Christopher V. Jones
Christopher V. Jones
Contact:
E-Mail: christopher.jones@univie.ac.at
Web: https://univie.academia.edu/ChristopherJones
Dr Christopher V. Jones received an undergraduate degree in theology and religious studies at the University of Cambridge (Corpus Christi), and subsequent graduate and doctoral training in Sanskrit and other Asian languages at the University of Oxford (St Anne’s, St Peter’s), where he taught for the faculties of Religious Studies and of Oriental Studies (2012-2019). He later taught at the University of Cambridge (2019-2023). His research is in classical Buddhist literature extant in various Asian languages (Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan), and particularly Mahāyāna Buddhist literature from the early centuries of the Common Era.
Research focus
A significant focus of Dr Jones’ research, and the focus of his first monograph (The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman), has been the Indian ‘Buddha-nature’ tradition as it has been preserved in South, Central and East Asian literatures, foremost in connection to literature associated with the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra/Dabanniepan jing 大般涅槃經. His other research interests include pre-modern Buddhist attitudes to non-Buddhist teaching and authority in India and elsewhere, and the evolving place of Buddhist reflection on liberation and liberated beings in South Asia in the early centuries CE.
Recent activities include a UK AHRC-funded project on narrative explorations of Buddhology in Indian literature (with Prof. Naomi Appleton, University of Edinburgh), editorial duties for Buddhist Studies Review (Assistant Editor) and Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Section Editor), and public engagement work for teachers of Buddhism in schools across the UK.
Selected online media
Webinar (UC Berkeley, in recognition of The Buddhist Self): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNruR-vobVk&t=6s
Book launch (SOAS, for The Buddhist Self): https://buddhanature.tsadra.org/index.php/Articles/Book_Launch:_Revisiti…
Lectures for teachers of Buddhism in UK schools: bit.ly/WhoistheBuddha
All activities
Indian Buddhism in Overview: Foundations and Developments in its First Thousand Years
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Reflections on the Single Vehicle by Early Mādhyamikas
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
“Whatever is well-spoken...”: Some Early and Classical Buddhist Ideas about Language
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Welcome speech: Language in Premodern South Asian Thought
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
A Buddha as One’s Self: Philosophical Reflections on Buddhist Selfhood in Indian Mahāyāna Literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Buddha-nature Between India and China: Analyzing the Creative Translation Work of Dharmakṣema (曇無讖) in the Early Fifth Century
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
The Career of Satyaka Nirgranthaputra, a Non-Buddhist Bodhisattva (eventually)
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Nature of the Buddha to Buddha-nature: reassessing the Mahāmeghasūtra
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Royalty and Patronage in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-Mahāsūtra
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Three Paths, Two Buddhas and One Vehicle: Disentangling Indian Buddhist Literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker) & Naomi Appleton (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
What makes a Buddha-nature text? Reflections on a ‘tathāgatagarbha corpus’
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Reflections on Buddha-nature and Brahmanism in India
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Selfhood, Secrecy, Singularity: Reassessing the Early Life of the Tathāgatagarbha in India
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Two Garlands on the Single Vehicle: Ekayāna and Tathāgatagarbha
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Gossip, Games and Governance: The Public Sphere Represented in Early Buddhist Literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Buddhists on Non-Buddhists: Representing the Religious Other in Indian Buddhist Literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
A Shepherd in Wolf’s Clothing: The bodhisattva-tīrthika in Indian Buddhism
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
The Tīrthika in (Some) Mahāyānist Buddhist Works
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Secrecy and Mystery in the Mahāyāna: A Shared Theme in the ‘Lotus’ and ‘Nirvāṇa’ Sūtras’
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Dhātu Discourse’: Reassessing the ‘Essence’ of Tathāgatagarbha literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Reevaluating the Buddha-Nature Idea in India
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Reevaluating the Buddha-Nature Idea in India
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Translating Tīrthikas: Enduring ‘Heresies’ in Buddhist Translation
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
The Tathāgatagarbha as True Self in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Cultures of Awakening: An Interpretation of Secular Buddhism in the West
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
The Tathāgatagarbha as Ātman: Mahāyānist Doctrinal ‘Expansionism’
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Two Tathāgatagarbhas: Invention and Reinvention of the Indian Buddha-Nature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Shadows of a former Self: the True Self taught by the Tathāgatagarbha Literature
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
The Buddhist Self as outlined in the Mahāyāna Aṅgulimālīyasūtra
Christopher Jones (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies
Deputy Head
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2 (Campus)
1090 Wien