Description:

Since the beginning of the field of Buddhist Studies, Buddhist historiographies have been valued as sources for historical information, but it is still uncertain why Buddhist themselves prepared these works.  Focusing on one historical text composed in Pali in the eighteenth century, this lecture will argue that Theravada Buddhist Histories of the Sāsana can be read as vehicles for moral reflection and supports for ethical action.

Charles Hallisey is a student of the literary and religious histories of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.  He is the author, with P.B. Meegaskumbura and Alastair Gornall,  of “May it Always Be about Adding Beauty to Beauty”: The Story of the Mirror in Sri Lanka," published in A Lasting Vision: Dandin's Mirror in the World of Asian Letters (edited by Yigal Bronner), the translator of The Poems of the First Buddhist Women (Therīgāthā), and the co-editor (with Yigal Bronner) of Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation.  He teaches at Harvard Divinity School.