Jan Nattier

Jan Nattier is an American scholar of Mahāyana Buddhism.

Early life and education

She gained a PhD in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies from Harvard University (1988), and subsequently taught at Stanford, Indiana University (1992–2005), and the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University (2006–2010).[1]

Career

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.[2]

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 [3] published as A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā) in 2003 also contained an extended essay on working with ancient Buddhist texts, particularly in Chinese.

Nattier's notable articles include a study of the Akṣobhyavūhya pureland texts,[4] 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[5] (which summarises several earlier articles on the subject); and a detailed re-examination of the origins of the Heart Sutra (1992) which proposes that the sutra was composed in China.

Nattier's works are widely cited by other scholars. Google scholar lists more than 1000 citations to her works and gives her an h-index of 14, which is considered high in the social sciences.[6]

Since officially retiring, Professor Nattier has held numerous short-term academic posts.[7]

Private Life

Nattier married scholar John R McRae (1947–2011) who has been called "one of the most important US researchers in the area of Chinese Chan-Buddhism." [8]

References

  1. ↑ Academia.edu profile. https://berkeley.academia.edu/JanNattier
  2. ↑ For a review of current thinking on this field and an assessment of Nattier's contribution, see Drewes, D. 2010
  3. ↑ Nattier 2003
  4. ↑ Nattier 2000
  5. ↑ Nattier: 2008
  6. ↑ Google Scholar search 26 Jul 2018
  7. ↑ Academia.edu profile. https://berkeley.academia.edu/JanNattier
  8. ↑ "Remembering John R. McRae". mb-schiekel.de. Retrieved 2018-04-11.

Selected Bibliography

  • Nattier, J. 1991 Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline. Asian Humanities Press.
  • Nattier, J. 1992. 'The Heart Sūtra: a Chinese apocryphal text?' Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 15 (2) 153-223. Online: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8800/2707
  • Nattier, J. 2000. 'The Realm of Akṣobhya: A Missing Piece in the History of Pure Land Buddhism.' Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 23(1) 71-102.
  • Nattier, J. 2003. A few good men : The Bodhisattva path according to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). University of Hawai'i Press.
  • Nattier, J. 2008. 'A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms Periods', Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica, IRIAB Vol. X, 73-88; ISBN 978-4-904234-00-6

Other Works Cited


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