Indian and Buddhist Studies

Indian and Buddhist Studies examines the texts, practices, histories, and philosophical systems that emerged from South Asia and spread across East Asia over roughly two and a half millennia, drawing on Sanskrit sources, archaeological evidence, and living religious traditions. Scholars in this area work at the intersection of philology, history, and philosophy to understand how Buddhist ideas about mind, ethics, and liberation developed, traveled, and transformed as they encountered local cultures from Sri Lanka to Japan. Active debates include how classical Buddhist ethical frameworks apply to contemporary problems like economic inequality and environmental harm, and how colonial-era scholarship shaped—and sometimes distorted—the categories still used to study Asian religion today. The field also grapples with what it means to take seriously both the insider perspective of practitioners and the critical distance of historical analysis.

Works

211,450

Total citations

187,972

Keywords

BuddhismSouth AsiaEast AsiaHistoryCulturePhilosophy