Short bio
Yan Ma is a PhD student at the University of Vienna’s Department of South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies under the guidance of Prof. Birgit Kellner. She has been employed at the IKGA as a fellow funded by the OeAW’s DOC fellowship since September 2023, working on a research project titled “Controversies about the Buddhist Path to Liberation across India, China, and Tibet: Kamalaśīla’s Vajracchedikāṭīkā and the Bsam yas Debate,” which is also the subject of her doctoral dissertation.
The project focuses primarily on exploring the relationship between the Vajracchedikāṭīkā (VChṬ), a hitherto understudied scriptural commentary authored by the influential Indian scholar-monk Kamalaśīla (ca. 740–800), and the controversial exchange between Indo-Tibetan and Sino-Tibetan Buddhist traditions, often referred to as the “Bsam yas debate” (ca. 792–794). The project aims to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the VChṬ, highlighting Kamalaśīla’s “gradualist” (Tibetan: rim gyis pa) approach to awakening, which is demonstrated through a synthesis of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka thought structured in terms of an 18-stage path to liberation. It seeks to understand this work in the context of the Bsam yas debate, examining whether it represents a systematic rejection of Moheyan’s “instantaneous” (Tibetan: [g]c[h]ig car pa) position. This research is being conducted within the broader framework of the project “Rationality, Meditation, and Liberation in Indian Buddhism: Kamalaśīla's Scriptural Commentaries in Context,” directed by Prof. Birgit Kellner.