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Woman praying in front of the Jhokang (Photo: Lyle Vincent, cropped) CC BY-ND 2.0

Welcome

The UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies trains scholars and educates members of the broader community about Buddhist religion and culture in all of their diversity. Among U.S. universities, only UCLA aspires to cover all of the major traditions in this world religion.

Upcoming Events

5/17/2019
1-5pm

Schopen Matters: Reflections on and Appreciations of the Scholarship of Gregory Schopen

Gregory Schopen's work focuses on Indian Buddhist monastic life and early Mahāyāna movements. By looking beyond the Pali Canon in favor of less commonly used sources such as the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya and Indian Buddhist inscriptions, his numerous scholarly works have shifted the field away from Buddhism as portrayed through its own doctrines toward a more realistic picture of the actual lives of Buddhists, both monastic and lay. In this sense, he has seriously challenged many assumptions and myths about Buddhism that had been long perpetuated in earlier Western scholarship. In 1985 he received the MacArthur Fellowship for his work in the field of History of Religion. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. Four volumes of his collected articles have been published by the University of Hawai'i Press: Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters (2014), Figments and Fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India (2005), Buddhist Monks and Business Matters (2004), and Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks (1999).

5/29/2019
3-4:30pm

On Lore, Lived Religion, and the Allure of World Heritage at Japan's Male-Only Sacred Sites

Two of Japan's religious World Heritage sites currently ban women's access: the island Okinoshima (designated in 2017) and the Sanjōgatake peak of Mt. Ōmine (designated in 2004). Examining recent cultural imaginings of the two sites in light of historical records and lore pertaining to women's religious exclusion, this talk lays bare a disjuncture between putative ancient origins, observable present-day practices (i.e., lived religion), and selective heritage narratives. These cases draw attention to the conflicting agendas and competing versions of history embedded within Japan's religious landscape today; they also provide an opportunity to explore how religion and other social structures such as heritage, tradition, and gender operate and interact.

Recent Events

5/11/2017 - 5/12/2017
10am-5pm

2017 Graduate Conference on Religion

Panels: Physical Artifacts of Religious Performance Crossroads of Ancient and Modern--Adaptation and Subversion Body and Speech in Ritual Performance Keynote Lecture: "Paradisiacal Realms in Ancient Egypt and Early China" by Anthony Barbieri-Low, Professor of Chinese History at UC Santa Barbara

4/29/2017
10am-5pm

The Indian Roots of Global Buddhism

A one-day conference on the Indian origins of Buddhism.

News

Robert Buswell elected to U.S. Academy of Arts & Sciences

The distinguished professor of Buddhist Studies is the founding director of the Center for Korean Studies and the Center for Buddhist Studies (which he currently directs).
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Medical tradition in Tibet not necessarily Buddhist

Tibetan Buddhist scholar Janet Gyatso argued that the 79-panel illustration of the Tibetan medical classic, The Four Treatises, provides ample evidence that an important sphere of Tibetan life was not primarily Buddhist.
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