The Authorship and Provenance of the Chapters of the Suvarṇa[pra]bhāsa Ascribed to Paramartha, and Implications for the History of Buddhist Texts
Dr. Michael Radich (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) will argue that four chapters of the \"Sutra of Golden Light\" attributed to Paramartha (499-569), were most likely composed in China. What does this mean for the history of the Suvarnaprabhasa, and for the history of the Buddha-body doctrine?
Lecture by Dr. Michael Radich, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
About the lecture
In this talk, Dr. Radich will argue that four chapters of the Suvarnaprabhasa-sutra ("Sutra of Golden Light") attributed to Paramartha (499-569) were most likely composed in China, and that other versions of those chapters must therefore most likely derive from Paramartha's versions. This will require him to discuss the possibility that some Tibetan versions of the chapters, which are supposed to have been translated from Sanskrit, are more likely to have in fact been translated from Chinese. These findings have wider implications for the history of the Suvarnaprabhasa; for the history of Buddha-body doctrine; for the whole corpus ascribed to Paramartha; and for our understanding of the information in traditional Tibetan catalogues. Dr. Radich will also briefly discuss new computer-assisted techniques that were used to uncover the patterns of textual evidence upon which his analysis is based.
About the presenter
Dr. Michael Radich is a Senior Lecturer in the Religious Studies Programme at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he has worked since 2005. A New Zealander by birth, he was educated at Auckland University in composition, music analysis and Asian Studies, and then at Harvard in East Asian Studies. He received his PhD from Harvard in 2007 for a dissertation entitled "The Somatics of Liberation: Ideas about Embodiment in Buddhism from Its Origins to the Fifth Century C.E." He is also the translator of Kazushige Shingu, Being Irrational: Lacan, the Objet a, and the Golden Mean; and the author of How Ajatasatru Was Reformed: The Domestication of "Ajase" and Stories in Buddhist History, and The Mahaparinirvana-mahasutra and the Emergence of Tathagatagarbha/Buddha nature Doctrine (forthcoming). For Winter 2013-2014 he is the Numata Guest Professor at the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg.
Information and registration
Please contact Ms Martina van den Haak at m.c.van.den.haak@iias.nl
The Buddhist Studies Lectures are organised by: IIAS and Prof. Jonathan Silk (Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies) .