ACADEMIA Letters The Sacred Asian Gate Tradition in Europe (Symbolic Crossings from the Mundane to the Sacred) Katalin Puskas Khetani This letter introduces a hypothesis of a cultural connection between the sacred gateway tradi- tion found across Asia and the Szekler gates of Transylvania in the Carpathian Basin. Traces of this theory were mentioned by two 19th century historians James Fergusson and Robert Sewell. Fergusson in the ’Tree and Serpent Worship’ (1868) and Sewell ’Early Buddhist Sym- bolism’ (1886) describe the interesting similarities between certain symbols and ornaments of ancient Buddhist stupas and others in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. They expressed the hope that this topic would be considered for further research. Spreading of Buddhism & Buddhist Art After Alexander the Great’s campaigns, the Silk Roads were loaded with numerous difer- ent religious, intellectual traditions and beliefs. Buddhism was a concept that quickly became successful and accepted across Asia, especially after it had been embraced by emperor Ashoka (Frankopan, 2015). Certain researchers are using terms such as ‘social conversion ‘ or ‘in- tegration’ to describe the way Buddhism gained acceptance in countries of Asia. The art of diferent cultural backgrounds synergising with Buddhism created new unique styles like the Greco-Buddhist world of Gandhara. In China it fused with Taoism and Confucianism, in Japan it created Shinto-Buddhism and in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Bali it gave birth to Hindu-Buddhist art (Shashibala, 2003; Albanese, 2007). Buddhism was the cultural connecting element that stretched from the Greco-Buddhist world of Gandhara to the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit candies of Java. Academia Letters, June 2021 Corresponding Author: Katalin Puskas Khetani, katalin.mark.vince@gmail.com Citation: Puskas Khetani, K. (2021). The Sacred Asian Gate Tradition in Europe (Symbolic Crossings from the Mundane to the Sacred). Academia Letters, Article 1335. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1335. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0