Vāgīśvarakīrti's Influence in Kashmir and Among the Khmer

Lecture by Péter-Dániel Szántó.

The lecture 

The aim of this talk is to point out the far-reaching influence of Vāgīśvarakīrti, and early eleventh century East Indian tantric Buddhist scholar. In the first part I will show that his views on the fourth initiation were considered important and controversial enough to be contested in Kashmir sometime before 1057 CE, probably still during his scholarly activity. In the second part I would wish to propose the hypothesis that although unnamed, he is a master alluded to with reverence on the Khmer Sap Bāk inscription dated 1067 CE.

The speaker

Péter-Dániel Szántó (b. 1980) started his studies in Tibetology and Indology at ELTE, Budapest. He wrote his doctoral thesis on a late esoteric Buddhist work, the Catuṣpīṭhatantra. He was a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford and a Nachwuchsinitiative stipend-holder at Hamburg University. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.