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Nāgārjuna was living in his hermitage when a thief approached, intending to rob him. Reading his mind, he threw a golden plate out his door. The thief became his disciple, receiving the Guhyasamāja initiation and instructions on how to overcome his greed by visualizing the things that he desired as horns on his head. Placing a pile of jewels in the corner, Nāgārjuna told him that jewels have no inherent value and to
meditate on the clear light. The thief, named Nāgabodhi, was so successful in his meditation that horns grew from his head; they were so large that he bumped into things wherever he went. Nāgārjuna taught him that everything is empty of intrinsic nature and that believing that they are not is a cause of suffering. After six years of meditation, Nāgabodhi understood the inseparability of samsara and nirvana and attained the eight siddhis. Nāgārjuna told him to remain in the world for two thousand years working for the benefit of sentient beings. (Source: Lopez Jr., Donald S. ''Seeing the Sacred in Samsara: An Illustrated Guide to the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas''. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2019: 195.) +
Nārāyaṇa Prasāda Rijāla is a Nepalese author who has written about Mahāyāna Buddhism. He authored the book ''Mahāyānabauddhādarśa: Mahāyāna Buddhadharmako saṅkshipta paricayātmaka grantha'', which was published in Kathmandu by Vyoma Kusumā Buddha Dharma Saṅgha in 2016.
Rijāla has also written other works related to Buddhism, including a book on Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophies in the Kannada language. +
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Olaf Czaja studied Tibetan, Indian and Mongolian studies as well as history of art at the universities of Leipzig, Bonn and Kathmandu. He submitted his PhD thesis about the Phag mo ru pa ruling house in medieval Tibet at Leipzig University in 2007. His research interests are Tibetan history, art, and medicine. He is currently research fellow in the project Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (KOHD, Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in Germany) at Göttingen Academy of Sciences. ([https://www.iaaw.hu-berlin.de/en/region/centralasia/03-05-tibet-himalaya-lecture-series-mantras-and-rituals-in-tibetan-medicine Source Accessed Feb 24, 2023]) +
Oliver Petersen, born in 1961, is a teacher of Buddhism at the Tibetan Center eV, Hamburg, which is under the patronage of the Dalai Lama. He has been working there since 1980. Between 1983-1999 he was ordained as a Buddhist monk and disciple of Geshe Thubten Ngawang. Today he leads meditation seminars and study courses for the center and works as a speaker, translator and in interreligious dialogue. Oliver Petersen holds a master's degree in Tibetology, religious studies and philosophy and has trained in gestalt therapy. ([https://www.tibet.de/das-zentrum/lehrende/oliver-petersen/ Source Accessed Feb 18, 2021]) +
Oren Hanner works on Buddhist and cross-cultural philosophy, with special interest in ethics, action theory, philosophy of mind and social theory. He studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv University, and Buddhist Studies at Hamburg University. His dissertation dealt with the problem of selfless agency in the ''Abhidharmakośabhāṣya'' of Vasubandhu, comparing Vasubandhu's way of addressing the problem with contemporary positions in Western analytic philosophy. At present, his main research projects focus on skeptical devices in Indian Buddhism and the foundations of group agency in the thought of Vasubandhu. ([https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/en/personen/hanner.html Source Accessed May 4, 2021]) +
Orgyen Chowang is a meditation master in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. His primary teacher was Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche, one of the most esteemed Dzogchen masters of the last century and founder of the vast Larung Gar Buddhist community in remote eastern Tibet, where tens of thousands of Tibetan and Chinese students continue to benefit from the rigorous study and practice program. Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche was in one of the first small groups that were trained directly under Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche. He has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years and is the founder and spiritual director of Pristine Mind Foundation (www.pristinemind.org). He teaches a wide range of students around the world at tech companies, universities, and yoga studios. (Source: [https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/orgyen-chowang.html Shambhala Publications Accessed August 15, 2024]) +
Orgyenpa Rinchen Pel (o rgyan pa rin chen dpal) was born in 1229 or 1230 in Tsang, the son of Won Jopen (dbon jo 'phan) and his wife Duggema (dug ge ma), who gave him the name Sengge Pel (seng ge dpal). His clan was the Gyu (rgyus). In his youth he trained in the Nyingma teachings of Mamo and Vajrakīlaya, and the sarma tantric cycles of Hevajra, Cakrasaṃvara, and Vajrapāṇi. At the age of sixteen he traveled to Bodong E monastery to study foundational Indian commentaries such as the Abhidharmakośa and the Abhidharmasamuccaya, and gaining a reputation as a formidable scholar.
At Golungpu (go lung phu) Orgyenpa met the Drukpa Kagyu ('brug pa bka' brgyud) teacher Gotsangpa Gonpo Dorje (rgod tshang pa mgon po rdo rje, 1189-1258). He offered him a copper pot and a piece of brown sugar, and became his disciple. Gotsangpa gave him Mahāmudrā teachings, and at the age of twenty Orgyenpa took full ordination at Bodong E, receiving the name Rinchen Pel. Bodong Rintse (bo dong rin rtse), Zang Samlingpa (zang bsam gling pa, 1189-1260), and Sonam Ozer (bsod names 'od zer) performed the ceremony.
For the next twelve years Orgyenpa studied Kālacakra, mainly in the traditions of Dro Lotsāwa ('bro lo tsA ba) and Chak Lotsāwa (chag lo tsA ba), and the major Kagyu doctrines with Gotsangpa. When Orgyenpa made his intention to travel to Shambhala known to Gotsangpa, Gotsangpa told him that he lacked the karmic propensity to do so, and guided him towards Oḍḍiyāna instead. Gotsangpa himself had traveled in the region, making a pilgrimage to Jalandhara, in the Ladakh region.
Orgyenpa traveled to Oḍḍiyāna via Kailash and Ladakh, suffering several nasty encounters with marauding Mongolian horsemen and experiencing visions of Vajravārāhī. Arriving Kashmir he escaped an attempt by the king to murder him. Returning to Tibet he found his teacher had passed away, he quickly put together a group of pilgrims to Bodh Gaya. According to the Blue Annals, in India he attained miraculous healing powers.
Returning to Tibet, he travelled through U and Yoru (g.yo ru) curing disease and subjugating demons. He was summoned to Mongolia to appear before Qubilai, on whom he bestowed a Kālacakra initiation, returning to Tibet despite the entreaties of the Emperor. While on that journey he encountered Karma Pakshi (kar ma pak shi, 1204-1283), the Second Karmapa, and became a disciple.
Orgyenpa served as an important early teacher to the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (karma pa 03 rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339), and is often credited with identifying him as the reincarnation of Karma Pakshi, and giving him his name.
Orgyenpa passed away at the age of eighty, leaving numerous disciples in the Drukpa and Karma Kagyu traditions, who spread the “approach and accomplishment of the three vajras,” (rdo rje gsum gyi bsnyen sgrub), better known as the Orgyen Nyendrub (o rgyan bsnyen sgrub).
([https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Orgyenpa-Rinchen-Pel/2733 Source Accessed December 13, 2019])
Otgon Borjigin teaches Mongolian Historical Documents at Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou. +
Otto Strauss (b. Berlin 18.10.1881 — d. Bloemendaal, Netherlands 20.10.1940) was a German Indologist and a Professor in Breslau. The son of a banker, he studied Indology, philosophy, and art history at Munich, Berlin and especially Kiel (Oldenberg, Deussen). From Deussen, he developed an interest in Indian philosophy. He received his Ph.D. in 1905 at Kiel (under Oldenberg). From 1913 he was Professor of Comparative Philology at University of Calcutta. In 1915-20, he interned in Ahmednagar (and studied Russian). In 1920 he resumed his docentship at Kiel . . . In 1928 he succeeded Liebich as ord. Professor at Breslau. As a Jew, he was forced to resign in 1935. He lived some time in Berlin, then at his friends in Bloemendaal, Netherlands, and died there of angina pectoris.
Strauss was an important pioneer of Indian philosophy in Germany. While Deussen still had few texts and mixed Western ideas in his interpretation of them, Strauss applied strict philological methods to the sources. His greatest interest was in the Mīmāṁsā school. He also worked on Sanskrit grammar. Among his students were K. Marschner, E. Pax, and W. Liebenthal. ([https://whowaswho-indology.info/5929/strauss-otto/ Adapted from Source Jan 19, 2024]) +
Ouyang Jingwu (1871-1943), was a leading intellectual who revived the Buddhist scholastic movement during the early Republican period in China. Ouyang believed that authentic Indian Buddhism was an alternative to the prevalent Chinese Buddhist doctrines of his time. +
Ryan Overbey (Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, 2013-15)
Ryan Overbey studies the intellectual and ritual history of Buddhism, with particular focus on early medieval Buddhist spells and ritual manuals. He studied at Brown University (AB in Classics & Sanskrit and Religious Studies, 2001) and at Harvard University (PhD in the Study of Religion, 2010). He worked as an academic researcher for Prof. Dr. Lothar Ledderose’s project on Stone Sūtras at the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, and has also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. His dissertation explored the ideological and ritual construction of the “preacher of the dharma” (dharmabhāṇaka) in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture, a massive text extant only in a single sixth-century Chinese translation. In addition to illuminating many details of Buddhist rhetoric and homiletics, the Great Lamp shows how seemingly arcane Buddhist theories of ritual and spellcraft could be brought down to earth and made relevant for the practical concerns of building Buddhist preachers and their communities. During his time at Berkeley, Ryan will work on a monographic study of Buddhist preachers in the early medieval period, drawing on more data about Buddhist pedagogy from Chinese imperial histories and Buddhist hagiography, as well as from documents about preachers found in the Dunhuang archives. Ryan will also pursue research on Buddhist spells and ritual manuals of the early centuries CE, such as the Great Peahen Queen of Spells and the Consecration Sūtra.
Source[http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/postdocs.html] +
Brendan Ozawa-de Silva, PhD, serves as associate director for the Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics at Life University. His full-time appointment is as associate director for Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, where he is responsible for Emory’s SEE (Social, Emotional and Ethical) Learning program, a worldwide K-12 educational curriculum based on compassion and secular ethics. He also serves as Associate Director for Buddhist Studies and Practice at Drepung Loseling Monastery and as a level 2 certified instructor for Emory University’s Cognitively-Based Compassion Training program. Ozawa-de Silva received his doctorates from Oxford University and Emory University, as well as Master’s degrees from Boston University and Oxford University.
He has taught as a visiting professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, as associate professor of Psychology at Life University from 2013-2017, and served as program coordinator for the Dalai Lama’s Visits at Emory University in 2007 and 2010. He also served as the founding director for the Chillon Project, Life University’s program to bring degree programs to incarcerated students and correctional staff in Georgia.
Brendan Ozawa-de Silva’s chief interest lies in bringing secular ethics—the cultivation of basic human values—into education and society. He has worked to bring compassion training into elementary schools in the Atlanta area, to foster children in Georgia’s foster care program, to women in domestic violence situations, and to incarcerated persons in state correctional facilities in Georgia. This work is featured in the book Compassion: Bridging Science and Practice and in the documentary film, Raising Compassion. ([https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/brendan-ozawa-de-silva Source Accessed Nov. 5 2025]) +
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P. L. Vaidya was born on June 29, 1891. He had his early education in Sanskrit grammar, literature, philosophy and Indian systems of medicine, according to the traditional ways, in Pathashalas. In June 1910 he came to Pune for his early education and joined the New English School. He passed his Matriculation in December 1912 from the same school, and got his second Jagannath Shankarshet Sanskrit Scholarship. The first was awarded to Dr. CD. Deshmukh.<br>
In 1913, he joined Fergusson College for his further education. After taking his Inter-Arts Exam., he left the College and joined New English School as a teacher. After some time he returned to college and took his B.A. from the University of Bombay in the first class, and won the Bhau Daji Prize for Sanskrit. After his B.A. he joined Rajaram College of Kolhapur as a Professor of Sanskrit and Pali (1918-19). After a year he joined Willingdon College of Sangali (1919-30). While he was teaching in the Willingdon College he obtained his M.A. from the University of Calcutta in the first class having Pali as his subject for the M.A.<br>
He then went to Paris as a Govt, of India Language Scholar (1921-23). He studied under famous Orientalists in Bonn, Brussels, and Paris. In 1923 he obtained his Doctorate from Paris University.<br>
Coming back to India he joined the Willingdon College. Then he was a Professor of Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali in the Fergusson College, Poona (1930-32), and N. Wadia College, Poona (1932-47). After his retirement from Wadia College he worked in the Banaras Hindu University as Mayurbhanj Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit and Pali (1947-52). Then he worked as Director of the Mithila Institute of Sanskrit Research at Darbhanga (1954-58). In 1961 he joined the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, as General Editor of the ''Mahābhārata'' (1961-1972). He edited ''Karṇaparvan'' of the ''Mahābhārata'', the ''Harivaṁsa'', and prepared the Pratika-Index of the ''Mahābhārata'' and ''Harivaṁsa'' in 6 volumes.<br>
He edited the ''Ayodhyākāṇḍa'' and ''Yuddhakāṇḍa'' of Valmiki's ''Rāmāyana'' for the Oriental Institute, Baroda. Dr. Vaidya has published critical editions of the works of three grammarians of Prakrit languages, three volumes of Pushpadanta's ''Mahāpurāṇa'' in Apabhramsa, some texts of the ''Āgamas'' of the Jains in Prakrit, ''Bauddhāgamarthasaṁgraha'', an anthology; 17 volumes of Buddhist Sanskrit Texts. He has many other articles and writings to his credit.<br>
He was the recipient of a Certificate of Honour (Sanskrit-Pandita) of the Government of India (1963); he became the General President of All India Oriental Conference (1969). The University of Poona conferred on him an honorary D.Litt (1972). He was elected Honorary Fellow of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (1976).<br>
Dr. Vaidya passed away on 25th February 1978. ([https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/download/8462/2369/ Source Accessed Jan 19, 2021])
The Most Venerable Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa (ဘဒ္ဒန္တအာစိဏ္ဏ), more commonly referred to as the Pa-Auk Sayadaw (Burmese: ဖားအောက်ဆရာတော်; MLCTS: Pha:auk Cha.ratau.), is a Burmese Theravāda monk, meditation teacher and the abbot of the Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Mawlamyine. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaddanta_%C4%80ci%E1%B9%87%E1%B9%87a Source: Wikipedia entry]). +
Belonging to the Pa tshab clan of 'Phan po, Pa tshab Lo tsā ba Tshul khrims rgyal mtshan (d. after 1130), was a translator of the ''Āryasaddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra''. +
Pabitrakumar Roy (born 1936) has been a British Commonwealth Scholar at King's College, Cambridge, and University of Reading; twice Fellow of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi; Guru Nanak Dev Fellow, Panjabi University, Patiala and is presently Project Coordinator of Editing Mahayana Sanskrit Texts at Central University of Tibetan Studies, Samath, Varanasi. He has been Visiting Professor at the Universities at Pune, Bhubaneshwar and Jadavpur and IIAS, Shimla. He taught Philosophy for four decades at Visva Bharati and University of North Bengal. He has authored Kant and Hume: A Study in Linkages (London), Rabindranath Tagore (New Delhi), Beauty, Art and Man (Shimla), Kani's Theory of the Sublime: A Pathway to the Numinous (New Delhi), David Hume (Kolkata), Towards the Rhythmic Word: Sri Aurobindo's Theory of Poetry (Kolkata), Mapping the Bodhicaryavatara: Essays on Mahayana Ethics (Shimla), and papers in professional journals and anthologies, and edited several volumes of papers on Buddhism. His specializations span Moral Psychology and Theory of Values. ([https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/mapping-bodhicaryavatara-essays-on-mahayana-ethics-NAJ630/ Source Accessed Jan 22, 2021]) +
Padmanabh Shrivarma Jaini (October 23, 1923 - May 25, 2021) was an Indian born scholar of Jainism and Buddhism, living in Berkeley, California, United States. He was from a Digambar Jain family; however he was equally familiar with both the Digambara and Svetambara forms of Jainism. He has taught at the Banaras Hindu University, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he retired in 1994. Jaini was the author of several books and papers. His best known work is ''The Jaina Path of Purification'' (1979). Some of his major articles have been published under these titles: "The Collected Papers on Jaina Studies" (2000) and "Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies" (2001). He died on 25 May 2021 at Berkeley at age 97. +
Padmasiri de Silva graduated from the University of Ceylon with a Honours Degree in Philosophy, and also obtained the M.A. & Ph.D in Comparative Philosophy (University of Hawaii). He was the Professor & Head of Philosophy & Psychology Department, University of Peradeniya (1980-89). Subsequently he was appointed Senior Teaching Fellow at NUS Singapore. He has also held visiting positions in the University of Pittsburgh and the ISLE program in USA and the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He also functioned as the coordinator of the IRC Program on "Environment, Ethics and Education" in Singapore, organising four international conferences and was nominated for the Green Leaf Award. Based on this experience he published ''Environmental Philosophy & Ethics in Buddhism'' (Macmillan, 1998). In 2006 he was awarded the Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Counselling and practiced as a professional counsellor at the Springvale community center, working with migrants. He developed his own method of counselling: "Mindfulness-Based, Emotion-Focused Therapy". Currently he is working on Pain Education as a Facet of Humanitarian Care. (Source: [https://www.shogam.com/project/padmasiri-de-silva/ Shogum Publications]) +
Padmavajra has lived at Padmaloka Buddhist Retreat Centre since August 1990. He came there to join the team of order members that help men to prepare for ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order. ([https://www.padmaloka.org.uk/community Adapted from Source Oct 13, 2021]) +
Palkhang Lotsawa - ( b. 15th/16th cent. ); second Karma Trinlepa incarnation and author of ''Dayig Ngadron'' (''dag yig ngag sgron''). An important figure in the transmission of grammatical & poetic arts. ([https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Palkhang_Chodze_Lotsawa_Ngawang_Ch%C3%B6kyi_Gyatso Source Accessed Oct 20, 2025]) +
