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James B. Apple is full Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Calgary. He received his doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2001 Dissertation: “Twenty varieties of the Saṃgha: Tsong kha pa's soteriological exegesis.” His current research focuses upon the critical analysis of Mahāyāna sūtras and topics within Indian and Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism.
GESHÉ LHUNDUP SOPA (1923–2014) introduced Dr. Apple to stages of the path (lam rim) theory and practice at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wisconsin.
He has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles in international academic journals. His books include Stairway to Nirvāṇa (State University of New York Press, 2008), A Stairway taken by the Lucid: Tsong kha pa’s Study of Noble Beings (Aditya Prakashan, 2013), Jewels of the Middle Way, The Madhyamaka Legacy of Atiśa and His Early Tibetan Followers (Wisdom Publications, 2018), Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Illuminator of the Awakened Mind (Shambala, 2019), and An Old Tibetan Dunhuang Manuscript of the Avaivartikacakrasūtra (Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, 2021), and Atisha's Stages of the Path to Awakening (Wisdom Publications, 2025). +
Shintarō Arakawa (荒川 慎太郎, Arakawa Shintarō, born May 1971) is a Japanese linguist who specializes in the study of the extinct Tangut language.
Arakawa graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University in 1995. He stayed on for graduate studies at Kyoto University, from where he received his doctorate in 2002. Since 2003 he has been teaching at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, with the position of associate professor since 2007.
Arakawa specializes in the study of the Tangut language, in particular Tangut phonology and the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Tangut characters. In 2006 he co-edited a Tangut-Russian-English-Chinese dictionary with Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov, for which he provided the reconstructed Tangut readings. He has also published a number of studies of bilingual Tangut-Tibetan texts.
In 2016 Arakawa received the prestigious Kyōsuke Kindaichi Memorial Award (金田一京助博士記念賞) for his study of the Tangut version of the ''Diamond Sutra''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintar%C5%8D_Arakawa Source Accessed April 15, 2025]) +
Swami Hariharananda Aranya (1869–1947) was a yogi, author, and founder of Kapil Math in Madhupur, India, which is the only monastery in the world that actively teaches and practices Samkhya philosophy. His book, ''Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali with Bhasvati'', is considered to be one of the most authentic and authoritative classical Sanskrit commentaries on the Yoga Sutras. Hariharananda is also considered by some as one of the most important thinkers of early twentieth-century Bengal.
Hariharananda came from a wealthy Bengali family and after his scholastic education renounced wealth, position, and comfort in search of truth in his early life. The first part of his monastic life was spent in the Barabar Caves in Bihar, hollowed out of single granite boulders bearing the inscriptions of Emperor Ashoka and very far removed from human habitation. He then spent some years at Tribeni, in Bengal, at a small hermitage on the bank of the Ganges and several years at Haridwar, Rishikesh, and Kurseong.
His last years were spent at Madhupur in Bihar, where according to tradition, Hariharananda entered an artificial cave at Kapil Math on 14 May 1926 and remained there in study and meditation for last twenty-one years of his life. The only means of contact between him and his disciples was through a window opening. While living as a hermit, Hariharananda wrote numerous philosophical treatises. Some of Hariharananda's interpretations of Patañjali's Yoga system had elements in common with Buddhist mindfulness meditation. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Hariharananda_Aranya Source Accessed May 1, 2023]) +
Stéphane Arguillère, born July 10, 1970 in Harfleur, is an associate professor of philosophy in the history of religions and religious anthropology, a specialist in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and, more particularly, in philosophy linked to the Nyingma school, to Dzogchen, and the thought of Gorampa. He is a lecturer in Tibetan language and civilization at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO, Paris). ([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Arguill%C3%A8re Adapted from Source Feb 17, 2021]) +
Lobsang Tubten Jigme Gyatso, officially the 8th Arjia Hotogtu, born 1950 in Haiyan County, Qinghai, is one of the most prominent Buddhist teachers and lamas to have left Tibet. At age two, Arjia Rinpoche was recognized by Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama as the 20th Arjia Danpei Gyaltsen, the reincarnation of Je Tsongkhapa’s father, Lumbum Ghe, the throne holder and abbot of Kumbum Monastery. He has trained with lineage teachers, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, the 10th Panchen Lama, and Gyayak Rinpoche—from whom he received many sacred teachings and ritual instructions.
During the Cultural Revolution in Chinese controlled Tibet, Arjia Rinpoche was forced to leave his monastery and attend a Chinese school, yet secretly continued to practice and study with his tutors. In addition, he was required to work in a forced Labor Camp for 16 years. Following the Cultural Revolution, Rinpoche continued serving as Abbot of Kumbum—overseeing the renovations in the monastery and reestablishing monastic studies. In 1998, due to the strained political climate in Tibet, Arjia Rinpoche went into exile because he would not compromise his spiritual beliefs and practices. He escaped to the United States where he now lives and started a Buddhist Center for Compassion and Wisdom (TCCW) in Mill Valley, California, a center committed to the preservation of Buddhist teachings, art and culture within and outside of Tibet and Mongolia. In 2005, he was appointed Director of the Tibetan Cultural Center (TCC) in Bloomington, Indiana by the 14th Dalai Lama. TCC was recently renamed the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. Presently, he directs both TCCW and TMBCC.
Throughout his life, Arjia Rinpoche was tutored by specialized teachers in the area of Buddhist philosophy, sutra and tantra teachings, as well as in Buddhist art and architectural design. He was in charge of the renovations of Kumbum monastery in 1991 and launched several projects including the following: Red Cross Organization in Kumbum, Disaster Relief Project for local villages, a clinic for villagers run by monks of the Tibetan Medical Institute and a school for local village children.
Arjia Rinpoche became vegetarian in 1999. ([https://drikungdharmasurya.org/2022/01/most-venerable-arjia-rinpoche/ Source Accessed May 6, 2026])
Dan Arnold is a scholar of Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. Considering Indian Buddhist philosophy as integral to the broader tradition of Indian philosophy, he has particularly focused on topics at issue among Buddhist schools of thought (chiefly, those centering on the works of Nāgārjuna and of Dharmakīrti), often considering these in conversation with critics from the orthodox Brahmanical school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. His first book – ''Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion'' (Columbia University Press, 2005) – won an American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion. His second book – ''Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind'' (Columbia University Press, 2012) – centers on the contemporary philosophical category of intentionality, taken as useful in thinking through central issues in classical Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of mind. This book received the Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism, awarded by the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is presently working on an anthology of Madhyamaka texts in translation, to appear in the series "Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought." His essays have appeared in such journals as ''Philosophy East and West'', the ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', ''Asian Philosophy'', the ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'', the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', and ''Revue Internationale de Philosophie''. ([https://salc.uchicago.edu/daniel-arnold Source Accessed Jul 13, 2020]) +
Jes Peter Asmussen (2 November 1928 – 5 August 2002), was a Danish Iranologist.
Asmussen was born and raised in Aabenraa. He studied theology and the Greenlandic language at the University of Copenhagen and earned his candidatus theologiæ degree in 1954. He then studied Iranistics in Cambridge, London, Hamburg, and Tehran, and earned his doctorate in 1965 at the University of Copenhagen. He was associated with the university throughout his academic career, becoming associate professor in 1966 and full professor in 1967, succeeding professor Kaj Barr. He retired in 1998.
Asmussen's research focused on the religions of Iran. He was mostly interested in Manicheism, but also wrote about Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity in ancient Iran, as well as the Judeo-Persian language and literature. He is counted among the central figures of the Danish Orientalist scholarship.
He was elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1973 and corresponding member of Saxon Academy of Sciences in 1982. He was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 1976 and received an honorary doctorate from Lund University in 1986.
Asmussen died in 2002 and is interred at the Cemetery of Holmen in Copenhagen. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes_Peter_Asmussen Source Accessed Sep 14, 2021]) +
Ruth Astor was a Western Buddhist practitioner, translator, and retreatant in the Kagyu tradition. An early student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she transcribed and did initial editing of his Naropa Institute course "Iconography of Buddhist Tantra," as acknowledged in ''True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art''. Beginning December 23, 1990, she was the first-listed member of Group A of the inaugural three-year retreat at Söpa Chöling, Gampo Abbey, Nova Scotia. She is also credited as one of four translators of Patrul Rinpoche's ''Instructions for the Preliminaries of the Nying Thig'' as taught by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche (Marpa Translation Committee, Kathmandu, 1993). +
Atiśa, also known as Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982-1054), is famous for being a master from the ancient Indian Buddhist land of Bengal and for his journeys in Indonesia and Nepal. He is most well known for the last thirteen years of his life in Tibet. Atiśa was one of the most influential Indian Buddhist masters ever to set foot in Tibet. (James Apple, ''Atiśa Dīpaṃkara'', page 1).
In Tibet, Atiśa is known as Jowo Jé or Jowo Jé Palden Atisha (ཇོ་བོ་རྗེ་དཔལ་ལྡན་ཨ་ཏི་ཤ་) or Pandita Dipamkara (པཎྜིཏ་དཱི་པཾ་ཀ་ར་), where he is considered the founding father of the Kadam tradition. Born in Sāhor (modern-day Bangladesh), he became a scholar of the famous Indian university of Vikramaśila before coming to Tibet in 1042, where he taught and authored works that are still studied today. [https://bca.tsadra.org/index.php/Articles/Ati%C5%9Ba_D%C4%ABpa%E1%B9%83kara_%C5%9Ar%C4%ABj%C3%B1%C4%81na%27s_Teaching_on_the_Bodhisattvacary%C4%81vat%C4%81ra:_One_Text_to_Rule_Them_All_(Forgues_2024) Learn more about him and his teachings on The Way of the Bodhisattva here].<br>
'''Princeton Dictionary Entry:''' Indian Buddhist monk and scholar revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a leading teacher in the later dissemination (''phyi dar'') of Buddhism in Tibet. His name, also written as Atisha, is an Apabhraṃśa form of the Sanskrit term atiśaya, meaning “surpassing kindness.” Born into a royal family in what is today Bangladesh, Atiśa studied Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy and tantra as a married layman prior to being ordained at the age of twenty-nine, receiving the ordination name of Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna. After studying at the great monasteries of northern India, including Nālandā, Odantapurī, Vikramaśīla, and Somapura, he is said to have journeyed to the island of Sumatra, where he studied under the Cittamātra teacher Dharmakīrtiśrī (also known as guru Sauvarṇadvīpa) for twelve years; he would later praise Dharmakīrtiśrī as a great teacher of bodhicitta. Returning to India, he taught at the Indian monastic university of Vikramaśīla. Atiśa was invited to Tibet by the king of western Tibet Ye shes 'od and his grandnephew Byang chub 'od, who were seeking to remove perceived corruption in the practice of Buddhism in Tibet. Atiśa reached Tibet in 1042, where he initially worked together with the renowned translator Rin chen bzang po at Tho ling monastery in the translation of prajñāpāramitā texts. There, he composed his famous work, the ''Bodhipathapradīpa'', or “''Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment'',” an overview of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path that served as a basis for the genre of literature known as lam rim (“stages of the path”). (Source: "Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 77. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Gyurme Avertin began his study of the Tibetan language in 1997. He spent two years following the Tibetan program at Langues’O University in Paris. He then went to Nepal in 1999 to study at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, before making his way to Bir in northern India, where he studied at Dzongsar Shedra. He regularly interprets for teachers visiting Rigpa centres and at the Rigpa Shedra East. (2014 Translation & Transmission Conference Program) +
H. E. Chöje Ayang Tulku Rinpoche (1942–2024) was a Tibetan Buddhist lama known for both his charitable work and his extensive academic work especially in relation to bardo and pure land.
Ayang Rinpoche was considered a foremost authority on Buddhist afterlife rituals and Tibetan Pure Land Buddhism; he gave teachings and initiations to the practice of phowa in Tibetan and English annually in Bodh Gaya, India and across the world in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. He established a school, medical clinic and education sponsorship program for children in Tibet and a variety of community development projects for Tibetans in India. He was also the founder of the Opame Khilkor Choling (The Amitabha Mandala Temple and Retreat Center) with 16 temples and a 64-cottage retreat center dedicated to Buddha Amitābha that overlooks the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal and Thupten Shedrub Jangchub Ling Monastic Institute at Bylakuppe, in the Indian State of Karnataka. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayang_Rinpoche Source Accessed May 12, 2026]) +
Indian paṇḍita known to have been an expert in Abhidharma and to have assisted in the Tibetan translation of the ''Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra''. ([https://read.84000.co/translation/toh287.html Source Accessed Aug 31, 2021]) +
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Bari Lotsawa, also known as Rinchen Drak, was the second throne holder of Sakya school (Tib. Sakya Trizin). At the age of 63, he retained the seat of Sakya for a period of eight years (1102-1110). He is one of the main lineage figures in the transmission and translation of the White Tara practice and tantras that originate from the Indian master Vagishvarakirti. (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Bari_Lotsawa Rigpa Wiki]) +
Andrei-Valentin Bacrău's work is focused on extrapolating a theory of ethics from Wittgenstein's views on language. Previously, he was at Nālandā University in Bihar, India, working on comparative ethics. As an undergraduate, he studied at the George Washington University in DC, where he double-majored in International Affairs (Security Policy), and Philosophy (Public Affairs). ([https://uzh.academia.edu/AndreiValentinBacr%C4%83u Adapted from Source Feb 11, 2021]) +
Sitansusekhar Bagchi was a notable scholar in the field of Sanskrit and Indian studies. Bagchi was associated with the Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit, where he conducted significant research in Sanskrit literature and philosophy. He is known for his work on the ''Suvarṇaprabhāsasūtra'', a Buddhist scripture, which he published in 1967 through the Mithila Institute. Bagchi's research also extended to Indian logic, as evidenced by his contributions to studies on inductive reasoning and its role in Indian logic, although the specific work attributed to him in this area is more commonly associated with other scholars. +
Dr. Heesoon Bai is an educational philosopher and a psychotherapist with a deepening interest in holistic-contemplative education. Following Raimon Panikkar’s (1918-2010) lead, she understands philosophy’s task for today’s troubled world to be “to know, to love, and to heal.” She brings this three-fold task of philosophy into he teaching and research.
Her research calls for the reanimation of our selves within all spheres of human beingness in the service of living ethically and in beauty. Through contemplative inquiry and practices, she offers ways to experiment with replenishing, nourishing, and animating our being.
View Dr. Bai's Collected Works https://summit.sfu.ca/collection/30113.
([https://www.sfu.ca/education/faculty-profiles/hbai.html Adapted from Source Feb 5, 2025]) +
Sir Harold Walter Bailey, FBA (16 December 1899–11 January 1996), who published as H. W. Bailey, was an eminent English scholar of Khotanese, Sanskrit, and the comparative study of Iranian languages.
Bailey has been described as one of the greatest Orientalists of the twentieth century. He was said to read more than 50 languages.
In 1929 Bailey began his doctoral dissertation, a translation with notes of the ''Greater Bundahishn'', a compendium of Zoroastrian writings in Middle Persian recorded in the Pahlavi scripts. He became the world's leading expert in the Khotanese dialect of the Saka language, the mediaeval Iranian language of the Kingdom of Khotan (modern Xinjiang). His initial motivation for the study of Khotanese was an interest in the possible connection with the ''Bundahishn''. He later passed his material on that work to Kaj Barr.
He was known for his immensely erudite lectures, and once confessed: "I have talked for ten and a half hours on the problem of one word without approaching the further problem of its meaning."
Bailey was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1944, and subsequently a member of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Academies. He received honorary degrees from four universities including Oxford; served as president of Philological Society, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Society for Afghan Studies, and the Society of Mithraic Studies; and chaired the Anglo-Iranian Society and Ancient India and Iran Trust. He was knighted for services to Oriental studies in 1960. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Walter_Bailey Source Accessed Dec 6, 2019])
See complete biography in [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bailey-harold-walter-1 Encyclopædia Iranica] +
Jogamuni Bajrācārya was a Nepalese scholar and translator. He was involved in Buddhist studies and contributed to the field of Sanskrit and Nepali literature. Bajrācārya published a work titled ''Asta Sahasrika'', which includes a chapter where Lord Buddha addresses Subhuti. He was also associated with the translation or interpretation of Buddhist texts, particularly those related to the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', an important Mahayana Buddhist text.
Bajrācārya's notable works include:
*''Bodhi-parināmanā: manushyapisam āsikāyāyemāhgu'', published in Kathmandu in 1981.
*''Asta Sahasrika'', which contains discussions on Buddhist philosophy. +
Piotr Balcerowicz, presently teaching at the University of Warsaw (Department of South-Asian Studies) and professor of Social Sciences and Humanities (Asian Studies and Department of International Relations), specialises in Indian philosophical tradition, with emphasis on Indian epistemological thought and Jainism. He lectures on Indian philosophy and Indian religions as well as on intercultural relations and contemporary history of Asia, esp. SouthAsia, Central Asia and the Middle East. He received his M.A. degree in Indology from the University of Warsaw in 1990 and his Ph.D. degree in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Hamburg University in 1999. He studied Sanskrit, Prakrits and Pāṇini at Banaras Hindu University in 1987–1988 and Western philosophy at postgraduate level at Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw in 1990–1994. He earned his 'Habilitation' (post-doctoral degree) in Eastern philosophies in 2005 from Polish Academy of Sciences with his postdoctoral thesis (''History of Classical Indian Philosophy. Part One: Beginnings, Analytical Trends and Philosophy of Nature''. Warsaw 2003). He published extensively on Indian philosophy, but also on the Middle East and Central Asia, and authored a number of books on Indian philosophy, Jainism and history of Afghanistan. ([http://www.balcerowicz.eu/indology/Logic_and_Belief_in_Indian_Philosophy_2016.pdf Source Accessed Apr 8, 2021]) +
Baogui (寶貴) was a prominent Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar-translator of the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE). He is most celebrated for his compilation and editing of the ''Hebu Jinguangming jing'' (《合部金光明經》 or ''Composite Sutra of Golden Light'') completed in 597 CE. Working at the Daxingshan Monastery (大興善寺) in Chang'an, Baogui synthesized the disparate, earlier translations of the ''Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra''. +
