Programs
Buddhist Studies at Chicago: Languages
Foundational for all work in the various fields of Buddhist studies at Chicago has been the kind of linguistic work made possible by the University's strong programs in South and East Asian languages, and by the outstanding library collections pertaining to these linguistic traditions.
Languages 1.: South Asia
Historically one of the nation's strongest programs in South Asian languages, the department of SALC offers high-level linguistic training in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. The department is home to two highly respected scholars of Sanskrit: Yigal Bronner, who specializes in the tradition of Sanskrit poetics, and Gary Tubb, who specializes in Sanskrit grammatical and linguistic theory and in Indian philosophy. Other regular instructors in the department's Sanskrit program include Dan Arnold, Steven Collins, Wendy Doniger, and Matthew Kapstein. Prof. Collins, author of A Pali Grammar for Students (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2005), has regularly offered Pali for many years, and students have worked on Tibetan not only with Ngawang Jorden, but also with Professors Kapstein and Wedemeyer; Prof. Kapstein's Reader of Classical Tibetan is chief among the language-learning resources on the "Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library." In addition, the department of SALC also offers regular training in a full range of classical and modern South Asian languages, including Tamil, Bengali, Hindi and Urdu, Malayalam, Telugu, and Marathi. Recent doctoral graduates of the department who work in Buddhist studies include Andy Rotman, now Associate Professor at Smith College, and author of Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2008); and Daniel Veidlinger, Associate Professor at Cal State Chico, and author of Spreading the Dhamma: Writing, Orality and Textual Transmission in Buddhist Northern Thailand (University of Hawai'i Press, 2006).
Integral to the study of South Asian languages at Chicago has been the work of South Asian bibliographer James Nye, who directs the University library's enormous collection pertaining to South Asia (the collection's 500,000th volume was added in 1998), and whose singular influence among bibliographers in the field was honored at a recent panel at the University of Wiscon's annual South Asian Studies Conference. The University library is among the nation's few participants in the federal "PL 480" program, which involves the collection of all publications produced in India. The collections developed under this program include a variety of important collections of Tibetan language materials. It is not only, however, under the aegis of this program that the library has acquired an outstanding collection relating to South Asia; the library holds a full range of critical editions in South Asian languages dating to the nineteenth century, and complete runs of many important series in the field.
The department of EALC regularly offers high-level training in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and the department's support for Buddhist studies was recently bolstered by the addition of Paul Copp, a specialist in Chinese Buddhist ritual practice, Dunhuang manuscripts, and the intellectual and cultural history of Esoteric Buddhism in Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Song China.
The Library's East Asian Collection -- founded in 1936, and recognized as one of the most comprehensive and distinctive such collections in North America -- includes some 700,000 volumes, primarily in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but also including materials in Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu. The collection also includes over 60,000 volumes of materials in English and other Western languages on or related to East Asia, shelved within the general collection. The Chinese collection is especially strong in classics, philosophy, archaeology, history, philology, art history and literature (both classical and contemporary), and the Japanese collection has particular strengths in literature, intellectual history, religion, art history, education, and Japanese Sinology.
