Jonathan Silk

PersonType	Category:Professors
FirstName / namefirst	Jonathan
LastName / namelast	Silk
namemiddle	A.
MainNamePhon	Jonathan Silk
bio	Silk (1960) studied East Asian Studies at the Oberlin College in Ohio and subsequently Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan. At the latter university he obtained his PhD in 1994 with the thesis: The Origins and Early History of the Mahāratnakūţa Tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism, With a Study of the Ratnarāśisūtra and Related Materials. During his studies, Silk spent several years in Japan. After his PhD, he became Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Grinnell College in Iowa and in 1995 at the Department of Comparative Religion of the Western Michigan University. From 1998 until 2002 he taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University, and from 2002 in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Since 2007 he has been Professor in the study of Buddhism at Leiden. In 2010 he was awarded a VICI grant from the NWO (Dutch National Science Foundation) for project: “Buddhism and Social Justice.” In 2016 he was elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen [KNAW]). Currently, Silk is Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. He specializes in Buddhism in its Asian contexts, primarily from a historical point of view. He has a special interest in Buddhist scriptures. Research: Silk’s scientific orientation on Buddhism is very broad, in time as well as geographically: his interest covers the oldest primary sources and the rise of Buddhist communities all over Asia, but he is equally interested in the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. Silk reads Sanskrit, Pāli, , Classic Tibetan, Classic Chinese, and Japanese. Recent publications: 2016 - Materials Toward the Study of Vasubandhu’s Viṁśikā (I): Sanskrit and Tibetan Critical Editions of the Verses and Autocommentary; An English Translation and Annotations. Harvard Oriental Series 81 (Cambridge MA: Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University). 2015 - Buddhist Cosmic Unity: An Edition, Translation and Study of the Anūnatvāpūrṇatva­nirdeśaparivarta. Hamburg Buddhist Studies 4 (Hamburg: Hamburg University Press). Indian Buddhist Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 2015 - Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Volume I: Literature and Languages. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section Two, India, 29/1. Leiden: Brill. (editor) 2013 - Buddhism in China: Collected Papers of Erik Zürcher. Sinica Leidensia 112 (Leiden: Brill). (co-editor) (Source Accessed Aug 5, 2020)
YearBirth	1960
languageprimary	English
affiliation	Leiden University, Netherlands
phduniversity	University of Michigan
education	PhD in Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, (1994). Dissertation: "The Origins and Early History of the Mahāratnakūţa Tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism, With a Study of the Ratnarāśisūtra and Related Materials." BA in East Asian Studies, Oberlin College, Ohio
IsInGyatsa	No
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Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion.