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Erick Tsiknopoulos is a translator of Tibetan literature into English. Originally from the United States, he studied Tibetan language and Buddhism intensively in the Himalayan region of North India and Nepal, where he lived for 11 years (2008-2019).
He has practiced Buddhism since 1999, studied Tibetan language since 2004, and translated & interpreted Tibetan professionally since 2008.
He is the founder and director of the Trikāya Translation Committee, Trikāya Translation Services, and the Trikāya Tibetan Language Academy. ([https://www.tibetantranslation.com/about-erick-tsiknopoulos Adapted from Source Oct 17, 2025]) +
Erik Curren has worked for a decade in the solar power industry while writing about energy, climate change and U.S. history. His previous books include "The Solar Patriot: A Citizen's Guide to Helping America Win Clean Energy Independence." His work aims to draw inspiration and lessons for success today from stories of people in the past who fought with courage and conscience to solve the biggest problems facing America and the world. ([https://www.audible.com/author/Erik-D-Curren/B0719W2748 Source Accessed Nov 30, 2023]) +
Erik Hoogcarspel (1946) studied contemporary continental philosophy in Groningen, founded a Buddhist meditation center and studied Asian philosophies and religions. He taught Hinduism at Radboud University in Nijmegen.
During his work as a teacher and teacher he wrote textbooks for his students and columns. Among other things, he translated Nāgārjuna's ''Principles of the Philosophy of the Middle'' from Sanskrit and edited the anthology ''The Great Way to Light'', a selection from the literature of Mahayana Buddhism, and wrote ''The Buddha Phenomenon'' . . . . He practices meditation and Taijiquan. ([https://wijsheidsweb.nl/auteurs/erik-hoogcarspel/ Adapted from Source Mar 23, 2021]) +
Erik Pema Kunsang is one of the most highly regarded Tibetan translators and interpreters today. Erik has been the assistant and translator for [[Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche]] and his sons since the late 1970s. He has translated and edited over fifty volumes of Tibetan texts and oral teachings, and was one of the founding directors of [[Rangjung Yeshe Publications]]. ([http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Erik_Pema_Kunsang Source Accessed Jul 24, 2020]) +
Erik Zürcher was a Dutch Sinologist. From 1962 to 1993, Zürcher was a professor of history of East Asia at the Leiden University. He was also Director of the Sinological Institute, between 1975 and 1990. His Chinese name was Xǔ Lǐhe (许理和).
He studied Sinology, Buddhism, specializing in Chinese religions. In 1959, his PhD was over The Buddhist Conquest of China. In 1962 he became professor of history of East Asia, particularly the Chinese Buddhism, Chinese reactions to the Christianity and early relations between China and the outside world.
He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1975 and Associate of the Academie des Belles Lettres et des Incriptions of the Institut de France. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor for Art and Science in the Order of the House of Orange and made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.
His son Erik-Jan Zürcher (born 1953) is a professor of Turkish languages and cultures at the University of Leiden and former director of the International Institute of Social History. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Z%C3%BCrcher Source Accessed Jan 20, 2020]) +
CAROL ERMAKOVA was born in Malaysia in 1967 and much of her first two years was spent travelling with her family before they returned to live in the UK.
Carol studied modern languages and literature at St. Andrews University, Scotland, graduating in 1992 with First Class Honours. She also holds an MA in Contemporary Russian Studies from SSEES, London University (1994), and an MA in Translation and Interpreting from Bath University (2005). She has worked as an English Language teacher in Italy, Russia and the UK, and has also assisted many Bönpo Geshes in their language studies, notably Geshe Gelek Jinpa, Ponlob Tsangpa Tenzin, Drubdra Khenpo Tsultrim Tenzin, Khenpo Rakhyung Kalsang Norbu.
Many of her literary translations have been published in journals such as The London Magazine, Litro and Steppe. Her work has also been included in anthologies such as Squaring the Circle, Winners of the Debut Prize, 2010 and Shadowplay on a Sunless Day. Carol currently works as a freelance, self-employed translator in the North Pennines, UK.
It was as a student in St. Andrews that she first became interested in Tibetan Buddhism when a friend took her to visit Karma Kargyu Samye Ling, Eskdalemuir, Scotland. Struck by the strong spiritual energy of the rituals, Carol returned several times to sit with the monks, first in the atmospheric puja room, then in the newly-built temple. It was not until 1994, however, that she received her first Buddhist teachings, from Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia.
Source [http://www.yungdrungbon.co.uk/CarolErmakova.html] +
DMITRY ERMAKOV was born in 1967 in Leningrad, Soviet Union, and trained as a classical musician from the age of six. He was raised in a highly cultural environment, attending after-school classes on ancient history, mythology and art history at the prestigious Hermitage Museum. During his summer holidays he often participated in archaeological digs led by his aunt, the former Head of Archaeology at Kiev University. In 1987 Dmitry joined the University of Leningrad's expedition to Khakassia near the Tuvan (Tyvan) border to excavate Scythian Kurgans. This was his first trip to Siberia.
His interest in Buddhism began in his childhood, with a book called Gods of the Lotus by Parfionov. The book details the author's trip to the Himalayas and it opened up a whole new world of deities and religions. Later, this interest was combined with martial arts based on Taoism and Zen philosophy, and Qi Gong, disciplines which were strictly forbidden in the Soviet Union. It was only with the coming of Perestroika in 1989 that Dmitry was able to meet Buddhist masters: receiving a blessing for the Lotus Sutra from a Japanese Zen master; and then teachings and initiations from a Tibetan Buddhist lamas: Bakula Rinpoche (1989), Khenchen Palden Sherab and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoches (1991), Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche (1992).
In 1993 Dmitry moved to the UK and in 1995 he met the great Bönpo master Yongdzin Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche. He has been practising Yungdrung Bon and attending Yongdzin Rinpoche's teachings ever since.
Dmitry first visited Buryatia in 1990 where he struck up a deep friendship with the Buddhist thangka-painter Batodalai Doogarov as well as with a several of the local bo and utgan shamans.
Welcomed into their circle, Dmitry was able to gain unique insight into the Buryatian spiritual tradition of Bo Murgel, insight which developed into a detailed study of the similarities and differences between this ancient tradition and Yungdrung Bon. With the patient help of Yongdzin Rinpoche, Dmitry spent years researching a large anthology, Bo and Bon: Ancient Shamanic Traditions of Siberia and Tibet in their Relation to the Teachings of a Central Asian Buddha, (2008), which sheds new light on both traditions.
Dmitry went on to study Tibetan at Oxford University with Prof. Charles Ramble (2009-2010) and, as well as having articles published in both English and Russian, has been invited to lecture in Oxford, London, St. Petersburg, Vilnius, Cagliari, Budapest etc. His knowledge of Tibetan brings a new level of scholarship to the books and transcripts he and his wife Carol produce for the international Bonpo sangha.
Dmitry currently lives in the North Pennines, UK, where he works as a freelance translator. Alongside his work for the Bon tradition, he is currently composing pieces for a new fusion album.
Ernst Leumann (11 April 1859 – 24 April 1931) was a Swiss jainologist, pioneer of the research of Jainism and Turkestan languages whose work is in consideration even today. His studies on linguistics in Zürich and Geneva and of Sanskrit in Leipzig and Berlin were followed by his doctorate in 1881 in Strasbourg. His dissertation was "Etymological Dictionary of the Sanskrit Language." ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Leumann Source Accessed Apr 23, 2022]) +
Ernst Steinkellner (born 1937) studied Indian philosophy at the University of Vienna under Erich Frauwallner. After a research stay at the University of Pennsylvania (1971–1973), he founded the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, which he headed until the year 2000. He has been involved in projects at the IKGA and its predecessor institutions since 1986. At the beginning of 1998 he succeeded Gerhard Oberhammer as the director of the IKGA, holding this position until 2006. In 2008 Ernst Steinkellner received the Ludwig Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Research Association.
Most of the projects at the IKGA that Steinkellner initiated and worked on are related to the logico-epistemological tradition of Buddhism. The documentation of this philosophical school dating from the 5th c. CE, especially the works of Dharmakīrti (6th–7th c. CE), represent Steinkellner's most important scholarly achievements. In this context, Steinkellner further developed the historico-philological methods of textual criticism as first introduced by Frauwallner. Steinkellner's interest in the logico-epistemological tradition later led him to doing work on Tibet, where the Buddhist schools of thought within his field of interest are still alive today.
Thanks to Steinkellner, in 2004 the IKGA began to have access to certain photocopies of manuscripts held by the China Tibetology Research Center (CTRC) in Beijing. This has made it possible to undertake critical editions of the most important Sanskrit texts in this collection, texts that until 2004 had only been accessible in their Tibetan or Chinese translations. The results of this co-operation are being published in a series founded specially for this purpose, the STTAR. ([https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ikga/institute/former-directors#c109344 Source Accessed Jan 8, 2021]) +
Ernst Waldschmidt (July 15, 1897, Lünen, Province of Westphalia – February 25, 1985, Göttingen) was a German orientalist and Indologist. He was a pupil of German indologist Emil Sieg. He taught at Berlin University and began teaching at the University of Göttingen in 1936. Waldschmidt joined the Nazi party in May 1937 and became a member of the National Socialist German Lecturers League in 1939. He was a specialist on Indian philosophy, and archaeology of India and Central Asia. He also founded Stiftung Ernst Waldschmidt. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Waldschmidt Source Accessed May 5, 2022]) +
Ester Bianchi holds a Ph.D. in ‘Indian and East-Asian Civilization’ from the University of Venice (co-tutorial Ph.D. received from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses of Paris). She is currently associate professor of Chinese Literature, Chinese Religions and Philosophy, and Society and Culture of China at the University of Perugia (Italy); in the past, she has also been in charge of classes of Chinese Language (modern and classical) and Sinology. She is external associated researcher of the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités CNRS-EPHE (2012-) and, together with Daniela Campo, directs the research project “當代中國、臺灣的戒律復興 – Vinaya Revival in 20th Century China and Taiwan” (funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, August 2015-July 2018).
Her studies focus on the religions of China, and particularly on Buddhism, both in imperial and in modern and contemporary time; her research is centered on Sino-Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhist monasticism and, more recently, the revival of Buddhist monastic discipline in China.
Ester Bianchi is the author of ''The Iron Statue Monastery, Tiexiangsi: A Buddhist Nunnery of Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary China'' (Firenze 2001), of a general book on the history, practices and cultural traditions of Daoism (Milano 2009), and of the first Italian translation of the ''Gaoseng Faxian zhuan (Faxian: un pellegrino cinese nell’India del V secolo'', Perugia, 2012-13).
Her main publications include the following articles: “Subtle erudition and compassionate devotion: Longlian (1909-2006), the most outstanding bhiksuni in modern China” (in D. Ownby, V. Goossaert, Ji Zhe, eds., ''Making Saints in Modern China'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016- 2017, pp. 272-311), “Chinese Chantings of the Names of Mañjuśrī: The ''Zhenshi ming jing'' 真實名經 in Late Imperial and Modern China” (in V. Durand-Dastès ed., ''Empreintes du Tantrisme en Chine et en Asie Orientale. Imaginaires, rituals, influences'', Leuven-Paris-Bristol: Peeters 2015, pp. 117-138), “A Religion-Oriented ‘Tibet Fever’. Tibetan Buddhist Practices Among the Han Chinese in Contemporary PRC” (in Dramdul and F. Sferra eds., ''From Mediterranean to Himalaya. A Festschrift to Commemorate the 120th Birthday of the Italian Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci'' – 从地中海到喜马拉雅: 意大利著名藏学家朱塞佩·图齐 诞辰120周年纪念文集, Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House 2014, pp. 347-374), “Yamāntaka-Vajrabhairava in Modern China. Analysis of 20th Century Translations from Tibetan” (in G. Orofino, S. Vita eds., ''Buddhist Asia'' 2, Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies 2010, pp. 99-140), “The ‘Chinese ''lama''<i>'</i> Nenghai (1886-1967). Doctrinal tradition and teaching strategies of a Gelukpa master in Republican China” (in M. Kapstein ed., ''Buddhism Between Tibet and China'', Boston: Wisdom Publications 2009, pp. 295-346), “Protecting Beijing: The Tibetan Image of Yamāntaka-Vajrabhairava in Late Imperial and Republican China” (in M. Esposito ed., ''Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries'', Paris: l’École Française de l’Extrême Orient 2008, pp. 329-356), and “The Tantric Rebirth Movement in Modern China. Esoteric Buddhism re-vivified by the Japanese and Tibetan Traditions” (''Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungarica'' 57, 1, 2004, pp. 31-54). ([https://vinayarevival.com/ester-bianchi/ Source Accessed Feb 27, 2023])
Ethan Mills has been Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga since 2014. He specializes in Indian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and ancient and modern skepticism. He has published in journals
including ''Philosophy East and West'', ''Asian Philosophy'', ''Comparative Philosophy'', and ''The International Journal for the Study of Skepticism''. He is currently working on a book on skepticism in classical India focusing on Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa. (Source: [https://research.tsadra.org/index.php/Ethics_without_Self,_Dharma_without_Atman Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman]) +
Etienne Bock is a specialist in Tibetan literature and Himalayan arts. +
French Orientalist and seminal figure in the development of Buddhist Studies as an academic discipline. He was born in Paris on April 8, 1801, the son of the distinguished classicist Jean-Louis Burnouf (1773–1844). He received instruction in Greek and Latin from his father and studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He entered the École des Chartes in 1822, receiving degrees in both letters and law in 1824. He then turned to the study of Sanskrit, both with his father and with Antoine Léonard de Chézy (1773–1832). In 1826, Burnouf published, in collaboration with the young Norwegian-German scholar Christian Lassen (1800–1876), ''Essai sur le pâli'' (“Essay on Pāli”). After the death of Chézy, Burnouf was appointed to succeed his teacher in the chair of Sanskrit at the Collège de France. His students included some of the greatest scholars of the day; those who would contribute to Buddhist studies included Philippe Edouard Foucaux (1811–1894) and Friedrich Max Müller. Shortly after his appointment to the chair of Sanskrit, the Société Asiatique, of which Burnouf was secretary, received a communication from Brian Houghton Hodgson, British resident at the court of Nepal, offering to send Sanskrit manuscripts of Buddhist texts to Paris. The receipt of these texts changed the direction of Burnouf's scholarship for the remainder his life. After perusing the ''Aṣtasāhasrikāprajñāpãramitā'' and the ''Lalitavistara'', he decided to translate the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra''. Having completed the translation, he decided to precede its publication with a series of studies. He completed only the first of these, published in 1844 as ''Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme indien''. This massive work is regarded as the foundational text for the academic study of Buddhism in the West. (Source: "Burnouf, Eugène." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 158. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Eugene Obermiller (1901–1935), as a Buddhist scholar, inherited the tradition of Ivan Minayev (1840-1890), the founder of Russian school of Indology and Buddhist studies through his teacher Fyodor Ippolitvich Shcherabatskoy (1866–1942), who was a pupil of Minayev. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Leningrad, he joined Academy of Sciences at Leningrad as an Under Secretary to the Director of the Bibliotheca Buddhica.
His published works include the translation of Bu-ston's ''Tibetan History of Buddhism'' (1932) in two volumes. He also translated the ''Uttaratantra'' or ''Ratnagotravibhaga'' (of Maitreya Asaṅga) from Tibetan and published it in 1932. Obermiller's other important work is the Sanskrit text and Tibetan translation of the ''Abhisamayālamkara'', which he undertook as a joint venture with his teacher Shcherabatskoy and published in 1929. He also contributed papers to the ''Indian Historical Quarterly''. +
Eun-su Cho (趙恩秀) is a professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Seoul National University in Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California and was an assistant professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan before she joined SNU in 2004. Her research interests include Indian Abhidharma Buddhism, Korean Buddhist thought, and women in Buddhism. She has written articles and book chapters, including "Wŏnch’ŭk’s Place in the East Asian Buddhist Tradition," "From Buddha’s Speech to Buddha’s Essence: Philosophical Discussions of Buddha-vacana in India and China," "Re-thinking Late 19thCentury Chosŏn Buddhist Society," and "The Uses and Abuses of Wŏnhyo and the ‘T’ong Pulgyo’ Narrative." Recently her article titled “Repentance as a Bodhisattva Practice—Wŏnhyo on Guilt and Moral Responsibility” was published in ''Philosophy East & West'' (2013). She co-translated the Jikji simgyeong into English, and edited a volume ''Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen – Hidden Histories and Enduring Vitality'' (SUNY Press, 2011). She was the founding director of the International Center for Korean Studies at SNU in 2007-2008, had served as the chair of the Editorial Subcommittee of the MOWCAP (Asia/Pacific Regional Committee for the Memory of the World Program) of UNESCO in 2007-2009, and was the elected president of the Korean Society for Buddhist Studies (Bulgyohak yŏn’guhoe) from 2012-2014. ([https://snu-kr.academia.edu/EunsuCho Source Accessed Nov 27, 2019]) +
Eva K. Dargyay (born October 1 , 1937 in Munich ) is a German Tibetologist. After earning her doctorate phil. in Munich in 1974, habilitation there in 1976 (structure and change in the Tibetan village) and work as a private lecturer from 1981 to 1990 she was a professor of religious studies with a focus on Buddhism and Tibet at the University of Calgary. From 1991 to 2003 she was a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She has been living in Germany again since 2006. She was married to the Tibetologist Lobsang Dargyay (1935-1994). +
Eva Natanya is a Teacher, Translator, Scholar, Philosopher, and Theologian.
I have studied the classical Tibetan language for over twenty years, and have translated hundreds of pages from the works of Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), as well as from such Gelukpa masters as Gyaltsab Je, Khedrub Je, the First Panchen Lama Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, and Choney Lama Drakpa Shedrup. I also have significant experience reading and translating texts from the Great Perfection (Dzokchen) tradition of the Nyingma lineage. I care deeply about the nonsectarian (Rimé) movement in nineteenth century Tibetan history, and am committed to contemporary efforts that seek mutual understanding between the great lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. ([https://www.evanatanya.com/ Source Accessed April 23, 2024]) +
Eva Van Dam is a Dutch artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in numerous books and magazines. She has traveled extensively in Tibet and lived in Nepal for six years, studying Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist iconography. ([https://www.shambhala.com/milarepa.html Source: Shambhala Publications]) +
Evan Thompson is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He works on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience. His work combines cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophical traditions. He is the author of ''Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy'' (Columbia University Press, 2015); ''Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind'' (Harvard University Press, 2007); and ''Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception'' (Routledge Press, 1995). He is the co-author, with Francisco J. Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of ''The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience'' (MIT Press, 1991, revised edition 2016). Evan is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Evan received his A.B. from Amherst College in 1983 in Asian Studies and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1990. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2013, and held a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science and the Embodied Mind at York University from 2002 to 2005. In 2014, he was the Numata Invited Visiting Professor at the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also held invited visiting appointments at the Faculty of Philosophy, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In 2012 he co-directed, with Christian Coseru and Jay Garfield, the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Investigating Consciousness: Buddhist and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, and he will again be co-director, with Coseru and Garfield, of the 2018 NEH Summer Institute on Self-Knowledge in Eastern and Western Philosophies.
Evan is currently serving as the Co-Chair of the Steering Council of the Mind and Life Institute and is a member of the Dialogue and Education Working Circle of the Kalein Centre in Nelson, British Columbia.
Evan is married to Rebecca Todd, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist. Todd is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and directs the Motivated Cognition Lab. ([https://evanthompson.me/biography/ Source Accessed May 20. 2021])
