Visiting Students

Visiting dates: November 2024 – October 2025

Zhengning LIU is a Ph.D. candidate in the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Fudan University. Her research interests include the Intellectual History of Indian and Chinese Buddhism (especially the History of Buddha-nature/Tathāgatagarbha Theory), Buddhist Avadāna Literature and Buddhist Philology. She obtained her B.A. in Philosophy with a dissertation entitled “A Study of Buddha-Nature in the Ratnagotravibhāga: on the Basis of its Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan Versions”. Based on the translation and interpretation of Tathāgatagarbha doctrine, she is currently working on the genealogy of Tathāgatagarbha-theory, the debate of Tathāgatagarbha and other Buddhist doctrines, and the interaction between Buddha-nature thought and historical texts for her doctoral dissertation.

Visiting dates: February 2022 – February 2023

Pengpeng Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Foreign Languages at Tongji University. He received his bachelor’s degree in the field of English language and literature. After graduation, he started to focus on translation studies. A master’s degree was conferred upon him for his graduation thesis on A Descriptive Study of Chinese Buddhist Sutra Translation Criticism. Currently, he intends to extend his research to English translations of Chinese Buddhist texts. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on English Missionaries’ Translation of Chinese Buddhist Canons in the 19th century.

Visiting dates: October 2019 – September 2020

Qing ZHANG is a Ph.D. candidate at Sichuan University with a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from Sichuan University. Her research tends to analyze the Body Perspectives of Chinese Buddhist Scriptures based on the Spread of Indian and Chinese Buddhist Scriptures on ancient Silk Road. The Chinese Buddhist Scriptures are not only the treasure of Chinese culture but also the wealth of ancient Indian culture. Its spread also witnessed the close exchanges between China and India on the ancient Silk Road.

Shaopeng FAN is a graduate student at East China Normal University. His major is the science of religion in the Department of Philosophy. He was a visiting graduate student at National Chengchi University. He is studying the dialogue between Catholic Thought and Buddhist philosophy in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (16th through 18th century). He is also interested in the Pure Land Thought of Chinese Buddhist, as well as the Eschatology of Christianity. In addition, he conducted his research on Sax Tiinp Bas 薩天巴, the Grandmother God of the Dong Nationality in Southwest China, and the literature about her, Ga Mang Mang Dao Shi Jia 嘎茫莽道時嘉. His papers were published in The Voice of Dharma, Catholic Church in China, Blue Book of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ethnic Minorities and so on

Visiting dates: October 2019 – January 2020

Siqi GAN was born in Shanghai, China. He received his bachelor degree in Accounting from Hohai University, China. He is now a postgraduate student of religion study in East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. His main academic interest is in Buddhist literature study, especially the Sanskrit and Tibetan textual research. Moreover, he is also interested in religion ritual research. The research he conducts during his visiting in UBC is the textual research of a Sanskrit manuscript—Vajrāvāli. His research will make a critical edition of the Sanskrit version of Sutranavidhi and Rajahpatanavidhi, two of the rituals contained in the manuscript, and then translate them into Chinese. Siqi Gan’s research will fill the vacancy for the Chinese academia in this field.

Visiting dates: January 2018 – September 2019

Le Jing is a Ph.D. candidate from East China Normal University, majoring in folklore. Her Research interests include the Chinese Buddhism and folk religions, and cultural exchanges of Buddhism in Maritime Silk Road. She intends to expand the research on the relationship between Buddhism and folklore.

Visiting dates: September 2018 – August 2019

Li Wei is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University. His research focuses on Buddhism’s impact on the Chinese literary traditions. He obtained his Master’s Degree with a thesis on the metaphors the Sanlun master Jizang (549-623) used in his commentaries on the Mādhyamika Śāstra, better known as Zhonglun (Treatise on the Middle Way) in the Sinitic Buddhist traditions. He is presently doing research on the Avadāna Literature in Six Dynasties, as an extension to his previous work on Buddhist literature.

Visiting dates: December 2017 – November 2018

Fu Jisi is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Center for Research of Chinese Excavated Classics and Paleography at Fudan University, China. She obtained her B.A. in Chinese language and M.A. in Chinese philology from Fudan University with a dissertation entitled “A Philological Study of the Dunhuang Manuscripts of Avatamsaka Sutra (華嚴經)”. Her research interests include Dunhuang manuscripts, Chinese Buddhism and Textual Bibliography. She is now working on the subject of Dunhuang Chinese manuscripts during the Tibetan period.

ZHENG Jiajia (Renmin University of China)

Visiting dates: September 2018 – December 2018

Zheng Jiajia is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Renmin University of China. His academic interest focuses on the study of Chinese Buddhist history in the Tang and Song Dynasties. He obtained his MPhil degree with a dissertation titled “Studies on Qi-song’ Theory of Zen Lineage—Focus on Three Books Called Chuanfa zhengzong. He is presently writing a doctoral thesis of which topic is “A Research on the Tang Buddhist Palace Chapels”.

Visiting dates: September 2018 – August, 2019

Huyu JIANG is a Ph.D. candidate from Wuhan University, currently a visiting student at the University of California, Berkeley. His research looks at the social and religious landscape of North China in the Early Medieval Period. He has conducted several fieldworks in North China, especially in Huixian and Wuxiang where he examined Buddhist inscriptions for completing his doctoral dissertation entitled “Society and Buddhism in the southern part of Mt. Taihang in the Early Medieval China”. Huyu also presented three papers to the Winter/Summer Program on Buddhism and AAS. They examine the Chinese inscription on Buddhist statues as well as the Buddhist local landscape.

Visiting dates: August 2017 – December 2018.

Yu Bai was originally trained as a Tibetologist in Heidelberg and Hamburg. While maintaining this interest, he switched his focus to Chinese Buddhism and became intrigued by Buddhism and Jingjiao 景教 (i.e. Chinese Nestorianism) in medieval China. As a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University, he primarily works on segmenting and aligning the Tibetan and Chinese texts of the Mahāratnakūṭa/Da baoji jing 大 寶積經. Meanwhile, for his dissertation, he explores the relationship between Buddhism and the state in the first half of the Tang dynasty by investigating and translating nine prefaces composed in the emperor’s name for Buddhist scriptures during this period.

Visiting dates: October 2017 – September 2018.

Lin Xiao is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Peking University in China. He was sponsored by the Glorisun Global Network of Buddhist Studies to study as a visiting student in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale from October 2017 to September 2018. His research interests include Dunhuang manuscripts, the interpretations of Buddhist manuscripts in medieval times and the Syncretism of Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism in medieval China. He is now working on the subject of the difference between various types of Dhyana in early Ch’an Sutra and traditional patterns of teaching in India, and the spread and influence of Guanfo Ch’an on medieval China.