Wikipedia

Jan Nattier

Jan Nattier is an American scholar of Mahāyana Buddhism.[1]

Early life and education

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She earned her PhD in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies from Harvard University (1988), and subsequently taught at the University of Hawaii (1988-1990), Stanford University (1990-1992), and Indiana University (1992–2005). She then worked as a research professor at the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University (2006–2010) before retiring from her position there and beginning a series of visiting professorships at various universities in the U.S.[2]

Career

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Nattier is one of a group of scholars who have substantially revised views of the early development of Mahāyana Buddhism in the last 20 years. They have in common their attention to and re-evaluation of early Chinese translations of texts.[3]

Her first notable contribution was a book based on her PhD thesis which looked at the Chinese Doctrine of the Three Ages with a focus on the third i.e. Mofa (Chinese: 末法; pinyin: Mò Fǎ) or Age of Dharma Decline. She showed that the latter was a Chinese development with no India parallel. The translation and study of the Ugraparipṛcca published as A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā)[4][5] in 2003 also contained an extended essay on working with ancient Buddhist texts, particularly in Chinese.[6]

Nattier's notable articles include a study of the Akṣobhyavūhya Pure Land texts,[7] which asserts the early importance of this strand of Mahāyāna ideology; an evaluation of early Chinese Translations of Buddhist texts and the issue of attribution (which summarises several earlier articles on the subject); and a detailed re-examination of the origins of the Heart Sutra (1992), which demonstrates that the text was likely compiled in China.[8]

Private life

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Nattier was married to John R. McRae (1947-2011),[9] a professor and researcher who specialized in the study of Chinese Chan Buddhism and was the author of The Northern School and the Formation of Early Chan Buddhism (University of Hawai`i Press, 1986) and Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism (University of California Press, 2003).

Select bibliography

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Works in addition to those mentioned below in the "Sources" section.

  • Nattier, Jan (1990), Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline, Asian Humanities Press, ISBN 978-0895819260
  • Nattier, Jan (2006), A Greater Awakening, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, retrieved August 2, 2019
  • Nattier, Jan (2008), "A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms Periods" (PDF), vol. X, Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica, IRIAB, pp. 73–88, ISBN 978-4-904234-00-6, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-23
  • Nattier, Jan (2014), Now You Hear It, Now You Don't: The Phrase 'Thus Have I Heard' in Early Chinese Buddhist Translations (Chapter 3, in Buddhism Across Asia: Networks of Material, Intellectual and Cultural Exchange. Edited by Tansen Sen. Volume 1), ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, pp. 39–64, ISBN 9789814519328, retrieved 11 November 2021

References

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  1. ^ Richter 2017.
  2. ^ Academia.edu profile. https://berkeley.academia.edu/JanNattier
  3. ^ Drewes 2010.
  4. ^ Drewes 2010, p. 59.
  5. ^ Kapstein 2005, pp. 528–530.
  6. ^ Nattier 2003.
  7. ^ Nattier 2000.
  8. ^ Nattier 1992.
  9. ^ Lion's Roar Staff 2011.

Sources

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