News & Announcements

NCBS Announces the 2025 Toshihide Numata Book Award

September 11, 2025

BERKELEY — The Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2025 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is Professor Collett Cox (Professor Emerita, University of Washington), for her book A Gāndhārī Abhidharma Text: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 28 (Seattle: Washington University Press, 2025)....

2025 Annual Buddhist Studies Hike

September 9, 2025

Limantour Beach, September 6, 2025

Berkeley Buddhist Studies at the IABS Conference, Leipzig, August 2025

September 8, 2025

XXth International Association of Buddhist Studies Conference
Leipzig University, Germany. August 10th – 15th, 2025

Back row, L to R: Bob Sharf, Trent Walker, Oren Hanner, Stefan Baums, Lin Qian, Michael Radich, Paul Thomas, Sam Grimes, Brandon Dotson, Eric Greene, Matthew McMullen, Fedde de Vries
Front row, L to R: Kris Anderson, Nancy Lin, Rae Dachille,...

NCBS Announces the 2024 Toshihide Numata Book Award

August 23, 2024
August 23, 2024

BERKELEY— The Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2024 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is Matthew Kapstein (Professor Emeritus, École Pratique des Hautes Études), for his edited book Tibetan Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Vol. 1: Elements (Cornell University Press, 2024).
...

NCBS Announces the 2023 Toshihide Numata Book Award

September 12, 2023

BERKELEY— The Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announcethat the winner of the 2023 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is Professor John Kieschnick (Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Professor of Buddhist Studies, Stanford University), for his book Buddhist Historiography in China (Columbia University Press, 2022).

The Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is presented on an annual basis to an outstanding book in the area of Buddhist studies....

2018 Toshihide Numata Book Award Presentation and Symposium ‘Meaning in the World and in Texts’: Thoughts on Buddhist Philosophy of Language

November 9, 2018

The Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is awarded on an annual basis to an outstanding book or books in the area of Buddhist studies. The selection is made by an external committee that is appointed annually. This year's winner is Professor Roy Tzohar (Tel Aviv University) for his book A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor (Oxford University Press).

Program:
3:10 pm:...

CBS Announces the 2018 Toshihide Numata Book Award

October 1, 2018

A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor (Oxford University Press) book coverBERKELEY — The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2018 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is Professor Roy Tzohar (Tel Aviv University) for his book: A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor (Oxford University...

2018 Chao Presidential Chair: Evan Thompson, University of British Columbia

March 14, 2018

head shot of Evan Thompson2018 Lecture and Seminar Series

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 5 pm
Annual Lecture by Evan Thompson
Meditation and Nonconceptual Awareness Perspectives from Buddhist Philosophy and Cognitive Science
Toll Room, Alumni House, UC Berkeley

Mindfulness meditation practices are often...

Migrants, Monks, and Monasteries: Toward a History of South China Sea Buddhism

March 8, 2018

Jack Meng-Tat Chia is a Senior Tutor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore and currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Born and raised in Singapore, he received his MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and his PhD in History from Cornell University. He is currently working on his book manuscript, entitled Diaspora's Dharma: Buddhism and Modernity across the South China Sea. This book seeks to contribute to our understanding of the connected history of Buddhism in China and Southeast...

2018 Khyentse Lecture - Buddhism and Divination in Tibet

February 8, 2018

In Tibet, various forms of divination persist both within and alongside the Buddhist and Bon religions. Excavated divination texts from Dunhuang and from other Silk Road sites furnish us with traces of the dynamic processes by which Buddhism absorbed various divination techniques practiced in 8th to 10th centuries. This lecture will introduce an early form of Tibetan dice divination involving...

2017 Toshihide Numata Book Award Presentation and Symposium

December 1, 2017

Professor Jacqueline I. Stone was presented with the Toshihide Numata Book Award on the afternoon of Friday, December 1, 2017. The prize presentation included a keynote by the author and a symposium with talks by Professors James Benn (McMaster University), Gregory Schopen (UCLA), and Mark Blum (UC Berkeley).

The Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is awarded on an annual basis to an...

2016 Toshihide Numata Book Award Presentation and Symposium

October 28, 2016

During a ceremony at the Alumni House, the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai (Numata Foundation) presented the 2016 Toshihide Numata Book Award to Professor Janet Gyatso (Harvard Divinity School) for Being Buddhist in a Human World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2015...

CBS Announces the 2015 Toshihide Numata Book Award

September 9, 2015

BERKELEY — The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the winners of the 2015 Toshihide Numata Book Award are Lothar Ledderose and Sun Hua for their edited volume, Buddhist Stone Sutras in China, Sichuan Province, Volume 1 (Wiesbaden/Hangzhou: Harrassowitz Verlag/China Academy of Art Press, 2014).

The Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism is...

CBS Announces the 2014 Toshihide Numata Book Award

September 19, 2014

BERKELEY — The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce two winners of the 2014 Toshihide Numata Book Award: Erik Braun, Professor of...

Buddhism, Mind, and Cognitive Science

April 25, 2014

This conference was made possible by a grant from The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation and is dedicated to the exploration of the methodological underpinnings of the current encounter between Buddhism and cognitive science. Recently, this encounter has been criticized for failing to take account of the historical and cultural complexities of Buddhist thought and practice, failing to reflect the most recent...

The Center for Buddhist Studies Announces the Winner of the 2013 Toshihide Numata Book Award

August 28, 2013

BERKELEY — The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the 2013 Toshihide Numata Book Award has been awarded to Daniel Arnold, Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, for his book Brains,...

2012 Khyentse Lecture - Tibet in the Age of Manuscripts: Reflections on Recent Textual Discoveries

February 16, 2012

During the past few decades, the discovery, cataloguing, and partial publication of important Tibetan manuscript collections has substantially transformed our view of the intellectual and religious history of Tibet. Important developments about which we were almost entirely ignorant only a decade ago may now be studied in detail thanks to copious newly available documentation. The present talk will...

The Center for Buddhist Studies Announces the Winner of the 2011 Toshihide Numata Book Award

August 25, 2011

BERKELEY — The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the 2011 Toshihide Numata Book Award has been awarded to Todd Lewis and Subarna Man Tuladhar for their jointly authored book, Sugata Saurabha: An Epic Poem from Nepal on the Life of the Buddha by Chittadhar Hridaya (Oxford...

The Center for Buddhist Studies Announces the First Winner of the Toshihide Numata Book Award

September 1, 2010

power of place book coverBERKELEY - The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the 2010 Toshihide Numata Book Award has been awarded to Professor James Robson of Harvard University for his 2009 book Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue) in Medieval China (Harvard University Asia Center).

The...