Reclining Buddha in Gal Vihara, Polonnaruwa by Lankapic
Emerging from a strong pool of candidates and selected by a distinguished international panel of scholars, the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation has awarded Dr Alastair Gornall the much coveted Research Fellowship in Buddhist Studies.
The Foundation has an enduring interest in promoting Buddhist philosophy, with this being the fifth year where they have offered fellowships to individuals via an open and international competition.
Dr Alastair Gornall will take up the research fellowship between September 2018 and May 2019. He will conduct research for his forthcoming book, Rewriting Buddhism in Sri Lanka, 1153–1270, which is the first intellectual history of pre-modern Sri Lanka’s most culturally productive period.
Sometimes referred to as Sri Lanka’s ‘Renaissance’, this long century transformed the nature of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and also throughout Southeast Asia, since many of the intellectual lineages that emerged from this era shaped the Buddhist traditions in Burma, Thailand and Laos too.