The present study collects, translates, and analyzes the surviving fragments of two lost Naiyāyika authors, Aviddhakarṇa and Bhāvivikta, principally as they have been preserved in the works of the eighth-century Buddhist philosophers Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla. (The present study argues, without coming to a definite conclusion as yet, that there is strong evidence Aviddhakarṇa and Bhāvivikta are not two distinct authors but different names for the same man.) The fragments themselves often contain fascinating and idiosyncratic arguments but are also often difficult to interpret. Unpacking them requires close consultation of major Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika works, primarily the Nyāyasūtra, Vātsyāyana’s Nyāyabhāṣya, which is the direct source material for most of the fragments, Uddyotakara’s Nyāyavārttika, which often parallels the arguments in the fragments, and Praśastapāda’s Padārthadharmasaṃgraha, which clarifies much of the technical terminology tersely packed into the most difficult of the fragments. The majority of the fragments are preserved in Kamalaśīla’s Pañjikā, his commentary on his teacher Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha. Śāntarakṣita invokes, and Kamalaśīla cites, Aviddhakarṇa and Bhāvivikta in chapters concerning cosmology (2), the self (7), momentariness (8), the Vaiśeṣika categories of substance (10), quality (11), and universals (13), and the epistemological issues of perception (17), inference (18), and the existence of other means of knowledge (19). The fragments, accordingly, cover an extremely broad range of issues and, so, serve as an occasion to consider a number of questions about the intellectual commitments of the early Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika community and various disputes between Buddhists and Naiyāyikas. Several of the fragments also derive from Aviddhakarṇa’s Cārvāka commentary, allowing for a discussion of the relation between Brahmanical philosophical traditions and the materialist Cārvāka philosophy. Finally, because the fragments are preserved in the Pañjikā, they make possible a thorough analysis of the structure and style of the Tattvasaṃgraha as a whole, as well as the way the Buddhists represent the many rival thinkers they cite. The present study mirrors the structure of the Tattvasaṃgraha, using the fragments as anchor points in a reading of the text’s overall engagement with Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, in order to argue that Śāntarakṣita organizes his work in a dialogical manner.

This dissertation is a study of a third/fourth-century Buddhist Sanskrit text, the Saddharmasmrtyupasthana(sutra), which reveals a unique literary culture at an important transitional moment in the religious and philosophical life of early Northwest Indian Buddhists. The study argues that meditative practice, rhetoric, and philosophy were intimately tied to one another when the Saddharmasmrtyupasthana(sutra) was redacted, and that the text serves as an important yet unnoticed historical touchstone for an understanding of the development of a Buddhist mind-centered metaphysics. The study suggests that such philosophical developments grew organically out of specific meditation practices rooted in the early canonical Buddhist tradition, and that the Saddharmasmrtyupasthana(sutra) offers perhaps the clearest evidence available attesting to this process. Further, the text evidences an emergent historical ideology of cosmic power, one that ties ethical conduct, contemplative knowledge, and literary practice to a spiritual goal of selfless cosmographical sovereignty. This development is historically significant because it marks a major shift in Indian Buddhist religious practice, which conditioned the emergence of fully developed Mahayana path schemes and power-oriented tantric ritual traditions in the centuries that followed the text's compilation. As part of this study, the second chapter of the Saddharmasmrtyupasthana(sutra) is critically edited and translated based on a recently discovered codex unicus.

The fifteenth-century Buddhist monk and paṇḍita Vanaratna lived a remarkable life that unfolded across the length and breadth of South Asia and crossed the Himalayan range. As a teacher, author, and pilgrim, Vanaratna traveled through and lived among many of the diverse Buddhist communities of his time and witnessed a tumultuous yet vibrant period in the regions’ history. Vanaratna’s life is particularly compelling for the fact that he counts among the last of the Buddhist paṇḍitas of Indic descent to leave an impression in the historical record. Active in eastern India, Sri Lanka, southern and northern India, Nepal, and Tibet, Vanaratna’s life is accessible to us through a rich and extensive body of Sanskrit and Tibetan literature, as well as art-historical and material sources. This study is not the first to give Vanaratna the attention he merits, but it does aim to be the first to take into consideration this large body of material available on his life that has previously been underutilized or not considered at all. The primary witnesses for Vanaratna’s life examined closely here include the Tibetan biographies (rnam thar) of Vanaratna composed by his immediate disciples, the Tibetan biographies of his students and colleagues, his extant works preserved in Sanskrit and Tibetan translation, and art-historical materials that record his life and deeds. These materials will be coordinated with the broader historical record in order to remedy both the dearth of comprehensive studies of Vanaratna’s life and the scarcity of primary sources on the political and religious history of fifteenth-century South Asia, Nepal, and Tibet.

Through a focus on the lives and works of three Hindi authors and intrepid travelers—Anand Kausalyayan, Rahul Sankrityayan, and Nagarjun—this dissertation investigates the emergence of “the wanderer” as a cultural hero in India during the twentieth century as part of efforts to define modern Buddhism for Hindi audiences. Beginning with a study of each author’s involvement in Buddhist revival efforts in India, it follows their careers and peregrinations across South Asia and around the world, exploring how each one contributed to the construction of a unique image of the wanderer through their writings and own lived example. Considering the image of the wanderer in the lives and works of these three authors, from its appearance in Buddhist tracts during the 1930s and ‘40s though later figurations of travelers in Hindi travel literature of the 1960s and ‘70s, this dissertation goes on to explore how the act of wandering came to be understood as a model for social, political, and religious reform and development.

The Concept of Saṃvega (Distress) in Early Buddhist Scripture is a study dedicated to the conception of emotions in the earliest strata of Buddhist literature. At the heart of this study lies the concept of saṃvega—a Sanskrit and Pāli word that covers a wide range of emotional states, including distress, fear, melancholy, awe, revulsion, shock, agitation, and shame. The use of saṃvega in the early Buddhist canonical texts is rife with tensions. Saṃvega is depicted as a horrifying and dejecting experience, yet at the same time, it is unequivocally recognized as beneficial and even essential. The complexity of saṃvega is the product of articulating a distinctly Buddhist emotional state, an occurrence and disposition carefully attuned to the reality of impermanence and suffering disclosed by the Buddha’s teaching. This extensive inquiry of saṃvega unpacks the rich meaning of this philosophical concept and challenges some of the commonly held assumptions and beliefs about emotions in Buddhist thought. The textual sources presented in this dissertation reveal a largely neglected component of the early Buddhist vocabulary, imagination, and practice, providing the reader with materials to reconsider the role of emotions in early Buddhism.

This dissertation examines Cambodian leporellos, or folded-paper manuscripts, that contain chants for Buddhist end-of-life rites. Grounded in a catalog that details the provenance, materiality, and content of 70 such leporellos, as well as transcriptions, editions, and translations of the 195 Pali, Khmer, and Siamese texts they contain, this study reveals a corpus of chants that illuminates Cambodian Buddhism in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. This textual corpus and the paratexts furnished by the leporellos themselves combine to show how Cambodians made Buddhist chants locally relevant for the end of life. By reading these data alongside Siamese, Lao, and Lanna parallels, this dissertation also highlights Cambodia’s participation in a broader Khmer-Tai Buddhist world.

Part I presents the social function of Cambodian leporellos and their texts for chanting to the sick, the dying, and the dead. Chapter 2 argues that these manuscripts are communal objects, circulated between scribes and donors, annotators and performers, and monastics and laypeople. Chapter 3 outlines how they unfold a spectrum of melodic chants, including those recited for deathbed rites and for the postmortem consecration of buddha images. Chapter 4 shows how their sequences, illuminations, and annotations, like those of their Siamese counterparts, create scripts for performance.

Part II analyzes the translation processes by which texts in the leporello corpus became localized in Cambodia. Chapter 5 focuses on how some Sanskrit incantations were remade into Pali protective chants. Chapter 6 engages the grammatical techniques for precise and cogent translations in bilingual Pali-Khmer and Pali-Tai prose texts. Chapter 7 examines the ways translators crafted locally appropriate yet equally performable Khmer poems from Pali and Tai sources.

Part III considers the obligations placed upon those approaching the end of life, as witnessed in Khmer chants in verse. Chapter 8 focuses on poems that invite the dying to reflect on the inevitability of death, the process of dying itself, and what happens immediately after. Chapter 9 explores a second set of obligations for the dying, namely the absolution of evil karma and the aspiration for a more fortunate future existence, particularly for buddhahood itself.

This dissertation is a history of an Indian Buddhist biographical collection--the Wish-Fulfilling Vine--in the cultural imagination and discourse of Tibet during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Wish-Fulfilling Vine of Bodhisattva Avadanas (Skt. Bodhisattvavadanakalpalata, Tb. Byang chub sems dpa'i rtogs pa brjod pa dpag bsam gyi 'khri shing) by Kshemendra is an eleventh-century Sanskrit anthology of stories about the previous existences of the Buddha and his disciples, along with events from the Buddha's final life. Translated into Tibetan and incorporated into the Tibetan Buddhist canon, by the seventeenth century the Vine occupied a place of high prestige in Tibet. I argue that adaptations of the Vine--condensed literary digests, paintings, and woodcuts--constitute sophisticated forms of commentary that reveal the ingenuity and concerns of their producers. In addition to didactic and iconic functions in Buddhist practice, cultural productions of the Vine served as sites of discourse about knowledge, authority, ideal Buddhist exemplars, and authentic Indic origins. With prominent monastic intellectuals and rulers as producers and patrons of its editions and adaptations, the Vine offers perspectives into the elite culture of Tibet, in its monastic and courtly aspects.

Each chapter is organized around a prominent figure who designed, sponsored, or otherwise promoted cultural productions of the Wish-Fulfilling Vine. In Chapter One I trace how the Fifth Dalai Lama and his court popularized the Vine through public instruction, paintings, and literary activities. These conspicuously cultured displays promoted renewed interest in Sanskrit and the Indic origins of Buddhism, while contributing to broader projects of knowledge production and state-building. In Chapter Two I demonstrate how the lay Pho lha dynasty appropriated the Vine, sponsoring two large-scale multimedia productions while developing models for lay kingship and patronage. In Chapter Three I argue that Si tu Pan chen, an influential monk of Sde dge in eastern Tibet, articulated his vision of the ideal monastic through the design of Vine paintings and other literary and visual productions on the Buddha's life. In Chapter Four I study Zhu chen, court chaplain of Sde dge, and his work on the Vine as commentaries on cultural production.

The Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra (SDP), or Purification of All Negative Rebirths, is a Buddhist yoga tantra that has long been associated with funerary practice in multiple Buddhist cultures. However, when it comes to ritual practice, the tantra itself, as with most canonical tantras, does not give practical guidance. Rather, this task falls to the genres of local ritual manuals and handbooks that have grown up around the text and evolved over the centuries. This dissertation examines several such manuals, drawn from two separate traditions where the SDP has been important: Tibetan texts from Dunhuang, and bilingual Newari-Sanskrit texts from the Kathmandu Valley. Since they originate from very different historical contexts, the aim is not to compare them with one another, but rather to consider the diverse range of ritual traditions that have developed with the SDP as their basis. In doing so, this dissertation shows that, rather than drawing on funerary elements alone, Buddhist tantric funerary rites in these traditions make use of the same basic tantric technology central to yoga tantra in general, including initiation and sādhana techniques. So too, it argues that the adaptability of the text relates to its capacity to combine with other types of Buddhist tantric ritual technology, a quality that may also contribute to its widespread popularity and remarkable longevity.

Part One focuses on a Tibetan initiation manual from Dunhuang that may be used for the living or dead. It proposes a re-ordering of the manuscript and a reading of the text as a coherent whole centering on the SDP maṇḍala and incorporating two others. Notable, in particular, is the relative lack of customization in the text and the absence of any particular focus on the deceased's consciousness. Part Two examines Newari-Sanskrit manuals of the 19th century, in particular, ones that combine the SDP tradition with the practice of utkrānti, an advanced technique that involves recalling the deceased's consciousness to their body, performing initiations, and finally directing the consciousness to depart again via the crown of the head, in order to ensure a good rebirth. Finally, Part Two provides new material for the study of Newar Buddhism, an area that has received comparatively little attention. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the SDP tradition and brings into conversation differing Buddhist tantric funerary practices on its basis. It also takes a closer look at the genre of ritual manuals, and considers the relationship between localization, levels of detail, and pragmatic needs of ritualists.

Buddhist texts perpetually remind readers to realize the pervasive nature of suffering by reflecting upon the impermanent and even putrid nature of the human form. However, they also proclaim birth in a human body to be the ideal condition for liberating oneself from that suffering. How can the body be both a tool for transcendence and an obstacle to be overcome? Within tantric Buddhism, the body mandala is a ritual process of imagining parts of the human body as parts of the mandala, a cosmic palace inhabited by Buddhas and attendant deities. In examining a network of texts by scholar-monks Mkhas grub rje (1385-1438) and Ngorchen Kun dga' bzang po (1382-1456) concerning body mandala, this dissertation brings to light complex attitudes towards the role of the body in tantric practice and contextualizes esoteric conceptions of the body in terms of larger social, religious, and political dynamics circulating in fifteenth-century Tibet. In bringing the esoteric into conversation with the humanistic, this dissertation demonstrates the value of studying ritual technologies of the body within their historical contexts as well as in relation to discourses on the body across disciplines and cultures.