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.
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 Publications
The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman. 2021. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Prize for Outstanding Publication in Buddhist Studies (https://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/news/cbs-announces-2021-toshihide-n…).
Buddhism and its Religious Others: Historical Encounters and Representations. editor and contributor (see below). 2022. Oxford: OUP.
‘Interpolations and Idiosyncrasies in Dharmakṣema’s 曇無讖 Translation of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra (T.374 Da banniepan jing 大般涅槃經).’ Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 27: 203–257
‘Varieties of Early Buddha-nature Teaching in India.’ In Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Casey Kemp, eds, Buddha Nature Across Asia. Vienna: Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, pp.25–54.
‘Shepherds in Wolves’ Clothing: bodhisattvas, tīrthikas, and ‘bodhisattva-tīrthikas’. In Buddhism and its Religious Others (see above). 2022. Oxford: OUP, pp.89–110; also the Introduction in the same volume, pp.1–27.
Contributing entries (six short chapters) to Buddhism in Five Minutes, ed. Elizabeth Harris. 2021. London: Equinox: i) ‘How is the nature of buddhahood to be understood?’; ii) ‘To what extent does Buddhism “deny the self”? The non-self teaching’; iii) ‘How did Buddhism relate to the Brahmanism of the Buddha’s day, and later Hinduism?’; iv) ‘What are the main contemporary divisions in Buddhism: Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna?’; v) ‘What is Buddha-nature?’; vi) ‘What are the meanings of “emptiness” in Mahāyāna Buddhism?’.
‘Translating the Tīrthika: Enduring ‘Heresy’ in Buddhist Studies.’ In Alice Collett, ed., Translating Buddhism: Historical and Contextual Perspectives, 2020. New York: SUNY Press, pp.195-227.
‘Reconsidering the ‘Essence’ of Indian Buddha-nature Literature.’ 2020. Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Easter Culture, vol.118, pp.57-78.
‘A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle: tathāgatagabha, tīrthikas and the true self.’ 2016. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol.39, pp.115-170.
‘Beings, Non-Beings, and Buddhas: contrasting notions of tathāgatagarbha in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa and *Mahābherīsūtra.’ 2016. Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, vol.10, pp.53-84.
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