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Mozaffari-Falarti, ‘Kedah: foundations of Malay kingship’ (2009)

Mozaffari-Falarti, Maziar. ‘Kedah: the foundations and durability of Malay kingship’. PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2009. 343 pp. [official site/PDF]

Mozaffari-Falarti’s thesis treats the conversion of Kedah, an important part of the premodern Southeast Asian world, and briefly treats vague (but nonetheless worthy of investigation) references to Buddhism and tantrism in the rulership of the pre-Islamic era.

Kedah, incidentally, has been proposed as the possible site of Dīpaṅkaraśrījñāna’s extended stay of study in the region in an article in the Journal of the Siam Society — the full reference eludes me — by Peter Skilling. (I have no opinion on that proposition — yet.)

From the Abstract

The thesis examines traditional sources of power, control and indigenous socio-political systems in the Malay world. In doing so, it looks at the north-western Malaysian kingdom of Kedah, acknowledged as the oldest unbroken Malay royal line and one of the oldest in the Muslim world. The study explores Kedah’s unique geopolitical, spiritual and environmental features. It argues that Kedah does not follow, and in fact, often seems to contradict what has been commonly accepted as the “typical model” of the traditional Malay state.

From the Introduction (pp.6–7)

The Kedah sultanate is one of the oldest unbroken independent kingship lines in the ‘Malay world’ with 1,000 years of history, and arguably one of the oldest in the Islamic world. In this study I examine key geopolitical and spiritual attributes of Malay kingship that have traditionally cemented the ruler, the peoples, and the environment. […]
I also examine issues related to religion — particularly the coming of Islam […]

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Acri, van der Meij (2011): Two Indonesian Buddhism reviews

Two recommended review essays:

Andrea Acri. ‘Alternative approaches to eighth-century Central Javanese Buddhist architecture’. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- end Volkenkunde 167, No. 2-3 (2011), pp.313-321. [abstract/PDF]

Dick van der Meij. ‘Kakawin Sutasoma and Kakawin Nāgara Kṛtāgama’. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- end Volkenkunde 167, No. 2-3 (2011), pp.322-332. [abstract/PDF]

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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.

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Benke, ‘The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa’ (2010)

Theodore Benke. The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa: A 16th Century Manual of Dharma for Śūdras. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2010. [abstract & official site / PDF]

From the abstract

“From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century C.E., a śāstra of a new type on the topic of Śūdras was composed and circulated among Dharmaśāstrins. […] Śūdradharma texts were one response of the Brahmin intellectual elite to the challenges to traditional dharma and dominance arising from the changing socio-economic conditions of Sultanate and Mughal India. They represent a shift in Dharmashastric discourse from the ritual exclusion of Śūdras as the sign of their social subjection to fuller integration into the Brahmanical fold. […] These śūdradharma texts were primarily concerned with the ritual life of Śūdras—the rites, sacraments, and forms of religious knowledge to which they were entitled in śruti and smṛti. But they also included expositions on the generation of Śūdra jātis according to the theory of varṇasaṅkara and descriptions of the ways of life and occupations of Śūdras. This is a study and translation of one of these texts, the Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa, among the most brilliant and eminent paṇḍits of late medieval Sanskrit, celebrated as both grammarian and poet.”

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McKeown, ‘From Bodhgayā to Lhasa to Beijing’ (2010)

Arthur McKeown. From Bodhgayā to Lhasa to Beijing: The Life and Times of Śāriputra (c.1335–1426), Last Abbot of Bodhgayā. PhD diss., Harvard University, 2010. 570 pp.

According to a note kindly sent by Dr. McKeown, whom I first met in Kathmandu a couple of years ago, the dissertation “includes the transcription and translation of all three biographies of Śāriputra, as well as transcription and translation of the three siddha biographies (Virūpakṣa, Goraknātha, Golenātha) he dictated to Jñānaśrī.”