Kanoko Tanaka, born in 1964 and a Ph.D. from the University of Delhi, is an eminent scholar and a member of the International Institute for the Study of Religion, Tokyo, who has devoted more than a decade to studying the methodology and practice of religious studies. Her papers on Buddhist art and comparative religion have been appreciated in academic societies and institutes all over the world. She has won special acclaim for her elaborate theories of ‘the stupa-art’, ‘the vedika-design’, ‘the stepped-pyramidal motifs’ and ‘the empty throne’ in early Buddhist art, which were first presented by her at the XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art, ‘Memory and Oblivion’, held in Amsterdam in 1996.