Professor James Benn is currently carrying out research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council on the Scripture of the Heroic March.
Professor James Benn is working on a scholarly translation (from Chinese to English) and book-length study of a scripture that is of crucial importance to the Chinese Buddhist tradition after the year 1000.
The scripture is popularly known as the “Lengyan jing” 楞嚴經 or Suramgama sutra (Scripture of the Heroic March).
Dr. Benn is working on a scholarly translation of the scripture. His research traces the origins of the scripture’s unique doctrine and language, with particular attention to those elements borrowed from contemporary and earlier Chinese materials. He draws on the large number of later Chinese commentaries on the text to show how its ideas were received and interpreted. He is surveying the larger corpus of essays, poems, letters, treatises etc., in order to understand the importance of the text to the wider intellectual realm. The research will be published as a book.
Professor, Religious Studies Chair of Graduate Affairs, Religious Studies
Director, McMaster Centre for Buddhist Studies
Areas of interest: Asian field, Buddhism, East asian religions, Foodways, Gender & Religion, Health, Religious Studies