Histories of Tibet - (Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism) by Kurtis R Schaeffer & William A McGrath & Jue Liang (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of Leonard van der Kuijp, whose groundbreaking research in Tibetan intellectual and cultural history imbued his students with an abiding sense of curiosity and discovery.

As part of Leonard van der Kuijp's research in Tibetan history, as he patiently and expertly revealed treasures of the Tibetan intellectual tradition in fourteenth-century Tsang, or seventeenth-century Lhasa, or eighteenth-century Amdo, he developed an international community of colleagues and students. The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of the honoree and express the comprehensive research that his international cohort have engaged in alongside his generous tutelage over the course of forty years. He imbued his students with the abiding sense of curiosity and discovery that can be experienced through every one of his writings, and that can be found as well in these new essays in intellectual, cultural, and institutional history by Christopher Beckwith, the late Hubert Decleer, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Jörg Heimbel and David Jackson, Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, Nathan Hill, Matthew Kapstein, Kurtis Schaeffer, Michael Witzel, Allison Aitken, Yael Bentor, Pieter Verhagen, Todd Lewis, William McGrath, Peter Schwieger, Gray Tuttle, and others.

Review Quotes

"Histories of Tibet is a felicitous tribute to an unsurpassed giant in the field of Tibetan studies, gathering together a treasure trove of illuminating and authoritative essays by some of van der Kuijp's closest students and colleagues. An outstanding volume that is accessible not only to scholars of Tibetan history but to anyone whose imagination has been held by Tibet and its enchanting Buddhist culture."-- "Bryan J. Cuevas, John F. Priest Professor of Religion, Florida State University"

"The happy marriage of philology and humanity is evident in van der Kuijp's oeuvre, as well as in this impressive volume. This is essential reading for all who are interested in the cultural, intellectual, and institutional history of Tibet."-- "Dominique Townsend, author of A Buddhist Sensibility: Aesthetic Education at Tibet's Mindröling Monastery"

About the Author

Kurtis R. Schaeffer is the Frances Myers Ball Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he co-directs the Tibetan Buddhist Studies Program. His books include Himalayan Hermitess, Dreaming the Great Brahmin, The Culture of the Book in Tibet, An Early Tibetan Catalogue of Buddhist Literature (with Leonard van der Kuijp), and The Life of the Buddha by Tenzin Chögyel.

William A. McGrath is the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at New York University, where he teaches in the Department of Religious Studies. His research concerns the historical intersections of religion and medicine in Tibet, and he recently edited the volume Knowledge and Context in Tibetan Medicine (2019).

Jue Liang is Assistant Professor of Religion at Denison University, where she teaches courses on Asian religions and cultures. Her publications include "Questioning Women: Ye shes mtsho rgyal and Other Female Disciples in Zhus lan Literature" (Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines) and "Tilling the Fields of Merit: The Institutionalization of Feminine Enlightenment in Tibet's First Khenmo Program" (Journal of Buddhist Ethics, with Andrew S. Taylor).

Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp is Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Harvard University, where he chairs the Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies. He is a former MacArthur Fellow and has written numerous works on Tibetan history and Buddhist epistemology, including Bcom ldan ral gri (1227-1305) on Buddhist Epistemology and Logic: His Commentary on Dignaga's Pramanasamuccaya (co-author Arthur P. McKeown), An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature: The Bstan pa rgyas pa nyi 'od of Bcom ldan rig ral (co-author Kurtis R. Schaeffer), Contributions to the Development of Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology: From the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century, and over ninety articles. His research focuses on Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought, Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history, and premodern Tibetan relations with Mongolia and China.