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Wright, ‘The Guhyasamāja Piṇḍikṛta-sādhana’ (2010)

Guhyasamāja Piṇḍikṛtasādhana kumbhastambhas

Roger Wright. ‘The Guhyasamāja Piṇḍikṛta-sādhana and its context’. MA thesis (Religions), School of Oriental and African Studies, 2010. [PDF (‘internet version’)]

From the Abstract (sic)

This paper analyses and comments on the Piṇḍikṛta-sādhana, a ritual practice manual for the Guhyasamāja Highest Yoga Tantra, attributed to Nāgārjuna. It is based on a correlated translation of the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions of the text prepared for the purpose. […]
Particular attention has been given to making the translation of the visualizations of the architecture and the deities themselves clear by providing tables and illustrations. The philosophical background of the text is investigated and the way in which that was subtly altered by subsequent commentators when it no longer fitted the later “philosophical climate” is made clear. The continuity of the practice is discussed, from its inception to the present day.

Guhyasamāja Piṇḍikṛtasādhana kumbhastambhas. Wright p.68

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Jovic, ‘The Cult of the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’ (2010)

Nika Jovic. The Cult of the ’Go ba’i lha lnga: A Study With Pictorial and Written Material of the Five Personal Deities. M. A. thesis, Universitat Wien, 2010. 148 pp. [official site / PDF]

This thesis contains editions and translations of several Tibetan ritual texts: the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’i bsangs mchod by Ku saʼ li dha rma ba dzra (A), the ’Go baʼi lha lngaʼi bsang chog by Ku sa li dha rma ba dzwa (B), the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’i bsangs chog by the Ku sa li dha rma ba dzra (C) ‘Go ba’i lha lnga’i bsangs mchod by Ku sa li dha rma bdzra (D), the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’i bsangs mchod by Su pra mi dha rma ba dzra (E), the Lha lngaʼi gsol mchod bsod nams dpal skyed by Zhor sngags smyon (F), the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’i gsol mchod bsang dang bcas pa yar ngoʼi zla rgyas zhes bya ba by Ka rma ngag dbang yon tan rgya mtsho (G), the ‘Go ba’i lha lnga’i gsol mchod phen bdeʼi ʻdod ʻjo zhes bya ba by bTsun gzugs bLo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (H) and others.

From the Introduction

The following work is based upon my research on transcendental beings (Tib. lha) who belong to the category of Tibetan protective deities (Tib. srung ma). Continue reading “Jovic, ‘The Cult of the ’Go ba’i lha lnga’ (2010)”

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Vajracharya & Allen, ‘The Daśakarma Vidhi’ (2010)

Pandit Vaidya Asha Kaji (Ganesh Raj Vajracharya); Michael Allen, ed. The Daśakarma Vidhi: Fundamental Knowledge on Traditional Customs of Ten Rites of Passage Amongst the Buddhist Newars. Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, 2010. 191 pp. ISBN: 9789994655144. [official site (ordering details)]

From the blurb:

The daśakarma begin with the birth ceremony 
(jaṭābhiṣeka) and end in the ceremonial initiation of the Supreme Seniormost or Head of the Community (cakreśvarābhiṣeka). The system of the daśakarma is so instilled in the life of every Buddhist Newar that the rites have become part and parcel of the life-cycle, thus presenting as inseparable traditional and cultural rites unique among human beings on earth. […]

Asha Kaji Vajracharya (1908–1992) was one of twentieth-century Nepal’s most respected Buddhist figures. Having cultivated the traditional learning of a pandit, he became renowned in his native Lalitpur as an Ayurvedic doctor, tantric practitioner and raconteur of Buddhist lore. He published over thirty books, many of which were translations or commentaries based on Sanskrit originals, and opened up his own manuscript collection to photography by the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project. He advised and collaborated with a number of foreign scholars, and became the first Newar master to teach the Buddhist tradition of the Kathmandu Valley outside Asia, touring Japan at his students’ request, and bestowing initiation into the cycle of Cakrasamvara upon a non-Newar couple for the first time in the modern era. […]

Michael Allen was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1928. He received his B.A. degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin in 1950 and his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the Australian National University in 1965. He was appointed to a lectureship in Anthropology at Sydney University in 1964 and retired as Professor in 1993. ln addition to his extensive fieldwork on Newar society and religion, conducted mainly between 1966 and 1978, Professor Allen has also carried out anthropological research in Vanuatu (1958–82) and in lreland (1988–96).

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Salguero, ‘Buddhist Medicine in China’ (2010)

C. Pierce Salguero. Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China: Disease, Healing, and the Body in Crosscultural Translation (Second to Eighth Centuries C.E.). PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, March 2010. 395 pp. [abstract at author’s site/PDF]

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the role of literary and cultural translation in the transmission and reception of Buddhist medicine in medieval China between the second and eighth centuries. This dissertation brings to light the diversity of medical material in the Chinese Tripitaka, analyzes the central metaphors and discourses in this corpus, and examines how these foreign medical ideas were understood in their historical context. I employ methodologies from Translation Studies to reconcile the study of the transregional exchange of linguistic and cultural repertoires with the agency of individual historical authors as they retooled and adapted foreign knowledge to forward contemporary social strategies. I utilize this theoretical framework to analyze how Indian medical doctrines influenced Chinese Buddhist discourses and practices, while also emphasizing the importance of disease, healing, and the body as sites of crosscultural negotiation.

[via kuden-ML]

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Fiordalis, ‘Miracles in South Asian Buddhist Lit’ (2008)

David V. Fiordalis. Miracles and Superhuman Powers in South Asian Buddhist Literature. PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2008. 232 pp. [HDL / PDF]

Abstract

Scholars have long been aware of the presence of marvelous events in Buddhist literature. While it is now more fashionable to speak about them, some still hesitate to use the word miracle in reference to Buddhism. Paying attention to how Buddhists defined their own terms, this dissertation argues that the concept of the miracle is appropriate to use in translating specific Buddhist terminology. The present study examines the narrative and scholastic language Buddhists used to denote and classify various types of miracles and superhuman powers. […] Continue reading “Fiordalis, ‘Miracles in South Asian Buddhist Lit’ (2008)”

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Salvini, ‘Convention and agency in Mahāyāna’ (2008)

Mattia Salvini. ‘Convention and agency in the philosophies of the Mahāyāna.’ PhD diss., Dept. of Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2008. 369 pp. [worldcat]

Abstract

The thesis focuses on the relationship between Sanskrit classical grammar, Abhidharma, and the debates between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. In particular, it shows how the kāraka system, and the idea of lakṣaṇa, influence philosophical argumentation in the context of medieval Indian Buddhist thought. […] Continue reading “Salvini, ‘Convention and agency in Mahāyāna’ (2008)”

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Braarvig et al, Traces of Gandharān Buddhism (2010)

Jens Braarvig and Fredrik Liland, with contributions by Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Kazunobu Matsuda, Richard Salomon, and Lore Sander. Traces of Gandharān Buddhism. An Exhibition of Ancient Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection. Oslo: Hermes Publishing, in collaboration with Amarin Printing and Publishing Public Co. Ltd, Bangkok. 2010. xxxiv+101pp. [PDF (80 MB)].

This lavishly illustrated — and even more importantly, thoroughly researched — catalogue, published to accompany an exhibition of Afghan Buddhist manuscripts in Thailand, will surely be of interest to any serious scholar of Buddhism. Braarvig notes: “it is thus an important task to help preserve this dharmakāya [manuscript heritage] of the Buddha”. (One could add that Thailand, where a formerly practiced Sanskritic tradition has been completely lost, is probably not the place to find a receptive audience for such sentiments.)

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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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Tho, ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’ (2008)

Annlaug Tho. Selected Translations and Analysis of ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’. Master’s thesis in History of Religion, University of Oslo, Spring 2008. [URN & abstract / PDF]

From the introduction: “This thesis is a study of ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’ [續比丘尼傳] compiled by Master Zhenhua [震華大師] in the 1940s. I have selected three biographies from the Tang Dynasty, two from the Song Dynasty, two from the Yuan Dynasty, one from the Ming Dynasty, and four from the Qing Dynasty.”