Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

The OCBS is approaching its 20th anniversary. During this time, it has established itself as a trusted academic organisation. In the last ten years, under the Directorship of Richard Gombrich (now retired), the OCBS has vastly expanded its online Pali teaching activities. These currently include: Online comprehensive self-paced Pali courses, live Pali reading groups, an Advanced Pali course, and the Pali Hub -comprising a bibliography (currently over 14,000 entries) of scholarship in Pali and Early Buddhism.

Sutta Central

SuttaCentral is on online resource that contains early Buddhist texts, known as the Tipiṭaka or “Three Baskets”. This is a large collection of teachings attributed to the Buddha or his earliest disciples, who were teaching in India around 2500 years ago. They are regarded as sacred canon in all schools of Buddhism. Here is Sutta Central’s site for the Pali Translation Project.

There are several Buddhist traditions, and each has passed down a set of scriptures from ancient times. SuttaCentral is specially focused on the scriptures of the earliest period of Buddhism, and hosts texts in over thirty languages. We believe this is the largest collection of early Buddhist texts ever made.

SuttaCentral hosts the texts in orginal languages, translations in modern languages, and extensive sets of parallels that show the relationship between them all.

Dr. Richard Gombrich

SENIOR DIRECTOR

Richard Gombrich will oversee the Pali Translation Project. He is a Boden Professor of Sanskrit Emeritus, chairs the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies Trustee Board. He also serves as Academic Director of the Centre pro bono.

Dr. Alex Wynne

DIRECTOR

Alex Wynne is an accomplished Pali translator and scholar. He will help oversee the Pali Translation Project.

Dr. Kate Crosby

TRANSLATOR

Kate Crosby joined King’s as Professor of Buddhist Studies in April 2013. She came to King’s from SOAS where she was Director of the Centre of Buddhist Studies and Seiyu Kiriyama Reader in Buddhist Studies. Before that she held posts in Buddhism, Pali and Sanskrit at the universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster and Cardiff, as well as teaching in Oxford at a number of colleges and the Oriental Institute.

Dr. Alistair Gornall

TRANSLATOR

Alastair Gornall researches the intellectual history of Theravada Buddhism and is an expert on post-canonical Pali literature. He has written several articles on the Pali scholastic tradition and is the author of Rewriting Buddhism: Pali Literature and Monastic Reform in Sri Lanka, 1157–1270 (2020). He gained his Ph.D. in South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2013. He is currently an Assistant Professor in South and Southeast Asian Studies at the Singapore University of Technology and Design and a Research Associate in the School of Language, Cultures, and Linguistics at SOAS, University of London.

Dr. Alex Ruiz-Falqués

TRANSLATOR

Aleix Ruiz-Falqués is a lecturer and researcher in Pali Philology at the Shan State Buddhist University in Taunggyi, Burma (Myanmar). His work focuses on the Pali grammatical and scholastic tradition of Burma. He gained his Ph.D. in South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2016. He has published several articles on Pali traditional grammar and philology (recently "Boundaries and Domains: Understanding Optionality in Buddhappiya's Rūpasiddhi", Journal of the Pali Text Society XXXIV, 2021). He is currently revising his first monograph: Guṇasāgara's Mukhamattasāra and the Early Pali Scholarship of Burma (Pune Indological Series, forthcoming).

Dr. Chris Clark

TRANSLATOR

Chris Clark is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney with expertise in Pali and Sanskrit language and literature. His published articles explore aspects of early Buddhism, particularly narrative texts. He is currently completing the first volume of an edition and translation of the Apadāna, a collection of hagiographies belonging to the Pali canon. He has worked extensively with palm leaf manuscripts and stone inscriptions preserving Theravāda literature. He has won research grants from numerous funding bodies, including the Pali Text Society and the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.

Dr. Claudio Cicuzza

TRANSLATOR

Claudio Cicuzza studied at the University of Rome, “La Sapienza”, where he received his MA and PhD in Indology. At present he is professor at Mahidol University in the International PhD Program in Buddhist Textual Studies. His current research focuses on the Pali literature of Central Siam and Pāla period scholasticism of Northern India. Cicuzza’s publications include articles, edited volumes, critical editions and translations from Sanskrit and Pali: The Laghutantraṭīkā by Vajrapāṇi (Rome 2001), La Rivelazione del Buddha (Milan 2001 and 2004), Il capitolo XXX del Saṃvarodayatantra (edition of the Sanskrit text, Rome 2001), A Mirror Reflecting the Entire World. The Pāli Buddhapādamaṅgala or “Auspicious signs on the Buddha’s feet” (Bangkok and Lumbini 2011), The Wat Pho manuscript of the Uṇhissavijaya: (edition of the Pali text, Bangkok and Lumbini 2018).

• Dr. Mattia Salvini

  TRANSLATOR

  Mattia Salvini is the Dean of Scriptural Languages at the International Buddhist College (Sadao Campus). He obtained a BA and MA Sanskrit from RKM Vivekānanda College Chennai, India, and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). His main research interests are: Buddhist philosophy as expressed in Sanskrit, and especially Madhyamaka; the relationship between philosophy and vyākaraṇa; the relationship between Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and non-Mahāyāna Abhidharma; Buddhist Sūtras in Sanskrit and Tibetan. Mattia has taught in Nepal (Rangjung Yeshe Institute), Thailand (Mahidol University), and, as visiting professor, Taiwan (Hua Fan University) and Germany (Hamburg University, as a Numata Visiting Professor), and has offered occasionally lectures and reading sessions in UK (Oxford University), Malaysia (Than Hsiang, Brickfields Mahāvihāra, MyBA), Japan (Kyoto University), India (Ashoka University, Delhi University) and mainland China.

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Dr. Giuliano Gustarini

TRANSLATOR

Giuliano Giustarini received a PhD in Indological Studies (University of Turin) and, before, an MA in Indian Religions and Philosophies (La Sapienza University of Rome). He has been a lecturer at the International PhD Program in Textual Buddhist Studies, Mahidol University (Thailand), a Visiting Professor at La Sapienza University of Rome, and a translator and lecturer at the Fondazione Maitreya (Italy). He also collaborates with the Indo-Tibetan Lexical Resource (Hamburg). His research interests include Buddhist meditation and philosophy as discussed in Pāli literature, especially Suttas, Abhidhamma, and the commentarial tradition.

Dr. Bhikkhu Bodhi

EDITOR AND TRANSLATOR

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University (1972). After completing his university studies, he traveled to Sri Lanka, where he received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as author, translator, or editor. His most recent publication is Reading the Buddha's Discourses in Pali: A Practical Guide to the Language of the Ancient Buddhist Canon (Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2020). He lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in upstate New York.

Bhikkhu Sujato

EDITOR AND TRANSATOR

Bhante Sujato is an Australian Buddhist monk. In 2005 he founded the Buddhist website SuttaCentral along with Rod Bucknell and John Kelly, to provide access to early Buddhist texts in their original language and make translations available in modern languages. Between 2015 to 2018 he translated the four main Pali nikayas into English.

Bhikkhu Indriya

TRANSLATOR

Bhikkhu Indriya, a native of India, received his initial training in Pāli at the Vipassanā Research Institute, Mumbai, when he was still a layman. He was ordained as a Theravāda monk in Myanmar while pursuing B.A. in Buddha Dhamma at the International Theravāda Buddhist University (ITBMU), Yangon. He then completed an M.A. in Pāli at the Postgraduate Institute of Pāli and Buddhist Studies (PGIPBS) of the University of Kelaniya, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Having studied advanced Pāli under Prof. Richard Gombrich and Dr. Alexander Wynne, he currently conducts training classes on behalf of OCBS for the teachers of University of Mumbai’s Department of Pāli. His areas of interest include Pāli philology, the comparative study of Pāli and Sanskrit traditional grammars, and Indo-European linguistics.