Scholarly focus is Buddhist studies, particularly the early development of the cluster of Indian
Buddhist movements called the Mahayana and their transmission to China in the first few centuries of
the Common Era. Related interests include translation as a religious genre, with special focus on
the earliest translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese; Buddhist Middle Indo-Aryan, particularly
the role of Gandhari Prakrit in the earliest transmission of Buddhism to Central Asia and China;
art historical, epigraphical, and archeological materials as sources for the study of religion; and
history, theory, and methods in the academic study of religion.
Courses:
Asian/RelStud 250 "Introduction to Asian Religions"
Asian/RelStud 354 "Indian Buddhism"
Asian/RelStud 358 "Chinese Buddhism"
Asian/RelStud 441 "Mahayana Buddhism"
ChLit 435 "Chinese Buddhist Texts"
Sansk 323 "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit"
Publications:
Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana: A Study and Translation
of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).
China at the Crossroads: A Festschrift in Honor of Victor H. Mair. Special Issue of
Asia Major 3rd. ser., 19, pts. 1-2. Co-edited with Neil Schmid and Tansen Sen.
"The Pratityasamutpadagatha and Its Role in the Medieval Cult of the Relics," The
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14.1 (1991) : 1-27.
"Sutra on the Merit of Bathing the Buddha," in Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Buddhism in
Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 59-68; reprinted in Donald S. Lopez, Jr.,
ed., An Anthology of Asian Religions in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2002), 206-215.
"The Nagaropamasutra: An Apotropaic Text from the Samyuktagama. A Transliteration,
Reconstruction, and Translation of the Central Asian Sanskrit Manuscripts," In collaboration with
Gregory Bongard-Levin, Takamichi Fukita, and Klaus Wille in Sanskrit-Texte aus dem buddhistischen
Kanon: Neuentdeckungen und Neueditionen III. Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den
Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 6 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 7-131.
"Gandhari and the Early Chinese Buddhist Translations Reconsidered: The Case of the
Saddharmapundarikasutra," Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.4 (1998) :
471-506.
"On Hu and Fan Again: the Transmission of 'Barbarian' Manuscripts to China,"
The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.1 (2000): 7-28.
