurs in China have become known as an oppressed ethnic and religious minority in their homeland, today’s Xinjiang. Islam and Islamophobia are central to that story, but visitors to Xinjiang and students of Uyghur history know that there is another, lesser-known, Buddhist history and culture of the Uyghurs, which remain visible in museums and grottoes in the oases of southern Xinjiang. Johan Elverskog’s A History of Uy…