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Christian K. Wedemeyer

Assistant Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School

M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. (Columbia University)

Christian Wedemeyer's work addresses topics of history, literature, and ritual in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Within this very general domain, the focus of his research has been the esoteric Buddhist traditions of the Mahāyoga Tantras. He has written on the modern historiography of Tantric Buddhism, the question of "antinomianism" in Indian esoteric Buddhism, textual criticism and strategies of legitimating authority in classical Tibetan scholasticism, and the semiology of esoteric Buddhist ritual. He is the author of a text-critical study of one of the principal Indian works on esoteric praxis: Āryadeva’s Lamp that Integrates the Practices (Caryāmelāpakapradīpa): The Gradual Path of Vajrayāna Buddhism according to the Esoteric Community Noble Tradition (critically-edited Sanskrit and Tibetan texts, annotated English translation, and study; AIBS/Columbia University Press 2007). He has edited a volume with Ronald M. Davidson: Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies in its Formative Period, 900-1400 (Brill 2006). His work has appeared in History of Religions, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of the American Oriental Society, The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies, Encyclopedia of Women and World Religions, and Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Courses he has offered include: "Indian Buddhism," "Tibetan Buddhism," "Mahāyāna Sutra Literature," "Issues in Indian Esoteric Buddhism," "Ritual in South Asian Buddhism," "Tibetan Auto/biography," "Representation and Ideology in the Study of South Asian Religions," and "Contemporary Perspectives on the History of Religions."