Dr. Aruna Gamage

Main Research and Teaching Interests

Under the auspices of a DFG (Eigene Stelle) grant, Aruna Gamage conducts research on the project titled The Early Lost Legal Commentaries of the Mahāvihāra Tradition: A Contribution to the Development of Buddhist Monastic Law. His primary research interests lie in Abhidhammic and legal hermeneutics within the Mahāvihāra Buddhist school.

Publications

• Monograph(s)

2025: Buddhaghosa, His Sources, and the Buddhist Others: Authority and Heterodoxy in Early Mahāvihāra Commentaries. Halle: Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg. 362 pages. (Winner of the Freidrich-Weller Prize 2026)

• Articles

2026: “Ground-breakers in Robes: A Study on the Reinterpretation of the Tenth Pācittiya Rule of Training.” ARIRIAB, 29, 23–53.

2024a: “Pars Pro Toto in the Pāli Commentaries: Desanāmatta (‘a mere reference’) and its Application.” Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienstudien, 41, 87–136.

2024b: “Convention of speech (rūḷhi) in Theriya Buddhism: the law of generalization.” Journal of Pali Text Society, 35, 7–55.

2024c: “Passion for intercourse (methunarāga) vs. passion for bodily contact (kāyasaṃsaggarāga): A Study of Exegeses in the Mahāvihāra-Vinaya.” Journal of Buddhism, Law & Society, 8, 81–111.

2023a: “The Locative of Cause Discounted: A Study of the Grammatical Exegeses in the Mahāvihāra Buddhist School.” International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 33/2, 183–216.

2023b: “Many for One: An Exegetical Method in Mahāvihāra Buddhism.” Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 23, 118–147.