Celebrating the AAR Members Awarded by the 2025 Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies
We are excited to share four AAR members were awarded in the 2025 cycle of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies. The program promotes the understanding and interpretation of Buddhist thought in scholarship and society, strengthens international networks of Buddhist scholars, and increases the visibility of new knowledge and research on Buddhist traditions.
This year’s awards reflect the wide diversity of Buddhist traditions and practices around the world with support for projects focusing on a range of languages, historical periods, and locations of research. Fellows and grantees include one institution and 25 scholars located in eight countries across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Sajal Barua
Project
Rahula's Forgotten Legacy: Texts and Practices of the Rauli Communities in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
This study explores the Rauli Buddhist tradition of the Chakma community in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, a lineage uniquely tracing its origins to Rahula, the Buddha's son. Central to their tradition is the “Agartara,” a sacred text written in Chakma script that integrates Buddhist teachings with local cultural elements and Chakma cosmology. It invokes 28 Buddhas for familial, social, spiritual, and protective benefits while emphasizing mastery of the five elements, rituals, and healing practices. Through interdisciplinary research combining textual analysis and fieldwork, this study documents the “Agartara” and the Rauli's unique practices, challenging conventional Buddhist categorizations and preserving a tradition under the threat of assimilation.
Yuanyuan Duan
Project
Sacralizing Body, Sacralizing Kingship: Esoteric Rituals and Buddhist Sovereignty in Dali, 863-1424 CE
This project explores the Buddhist ideals and ritual practices of kingship in the Dali kingdom—from 937 to 1254 CE, in present-day China’s Yunnan province—within a transregional context. Drawing on newly available Esoteric ritual manuals used for consecrating the Dali kings, along with visual and material evidence from the kingdom, this research shows how the medieval Esoteric tradition’s promise of immediate enlightenment and techniques of ritual embodiment inspired a new political imagery when applied to the Dali rulers. The Dali kings came to portray themselves as Buddha incarnate, an ideal uniting religious and political authority in the person of the king, which had not been envisioned by earlier Buddhist texts. By situating Dali within a cosmopolis of “Esoteric polities” to map out its history, parallels, and the broader Buddhist world shaping its practices, this research further reveals the cross-cultural influence of Esoteric Buddhism on the political culture of Middle Period Asia.
Yi Ding
Project
An Annotated Translation of Twenty-Five “Northern Chan” Texts: Pseudo-Dialogues, Epitaphs, and Miscellaneous Writings
This project aims to translate and annotate 25 “Northern Chan” texts, an underrepresented body of Buddhist literature historically sidelined in the development of Chan Buddhism. These texts, many of which were rediscovered in Dunhuang, provide crucial insights into the earliest stage of the Chan/Zen movement. This project will translate texts across diverse genres, including pseudo-dialogues, epitaphs, hymns, treatises, and liturgies. In addition to the English translation, this project will also include a prolegomenon, extensive annotations, and individual text introductions. These additions will offer comprehensive historical context, terminological clarification, and doctrinal analysis, aiming to make these complex texts accessible to scholars and practitioners.
Nan Ouyang
Project
Buddhism “Revolutionized”: Monastic Life on Mount Jiuhua, 1949–1976
This project examines grassroots state-religion dynamics on the renowned pilgrimage mountain Mount Jiuhua during the Mao Era. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s —CCP— atheist ideology, the majority of the Chinese population adhered to Buddhism. After 1949, the CCP implemented comprehensive policies to transform Buddhism for power consolidation. While the government exerted its power to interfere in religious affairs, the clergy leveraged the mountain’s reputation and their role in united front work to renegotiate the boundaries of legitimate religious activities. Adopting a bottom-up perspective and primarily using local archives, this study provides insights into the resilience and vitality of Buddhism, as well as the processes of its modernization and secularization in modern China.
Alexandra Kirby Sokolow
Project
Buddhism Behind Bars: Transforming Race, Religion, and Power
“Buddhism Behind Bars” explores Buddhism in US prisons and traces how dominant notions of religion, race, criminality, and American belonging have shifted since the late nineteenth century. Drawing on archival research, media analysis, and oral history, the project examines how Buddhist chaplains, prison authorities, political leaders, and incarcerated people have together shaped the possible meanings of and approaches to prison Buddhism in the US. “Buddhism Behind Bars” analyzes both how incarcerated people engage with Buddhism in their daily lives—creatively negotiating power through embodied practices—and how the repetition of discourses that celebrate incarcerated people for transforming from “criminals” into “buddhas” can normalize the disciplining, subject-making, and racializing work of the state.