John Powers (academic)

C. John Powers FAHA (born 1957) is an Australian scholar of Asian Studies and Buddhism. Much of his teaching career was at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Education

Powers studied at College of the Holy Cross Massachusetts, taking a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religion there in 1979. He went on to earn a Master of Arts in Indian philosophy at McMaster University in Ontario then a Doctorate of Religious history from the University of Virginia.

Career

From 1995 to 2016, Powers taught at the Australian National University, where he was made professor in 2008. Powers, like several others, left the university after a controversial restructuring of the department.

A practicing Buddhist, he has special expertise in Buddhism in Tibet. He was invited by the Dalai Lama's Australian office, as the leading expert in the country, to Tenzin Gyatsho's 70th birthday celebration . As well as publishing work on Buddhist spirituality and meditation techniques, he has written extensive translations of Tibetan works, and written on the history and culture of Tibet , India, and China.

Powers, who supports Tibetan autonomy, has compared the Chinese treatment of the Tibetan people to the fate of the Aborigines during the colonization of Australia.

He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2013.

Publications

• The Yogācāra school of Buddhism: A Bibliography. American Theological Library Association. 1991. ISBN 978-0-8108-2502-4.
• Hermeneutics and Tradition in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra. Indian Thought and Culture. Vol. 5. E. J. Brill. 1993. ISBN 978-90-04-09826-8.
• Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Snow Lion Publications. 1995. ISBN 978-1-55939-028-6.
• Religion und Kultur Tibets: Das geistige Erbe eines buddhistischen Landes (in German). O. W. Barth. 1998. ISBN 978-3-502-65487-2.
• A Concise Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Concise Encyclopedia of World Faiths. Oneworld Publications. 2000. ISBN 978-1-85168-233-1.
• History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles Versus the People's Republic of China. Oxford University Press. 2004. ISBN 978-0-19-517426-7.
• A Concise Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala. 2008. ISBN 978-1-55939-296-9.
• A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Body in Indian Buddhism. Harvard University Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-03329-0.

Co-authored

• Scriptures of world religions. McGraw Hill, 1998 (with James Fieser)

Translations

• Wisdom of Buddha: the Saṁdhinirmocana Sūtra. Tibetan translation series, Vol. 16, (Translator), Dharma Publications, 1995
• Jñānagarbha's Commentary on just the Maitreya chapter from the Saṃdhinirmocana-Sūtra: study, translation and Tibetan text. Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1998

External links

• C.V. from the ANU
• Chinese authorities in revenge attacks on Tibetan monks. John Powers interviewed by Tom Fayle, ABC Radio Australia, July 9, 2008