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Brian Schroeder is Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Director of Religious Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology. He has published widely on contemporary European philosophy, the history of philosophy, environmental philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, the Kyoto School, social and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He is co-editor with Silvia Benso of the SUNY Press Series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy. Currently an associate officer of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle and an executive committee member of the Society for Italian Philosophy, Schroeder is formerly co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, co-director and chair of the board of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, director of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum, and an executive committee member of the Nietzsche Society. For more information, including publications, please go to https://rit.academia.edu/sbs. ([https://www.rit.edu/directory/bxsgla-brian-schroeder Source Accessed May 29, 2023]) +
Michael M. Broido (Ph.D., Cambridge University, 1967) is Senior
Research Fellow in Linguistics at Magdalen College, University of
Oxford. His research has included work on Tibetan interpretations of
Madhyamaka and Vajrayana thought, especially in relation to their
Indian prototypes. His articles on Indian and Tibetan hermeneutics
have appeared in the Journal of the Tibet Society and the Journal of Indian
Philosophy.
Source: [[Buddhist Hermeneutics]] +
Bríona Nic Dhiarmada is the Thomas J. & Kathleen M. O'Donnell Professor of Irish Studies Emeritus. and Concurrent Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre.
Professor Nic Dhiarmada is originator, writer, producer, and executive producer of the award-winning, multi part documentary series on the Easter Rising, ''1916 The Irish Rebellion'', and its 86-minute feature version, both narrated by Liam Neeson, that were broadcast and screened internationally throughout 2016 and 2017. She is also author of the companion book ''The 1916 Irish Rebellion'', published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Also a Concurrent Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, Professor Nic Dhiarmada has authored over 35 screenplays and 10 documentaries. She is the author of ''Téacs Baineann, Téacs Mná: Filíocht Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill'' as well as numerous articles on Irish language literature and culture. Additionally, she is an editor of ''The Field Day Anthology'' and co-editor with Máire Ní Annracháin of ''Téacs agus Comhthéacs: Gnéithe de Chritic na Gaeilge''.
Professor Nic Dhiarmada taught courses on film and literature, with some emphasis on Ireland's west coast. In Fall 2019, she led a community course at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on "Screening the Irish Troubles." ([https://irishstudies.nd.edu/scholars/emeritus-faculty/briona-nic-dhiarmada/ Source Accessed July6, 2023]) +
Bron Taylor is one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of religion and nature, and a core faculty member in UF’s Graduate Program in Religion and Nature, and Fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society(opens in new tab) in Munich Germany.
He is the Editor in Chief of the award winning Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature(opens in new tab) (2005), and he founded the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture(opens in new tab), and its affiliated Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture(opens in new tab), a quarterly journal, that he has also edited since 2007. In demand as a speaker, Professor Taylor has given over fifty keynote or invited lectures in eighteen countries, and over eighty more presentations in the United States, not counting dozens more at professional meetings.
Taylor’s own research focuses on the emotional, spiritual, ethical and political dimensions of environmental movements, both historically and in the contemporary world. He has led and participated in a variety of international initiatives promoting the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. His books include Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (2010), Ecological Resistance Movements: the Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism (1995), and Affirmative Action at Work: Law, Politics and Ethics (1992).
Before coming to UF in 2002, Taylor taught at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, where he led an initiative to create a Bachelor’s degree program in Environmental Studies and became its director. Before that he served as Lifeguard and Peace Officer for the California State Department of Parks and Recreation. He received his Ph.D. in Social Ethics from the University of Southern California in 1988. ([https://religion.ufl.edu/faculty/core/bron-taylor/ Source Accessed June 2, 2023]) +
Bronwyn Finnigan is a senior lecturer in the School of Philosophy, RSSS, at the Australian National University and an early career research fellow with the Australian Research Council. She works primarily in metaethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of mind in Western and Asian philosophical traditions and is currently working on two related research projects. The first investigates the nature of practical rationality involved in skilled action taken as a model of moral agency. The second examines Buddhist moral psychology and the meta-ethical grounds for rationally reconstructing Buddhist ethical thought. Bronwyn is a member of the Cowherds who authored ''Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy'' (Oxford), and has recently published articles on Buddhist arguments concerning animal welfare and vegetarianism (2017), idealism (2018), and the reflexive awareness of consciousness (2018). (Source: ''Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice'', 285) +
Faculty
Mircea Eliade Professor of Chinese Religion, Philosophy, and Comparative Thought; also in the College
PhD (University of Michigan)
Brook A. Ziporyn is a scholar of ancient and medieval Chinese religion and philosophy. Professor Ziporyn received his BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, and his PhD from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the Divinity School faculty, he has taught Chinese philosophy and religion at the University of Michigan (Department of East Asian Literature and Cultures), Northwestern University (Department of Religion and Department of Philosophy), Harvard University (Department of East Asian Literature and Civilization) and the National University of Singapore (Department of Philosophy).
Ziporyn is the author of ''Evil And/Or/As the Good: Omnicentric Holism, Intersubjectivity and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought'' (Harvard, 2000), ''The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang'' (SUNY Press, 2003), ''Being and Ambiguity: Philosophical Experiments With Tiantai Buddhism'' (Open Court, 2004); ''Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries'' (Hackett, 2009); ''Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought''; ''Prolegomena to the Study of Li'' (SUNY Press, 2012); and ''Beyond Oneness and Difference: Li and Coherence in Chinese Buddhist Thought and its Antecedents'' (SUNY Press, 2013). His seventh book, ''Emptiness and Omnipresence: The Lotus Sutra and Tiantai Buddhism'', was published by Indiana University Press in 2016. He is currently working on a cross-cultural inquiry into the themes of death, time and perception, tentatively entitled ''Against Being Here Now'', as well as a book-length exposition of atheism as a form of religious and mystical experience in the intellectual histories of Europe, India and China. ''Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, translated and with introduction and notes by Brook Ziporyn'' will be published in 2020. ([http://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/brook-ziporyn Source Accessed Sep 17, 2021])
Brian Edward Brown was an undergraduate and graduate student of Thomas Berry at Fordham University where he earned his doctorate in the History of Religions, specializing in Buddhist thought. He subsequently earned his doctorate in law from New York University. Currently he is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y. He is the co-founder of The Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona as well as being one of the founding faculty of the Integral Environmental Studies major at Iona, a joint venture of the departments of biology, political science and religious studies. He is the author of two principal texts: ''The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna'' (Motilal Banarsidass,1991, reprinted 1994, 2003, 2010), and ''Religion, Law and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Determination of Sacred Land'' (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1999). He is co-editor of ''Augustine and World Religions'' (Lexington Books, 2008). Among his other publications are articles which have addressed the ecological implications of the Buddhist and Native American tribal traditions, as well as the Earth jurisprudence of Thomas Berry. ([http://thomasberry.org/life-and-thought/past-award-recipients Adapted from Source Jul 20, 2020]) +
Bruce Newman has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism, mostly in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions, for almost thirty years. He spent eleven years in India and Nepal studying under his primary teacher, Venerable Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. He also completed a four-year retreat at Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland. For the past ten years, he has been practicing and teaching under the guidance of
Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche in Ashland, Oregon. +
Bruno Liebich (born January 7, 1862 in Altwasser, Waldenburg district ; † July 4, 1939 in Breslau) was a German Indologist.
Liebich was born in 1862 as the son of a mill owner. After graduating from high school in 1880, he studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Breslau and the Georg August University of Göttingen. During his studies in 1882 he joined the Danubia Munich fraternity. In 1885 he received his doctorate in Göttingen with his dissertation "The Case Theory of Indian Grammarians." phil. doctorate. In 1892 he completed his habilitation in Breslau with the work Two Chapters of the Kāçikā. From 1921 to 1928 he was a full professor of Indology there. Scientifically, he focused on the grammar of Sanskrit and published, among other things, a textbook. ([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Liebich Source Accessed Jan 15, 2024]) +
Bryan J. Cuevas (Ph.D., University of Virginia) joined the Department of Religion faculty of Florida State University in Fall 2000. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Asian religious traditions, specializing in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism, Tibetan history, language, and culture. His principal research interests focus on Tibetan history and biography, Buddhist magic and sorcery, and the politics of ritual power in premodern Tibetan societies. He is currently working on the history of the Buddhist Vajrabhairava and Yamāntaka/Yamāri traditions in Tibet, with special focus on the Raluk (Rwa lugs) transmissions and their lineages from the twelfth through early eighteenth centuries. This is a component of a broader long-term study of Tibetan sorcery and the politics of Buddhist ritual magic in Tibet up through the nineteenth century.
Dr. Cuevas has been a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and has held visiting appointments at UC Berkeley, Princeton University, and Emory University. His research has been supported by fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), as well as grants from public and private endowments.
Dr. Cuevas is currently accepting graduate students (M.A. and Ph.D.) interested in pursuing research topics in Tibetan and Buddhist studies for the upcoming 2022-23 academic year.
([https://religion.fsu.edu/person/bryan-j-cuevas Source Accessed Feb 23, 2022.]) +
Sonam Peldren (bsod nam dpal 'dren) was born on the seventeenth day of the tenth month of the earth male-dragon year (either 1268 or 1328). Her mother was named Nezang Chotso (gnas bzang chos mtsho); her father was named Yondak Ngoli (yon bdag sngo li) and was a descendent of the Tong (stong) clan. She was born in a place called Tashipa Janggyab (bkra shis pa byang rgyab) in Dam Sho ('dam shod), in the Nol (snol) district of U (dbus), near the Nyenchen Tanglha mountain range (gnyen chen thang lha). Her birth name was Gego (ge god); sometime after her marriage at age seventeen she was renamed Sonam Peldren. She was the youngest of four children: she had two elder brothers named Azang (a 'zang) and Kunchog Gyab (dkon mchog skyabs), and one elder sister named Chokyi (chos skyid.)
Little is known of the years between Sonam Peldren's birth and her marriage at age sixteen other than that her mother passed away, her father remarried, and that she was a calm child liked by all. When Sonam Peldren was seventeen years old, her father arranged her marriage, choosing from among three available suitors: Chakdor Kyab (phyag dor skyabs), described simply as a nomad from Kham, and who is more commonly known by the name Rinchen Pel; Ga Yar ('ga' yar), also described only as a nomad from Kham; and Pelek (dpal legs), described as the chief scribe (dpon yig) from a wealthy local family in central Tibet. Sonam Peldren's father, with the strong approval of his wife and extended family, betrothed Sonam Peldren to the scribe Pelek.
Sonam Peldren, however, refused to marry the groom of her family's choice, and instead insisted that she marry Rinchen Pel, claiming that her union with Rinchen Pel was karmically predestined. Sonam Peldren's father, step-mother, sister, brothers, and several other relatives questioned Sonam Peldren's refusal to marry a wealthy man from central Tibet to marry instead a landless man from the "miserable region" (sdugs sa, sic) of Kham. Sonam Peldren's fiancé himself was appalled by the adamant refusal of his betrothed to follow her father's wishes, and eventually withdrew his offer of marriage. Sonam Peldren's family reluctantly returned the gifts received from the scribe and his family; after Rinchen Pel supplied his own gifts, the two were considered married. Following her death it was Rinchen Pel who would promote her teachings and visions, in part with a written narrative of her life.
The biography of Sonam Peldren records only general stories about the events in Sonam Peldren's life between her marriage at age sixteen and the final months of her life before her death at age forty-four. Sonam Peldren lived as a nomad and traveled with her husband and fellow nomads, first in the central Tibetan region of U-Tsang (dbus gtsang) until she was thirty years old, and then in the "eight valley" region (brgyad shod) of eastern Tibet until her death. Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel had four children: two sons named Sonam Dondrub (bsod nams don 'grub) and Tsukdor Gyab (gtsug tor skyabs) and two daughters named Gumril or Gumrim (gum ril/m) and Sonam Kyi (bsod nams skyid) The birth order of these children, and Sonam Peldren's age at their birth, is not known.
These years of travel are described in the biography as punctuated by Sonam Peldren's miracles and acts of generosity. For example, her biography recounts that Sonam Peldren gave nearly all of her clothing to beggars, opting to live in a simple cotton piece of clothing without shoes; it was said that while other members of her group developed frostbite underneath their thick clothing, Sonam Peldren, barefoot and wearing only a cotton tunic, walked unimpeded through the snow, melting it with her feet.
Other examples of miracles attributed to Sonam Peldren include the following: when traveling over a snowy mountain pass, she dug a tunnel through the snow covering the mountain pass and traveled straight through to the other side, shocking the other nomads who traveled around the peak by reaching their destination first; she broke up a knife fight by grabbing four men in each of her hands and holding them apart until they ceased quarreling; when a bandit stole most of the nomadic group's horses in the middle of the night, she leapt onto the nearest remaining horse, raced down the road after the fleeing animals, and, grabbing the animals' manes with her left and right hands, led them back to camp; she carried the carcass of a fallen yak up a steep mountainside and back to her nomad encampment for their consumption; when the ice over a river broke beneath the feet of a pack animal, she yanked the yak out of the freezing water by its tail, pulling it to safety; she flung a load of barley off the back of one pack animal and onto another when the animal became lodged in a narrow pass; when a pack animal stumbled and fell over a rocky cliff, she reached down and pulled it up to safety.
Without exception, the biography describes these episodes ending with Sonam Peldren glibly attributing her accomplishments to luck or fortuitous circumstances; for example, she explained that a huge wave had actually lifted the yak out of the freezing river. Also without exception, the biography records that her fellow nomads somehow failed to recognize Sonam Peldren's abilities.
In the final year of her life, when she and her fellow nomads were traveling in a Ya Nga near what is now the city of Chamda (bya / lcam mda') in today's Driru ('bri ru) county in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Sonam Peldren gave increasingly explicit religious interpretations of her actions to Rinchen Pel, and described her dreams, visions, and premonitions of death.
In particular, Sonam Peldren described recurring dreams and waking visions in which unnamed various female figures, each with their own retinue, appeared before her. Explaining that a plague would erupt in the nomad community if Sonam Peldren did not accompany them by the fifth month of that year, the female figures demanded that Sonam Peldren leave her nomad group and travel with them. Sonam Peldren interpreted these dreams and visions to mean that she would die in the fifth month.
Following these visions and for the next several months, Sonam Peldren claimed to experience visions, gave increasingly lengthy teachings to Rinchen Pel about the religious nature of her identity and daily activities, and continued to express a conviction that her death was imminent and that relics would be found in her cremation ashes. Many of her teachings, which took the form of spontaneous songs (mgur), focused on basic Buddhist doctrines of impermanence, non-attachment, and so forth. Other speeches made reference to esoteric Buddhist practices and philosophies, such as the Mahāmudrā and other doctrines typically associated with the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. These teachings were noteworthy given the absence of any religious training or practice up to that point, a topic which Sonam Peldren's husband, family, and community returned to repeatedly in their criticisms of her claims.
On the predicted day of the fifth month of the water mouse year, Sonam Peldren declared that she was ready to die. According to her husband's account, she first claimed to see multi-colored maṇḍalas of dākinīs and tutelary deities in the sky, then conducted an offering ritual, and declared that she was ready "to go." Crying "Heek!" her body was said to have shot into the sky, then to have come down and bounced five times, each time higher. Finally, her corpse glowed with white light; gods and goddesses of light poured from her body, and accompanied her consciousness as it departed for a Buddha realm. The corpse descended slowly to earth and landed in a seated posture on the ground. A red drop appeared in the right nostril and a white drop in the left; when Rinchen Pel wiped the drops away with a flat rock, images of a red sow and a deity wearing a tiger skin appeared on the surface of the stone. Rainbows were seen, and that night visions of palaces and various mandalas filled the sky.
The date of her death given in her biography is the twenty-third day of the fifth month of the water male-mouse year (1312 or 1372), meaning she would have been about forty-four years old.
Upon cremation Sonam Peldren's skeleton was said to be found covered with images: ḍākinīs and dharma protectors; multiple images of Vajravārahī (known as Dorje Pakmo in Tibetan), Vajrāpaṇī, the Buddha Śākyamuni, Tārā, Vairocana, Cakrasaṃvara, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, Maitreya, Vajrayoginī, Dīpaṃkara and Vajradhara. Also said to be visible were the thirty-two print and cursive letters of the Tibetan alphabet; multiple and variously-colored sows; an elephant, vajra, conch shell, fish, and bell; and the letter "Ah" as well as the syllable "Tam". On her pelvic bone were signs of the secret wisdom ḍākinī, a triangle, the syllable "Bam," a flower, two ḍākinīs, and three circles of mantras.
For Rinchen Pel, Sonam Peldren's miraculous death vindicated her claims of religious authority; others in her community were not convinced. Beginning seven months after her passing, Rinchen Pel claimed to experience nine posthumous encounters with Sonam Peldren. The nature of these encounters varied. In some, Rinchen Pel asked questions, such as why Sonam Peldren's body had been ugly, inferior, and female during her lifetime; what he was supposed to do with the vast quantity of relics produced from her corpse; how Sonam Peldren had accrued religious knowledge in her lifetime despite no visible study or practice of religion; and what the meaning had been of Sonam Peldren's strange dreams, visions, songs and religious pronouncements in the last months of her life.
In another posthumous vision, when Rinchen Pel retreated to a mountainside to petition Sonam Peldren for guidance about whether he should ordain as a monk, Sonam Peldren appeared and sang a verse about emptiness and the nature of mind. In two other visions, Sonam Peldren chastised Rinchen Pel for neglecting her relics, using them to get material gain for himself, and for letting others' doubts about the authenticity of the relics affect his presentation and explanation of them, an accusation which Rinchen Pel denied. In yet other visions, Sonam Peldren simply appeared in the form of Dorje Pakmo before Rinchen Pel, along with rainbows, ḍākinīs, unusual birds, Sanskrit letters on mountain peaks.
Today Sonam Peldren is remembered as an exemplary female practitioner. A nunnery in Driru named Ya Nga Chamda Ganden Khacho Ling Nunnery (ya nga bya mda' btsun dgon dga' ldan mkha' phyod gling), called either Khacho Ling or Ganden Khacho Ling for short, stands on her death site; this nunnery contains a large wall mural depicting events from the lives of both Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel. Resident nuns perform and offering ritual to Sonam Peldren three times a month.
Her legacy was strong enough that by the sixteenth or seventeenth century a text describing the history of Tibet's only female reincarnation lineage, the Samding Dorje Pakmo (bsam lding rdo rje phag mo), could name her as an early figure in the lineage, both an incarnation of Dorje Pakmo and a pre-incarnation of Chokyi Drolma, the First Samding Dorje Pakmo (bsam sdings rdo rje phag mo 01 chos kyi sgron ma, 1422-1467/1468). However, it is worthwhile to point out that at Ganden Khacho Ling she is not regarded as belonging to the Samding Dorje Pakmo incarnation line, nor is she considered to have been an incarnation of Dorje Pakmo.
At least one twentieth-century woman claimed to be an incarnation of Sonam Peldren: Khandro Kunsang (mkha' 'gro kun bzang, d. 2004), a woman affiliated with the Kagyu tradition who gained great regional fame as a tantric practitioner and healer.
Source [http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/bsod-nam-dpal-dren//13196]
Served as Khenpo at Kathok during the time of the sixth drung rabs of Rdo rje 'od zer. +
Buddhabhadra (佛馱跋陀羅, 359–429) means enlightenment worthy. Born in northern India, he was a descendent of King Amṛtodana, who was the youngest of the three uncles of Śākyamuni Buddha (circa 563–483 BCE). He renounced family life at age seventeen and became a monk. Studying hard, he mastered meditation and the Vinaya.
In 408, the tenth year of the Hongshi (弘始) years of the Later Qin Dynasty (後秦 or 姚秦, 384–417), one of the Sixteen Kingdoms (304–439), he went to its capital, Chang-an. The illustrious translator Kumārajīva (鳩摩羅什, 344–413) had arrived there in 401. However, Buddhabhadra did not like Kumārajīva’s students. Together with his own forty-some students, he went to the Lu Mountain (廬山, in present-day Jiangxi Province) and stayed with Master Huiyuan (慧遠, 334–416), the first patriarch of the Pure Land School of China.
In 415, the eleventh year of the Yixi (義熙) years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (東晉, 317–420), Buddhabhadra went south to its capital, Jiankong (建康), present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. He stayed at the Daochang Temple (道場寺) and began his translation work. Altogether, he translated from Sanskrit into Chinese thirteen texts in 125 fascicles. For example, texts 376 and 1425 were translated jointly by him and Faxian (法顯, circa 337–422). Text 376 (T12n0376) in 6 fascicles is the earliest of the three Chinese versions of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra; text 1425 (T22n1425) in 40 fascicles is the Chinese version of the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya. Texts 278 and 666 were translated by him alone probably between years 418 and 421. Text 278 (T09n0278) is the 60-fascicle Chinese version of the Mahāvaipulya Sūtra of Buddha Adornment (Buddhāvataṁsaka-mahāvaipulya-sūtra); text 666 (T16n0666) in one fascicle is the first of the two extant Chinese versions of the Mahāvaipulya Sūtra of the Tathāgata Store.
In 429, the sixth year of the Yuanjia (元嘉) years of the Liu Song Dynasty (劉宋, 420–79), Buddhabhadra died, at age seventy-one. People called him the Indian Meditation Master. He is one of the eighteen exalted ones of the Lu Mountain. ([http://www.sutrasmantras.info/translators.html#kumarajiva Source Accessed Aug 19, 2021])
Buddhaghosa. (S. Buddhaghosa) (fl. c. 370-450 ce). The preeminent Pāli commentator, who translated into Pāli the Sinhalese commentaries to the Pāli canon and wrote the ''Visuddhimagga'' ("Path of Purification"), the definitive outline of Theravāda doctrine. There are several conflicting accounts of Buddhaghosa's origins, none of which can be dated earlier than the thirteenth Century. The Mon of Lower Burma claim him as a native son, although the best-known story, which is found in the Cūḷavaṃsa (chapter 37), describes Buddhaghosa as an Indian brāhmana who grew up in the environs of the Mahābodhi temple in northern India. According to this account, his father served as a purohita (brāhmaṇa priest) for King Saṅgāma, while he himself became proficient in the Vedas and related Brahmanical Sciences at an early age. One day, he was defeated in a debate by a Buddhist monk named Revata, whereupon he entered the Buddhist saṃgha to learn more about the Buddha's teachings. He received his monk's name Buddhaghosa, which means "Voice of the Buddha," because of his sonorous voice and impressive rhetorical skills. Buddhaghosa took Revata as his teacher and began writing commentaries even while a student. Works written at this time included the ''Ñāṇodaya'' and ''Aṭṭhasālinī''. To deepen his understanding (or according to some versions of his story, as punishment for his intellectual pride), Buddhaghosa was sent to Sri Lanka to study the Sinhalese commentaries on the Pāli Buddhist canon (P. tipiṭaka; S. Tripiṭaka). These commentaries were said to have been brought to Sri Lanka in the third Century BCE, where they were translated from Pāli into Sinhalese and subsequently preserved at the Mahāvihāra monastery in the Sri Lankan Capital of Anurādhapura. At the Mahāvihāra, Buddhaghosa studied under the guidance of the scholar-monk Saṅghapāla. Upon completing his studies, he wrote the great compendium of Theravāda teachings, ''Visuddhimagga'', which summarizes the contents of the Pāli tipiṭaka under the threefold heading of morality (sīla; S. śīla), meditative absorption (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā; S. prajñā). Impressed with his expertise, the elders of the Mahāvihāra allowed Buddhaghosa to translate the Sinhalese commentaries back into Pāli, the canonical language of the Theravāda tipiṭaka. Attributed to Buddhaghosa are the vinaya commentaries, ''Samantapāsādikā'' and ''Kaṅkhāvitaraṇī''; the commentaries to the Suttapiṭaka, ''Sumaṅgalavilāsinī'', ''Papañcasūdanī'', ''Sāratthappakāsinī'', and ''Manorathapūraṇī''; also attributed to him is the ''Paramatthajotikā'' (the commentary to the ''Khuddakapāṭha'' and ''Suttanīpāta''). Buddhaghosa's commentaries on the Abhidhammapiṭaka (see Abhidharma) include the ''Sammohavinodanī'' and ''Pañcappakaraṇaṭṭihakathā'', along with the ''Aṭṭhasālinī''. Of these many works, Buddhaghosa is almost certainly author of the ''Visuddhimagga'' and translator of the commentaries to the four nikāyas, but the remainder are probably later attributions. Regardless of attribution, the body of work associated with Buddhaghosa was profoundly influential on the entire subsequent history of Buddhist scholasticism in the Theravāda traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. (Source: "Buddhaghosa." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 152. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Jñānapāda (autonym: Buddhajñāna, also referred to as Buddhaśrījñāna, *Buddhajñānapāda, *Śrījñānapāda; fl. c. 770–820 CE), was one of the most influential figures of mature Indian esoteric Buddhism. He is remembered first and foremost as the founder of the earlier of the two most important exegetical schools of the Guhyasamājatantra (→BEB I, Guhyasamāja), but he was also very likely a guru of some note in the Pāla court, the dominant power in East India at the time, and the first warden of the famous Vikramaśīla monastery. (Source: [https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/search?s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-buddhism&search-go=&s.q=J%C3%B1%C4%81nap%C4%81da Brill Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online]) +
Buddhapālita. (T. Sangs rgyas bskyang) (c. 470—540). An Indian Buddhist scholar of the Madhyamaka school, who is regarded in Tibet as a key figure of what was dubbed the Prāsaṅgika school of Madhyamaka. Little is known about the life of Buddhapālita. He is best known for his commentary on Nāgārjuna's ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'', a commentary that was thought to survive only in Tibetan translation, until the recent rediscovery of a Sanskrit manuscript. Buddhapālita's commentary bears a close relation in some chapters to the ''Akutobhayā'', another commentary on Nāgārjuna's ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' of uncertain authorship, which is sometimes attributed to Nāgārjuna himself. In his commentary, Buddhapālita does not adopt some of the assumptions of the Buddhist logical tradition of the day, including the need to state one's position in the form
of an autonomous inference (''svatantrānumāna''). Instead, Buddhapālita merely states an absurd consequence (''prasaṅga'')
that follows from the opponent's position. In his own commentary on the first chapter of Nāgārjuna's text, Bhāvaviveka criticizes Buddhapālita's method, arguing for the need for the Madhyamaka adept to state his own position after refuting the position of the opponent. In his commentary on the same chapter, Candrakīrti in turn defended the approach of Buddhapālita and criticized Bhāvaviveka. It was on the basis of these three commentaries that later Tibetan exegetes identified two schools within Madhyamaka, the Svātantrika, in which they included Bhāvaviveka, and the Prāsaṅgika, in which they included Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti. (Source: "Buddhapālita." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 154–55. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Buddhayaśas. (C. Fotuoyeshe; J. Butsudayasha; K. Pult'ayasa 佛陀耶舍) (d.u.; fl. c. early fifth century). A monk from Kashmir . . . who became an important early translator of Indic Buddhist texts into Chinese. Buddhayaśas is said to have memorized several million words worth of both mainstream and Mahāyāna materials and became a renowned teacher in his homeland. He later taught the Sarvāstivāda vinaya to the preeminent translator Kumārajīva and later joined his star pupil in China, traveling to the capital of Chang'an at Kumãrajīva's invitation in 408. While in China, he collaborated with the Chinese monk Zhu Fonian (d.u.) in the translation of two massive texts of the mainstream Buddhist tradition: the Sifen Lü ("Four-Part Vinaya," in sixty rolls), the vinaya collection of the Dharmaguptaka school, which would become the definitive vinaya used within the Chinese tradition; and the Dīrghāgama, also generally presumed to be associated with the Dharmaguptakas. Even after returning to Kashmir four years later, Buddhayaśas is said to have continued with his translation work, eventually sending back to China his rendering of the ''Ākāśagarbhasūtra''. (Source: "Buddhayaśas." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 157. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Buddhaśrī was an important Sakya master active in western central Tibet in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. He was an important Lamdre master who passed on that teaching cycle to Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo. +
Buddhaśānta. A north Indian *monk who went to *China in 511 CE where he cooperated with *Bodhiruci in translating the *''Daśabhumika Sūtra''. Later he worked on a version of the *''Mahāyāna-saṃgraha'' and other texts. (Source: "Buddhaśānta." In ''A Dictionary of Buddhism'', 45. Oxford University Press, 2003) +
The late Reverend Bunnō Katō, born in 1888, the translator of ''Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law'', was a priest-scholar of the Nichiren Sect of Japanese Buddhism. He completed this translation after three years of devoted work, when he was studying at Oxford University since 1922, with the help of Rev. William Soothill, professor of Chinese. On returning to Japan in 1925, he soon became a lecturer at Risshō University and editor of the ''Nisshū Shimpō'', then a mnthly bulletin of the Nichiren Sect. Afterwards he was appointed head of the doctrinal department at the headquarters of the Sect. Katō's hopes of having his English translation of the Lotus Sutra published failed to materialize several times because of the costs involved. After his death, the manuscript was donated by his widow to the library of Risshō University, where it was kept for 35 years until turned over to Dr. Wilhelm Schiffer, professor at Sophia University and director of the International Institute of the Study of Religions, in 1967 for further revision. His translation, indeed, saw the light of day after an elapse of 46 years since he completed the translation in Oxford. (Source: book jacket, ''Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law'') +
