Our research foci
The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS) continues a longstanding tradition of Buddhological research in Ghent. While the GCBS supports a wide range of projects, we focus in particular on Abhidharma, Sūtra Literature, Vinaya and Buddhist linguistics, as well as Buddhist philosophy, Chan Buddhism, Buddhist manuscripts, and material culture. Our regional scope primarily covers China, India, Japan, Nepal, Tibet, and Central Asia. For details, please check the profiles of GCBS members.
The GCBS supports permanent staff, MA and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars in conducting research on philosophical, doctrinal and socio-cultural aspects of Asia’s Buddhist traditions. The GCBS is housed within Ghent University’s Department of Languages and Cultures, which features a highly international research profile currently comprised of researchers from China (including those pursuing joint PhD projects with Nanjing and Renmin Universities), Taiwan, Germany, Russia, Thailand, the United States and elsewhere.
Please see the Join us section to learn more about how to join the GCBS as an international student, researcher or visiting professor.
Resources
The GSBC has accumulated a number of useful resources for Buddhist Studies:
- Ghent Database of Medieval Chinese (GDMC)
- Videos and other media from our earlier lectures
- Zotero bibliography and reference works concerning Buddhist sites in Sichuan, edited by GCBS’s Prof. Christoph Anderl
- Frogbear Database of Religious Sites in East Asia (created, among else, through the fieldwork organized by GCBS researchers)
- Buddhological links
Associated research groups
The following research groups at Ghent University conduct research on related topics:
Member publications
This page presents publication highlights of the GCBS members. For the full bibliography, please visit their personal profiles through the People webpage.
Publication highlights (Q2 2024): “Perfect Awakening: An Edition and Translation of the Prāsādika and Prasādanīya Sūtras”, by Charles DiSimone (5/24/2024) - The Long Discourses, or Dīrghāgama, is a collection of the Buddha’s most well-known sermons that has circulated widely in the Buddhist world. Parallel collections in Pali and Chinese have long been known to scholars and practitioners, but it was not… Read more
Publication highlights (Q1 2024): “The Awakening of the Hinterland: The Formation of Regional Vinaya Traditions in Tang China”, by Anna Sokolova (2/15/2024) - This volume explores the dissemination of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya tradition in Tang China (618–907) in the context of the dispersal of the state bureaucracy throughout the empire and the changing centre–periphery dynamics. The tradition’s development in China during the Tang… Read more
Publication highlights (Q4 2023): “Diversifying Philosophy of Religion: Critiques, Methods and Case Studies”, edited by Nathan R. B. Loewen and Agnieszka Rostalska (10/3/2023) - Much philosophical thinking about religion in the Anglophone world has been hampered by the constraints of Eurocentrism, colonialism and orientalism. Addressing such limitations head-on, this exciting collection develops models for exploring global diversity in order to bring philosophical studies of… Read more
Publication highlights (Q2 2023): “Harigaon revisited: chronicle and outcomes of an excavation in Kathmandu” (9/15/2023) - Giovanni Verardi, Dániel Balogh, Daniela De Simone and Elio Paparatti. Harigaon revisited: chronicle and outcomes of an excavation in Kathmandu. Kathmandu: Vajra Publications, 2023 The idea of writng this book stemmed out from the need to rethink an excavation carried… Read more
Publication highlights (Q3 2023): “The life of Padma, volume 2”, ed. and trans. by Eva De Clercq (9/11/2023) - The first English translation of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, a literary language from medieval India, recounting the story of the Ramayana. The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous… Read more
Publication highlights (2021): Precious treasures from the diamond throne: finds from the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment (7/16/2021) - Sam van Schaik, Daniela De Simone (UGent) , Gergely Hidas and Michael Willis, eds. Precious treasures from the diamond throne: finds from the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. In British Museum Research Publications 228. British Museum, 2021. The Mahābodhi temple… Read more
Publication highlights (2020): Chán Buddhism in Dūnhuáng and beyond: a study of manuscripts, texts, and contexts in memory of John R. McRae (11/16/2020) - This volume is dedicated to the memory of the eminent Chán scholar John McRae and investigates the spread of early Chán in a historical, multi-lingual, and interreligious context. Combining the expertise of scholars of Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur, and Tangut Buddhism, the… Read more
Publication highlights (2018): Buddhist Encounters and Identities across East Asia (5/30/2018) - Encounters, networks, identities and diversity are at the core of the history of Buddhism. They are also the focus of Buddhist Encounters and Identities across East Asia, edited by Ann Heirman, Carmen Meinert and Christoph Anderl. While long-distance networks allowed… Read more
Publication highlights (2018): The life of Padma, Volume 1 (5/16/2018) - The first English translation of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, a literary language from medieval India, recounting the story of the Ramayana. The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language… Read more
Piblication highlights (2012): Zen Buddhist Rhetoric in China, Korea, and Japan (12/20/2012) - One of the key factors for the success of the Chán/Sǒn/Zen schools in East Asia was the creativity of their adherents concerning the development of innovative literary genres and the skillful application of linguistic and rhetorical devices in their textual… Read more
Publication highlights (2012): A Pure Mind in a Clean Body: Bodily Care in the Buddhist Monasteries of Ancient India and China (10/16/2012) - Buddhist monasteries, in both Ancient India and China, have played a crucial social role, for religious as well as for lay people. They rightfully attract the attention of many scholars, discussing historical backgrounds, institutional networks, or influential masters. Still, some… Read more
Publication highlights (2007): The Spread of Buddhism (8/31/2007) - In no region of the world Buddhism can be seen as a unified doctrinal system. It rather consists of a multitude of different ideas, practices and behaviours. Geographical, social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, and also linguistic factors all played their… Read more
Publication highlights (2002): The Discipline in Four Parts: Rules for Nuns According to the Dharmaguptakavinaya (10/18/2002) - The purpose of this work is, on the one hand, to give an annotated English translation of the Chinese version of the bhiksunivibhanga of the Dharma-guptakavinaya, and on the other hand to study the life and the career of Buddhist… Read more
Publication highlights (1998): Samyuktabhidharma hrdaya – Heart of Scholasticism with Miscellaneous Additions (9/22/1998) - The present work provides the first complete annotated translation into English of the Chinese version of Dharmatrata's fourth century is the of a series of expository treatises that summarised the Sarvastivada philosophy as it was prevailing in Bacteria and Gandhara… Read more