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Acri (2018), Nusantara in the Sanskritic Buddhist Cosmopolis

Andrea Acri. 2018. ‘The place of Nusantara in the Sanskritic Buddhist Cosmopolis’. TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 6 (2), pp. 139-166. doi:10.1017/trn.2018.5 [academia]


From the Abstract
This article synthesizes and links together evidence published thus far in secondary literature in order to highlight the contribution of Nusantara to the genesis and circulation of various forms of Sanskritic Buddhism across Asia from the fifth to the fourteenth century. It places particular emphasis on its expansion via maritime routes. Continue reading “Acri (2018), Nusantara in the Sanskritic Buddhist Cosmopolis”

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Yang (2018), Bukong 不空 aka. Amoghavajra

Yang, Zeng. 2018. ‘A biographical study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705-774): networks, institutions, and identities’. PhD diss., University of British Columbia. DOI:10.14288/1.0363332. URI: hdl.handle.net/2429/64506

Note: This dissertation is distinguished by its use of Japanese scholarship and secular historical sources in Chinese. However, the back-Sanskritization of Chinese jingang ding 金剛頂 as Vajroṣṇīṣa adopted here (p. 4, n.1) is doubtful. Continue reading “Yang (2018), Bukong 不空 aka. Amoghavajra”

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Dziwenka, ‘Last Light of Indian Buddhism’ (2010)

Ronald James Dziwenka. ‘The Last Light of Indian Buddhism’ — The Monk Zhikong in 14th Century China and Korea. PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2010. 406 pp. UMI Number: 3412160. [Thanks to A. M.]

Abstract

Zhikong's route from Magadha to Korea (Map 1).
This dissertation investigates the northeast Indian Buddhist Monk, Dhyānabhadra (Zhikong 指空, Jigong 지공, Śūnyadisaya, ca. 1289–1364 C.E.). He began his more than a decade of study in the Nālandā Mahāvihāra education system late in the 13th century, and then at the age of nineteen began a journey to the east and a life that would lead to him being known as “the last light of Indian Buddhism” in East Asia. This study is inspired by two goals. One is to retrace the formation,
dissemination and reception of his thought and soteriological paradigm of practice from his native state of Magadha, then Sri Lanka, and then throughout India, Yuan China and Goryeo Korea. The other is [to] explicate the main elements and concepts of his thought and present them to the academic community.