Prof. Dr. Vincent Tournier

Main Research and Teaching Interests

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• History of Indian Buddhism
• Buddhist Scriptures and Monastic Institutions
• Cultural History of Ancient and Early Medieval South Asia
• Indian Epigraphy and Codicology

Curriculum Vitae

Current and Previous position

• Since 10/2022 Professor (W3) of Classical Indology, Department for Asian Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich.
• 01/2018–09/2022 Maître de Conférences, École française d’Extrême-Orient, Paris.
• 09/2013–12/2017 Seiyu Kiriyama Lecturer in Buddhist Studies, Department of Religions and Philosophies, SOAS University of London. Chair, Centre of Buddhist Studies, SOAS.
• 09/2013–06/2014 Chargé de conférences, History of Indian Buddhism, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.
• 01/2012–08/2013 Postdoctoral researcher, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

Academic Qualifications

• 2012 Doctorat (PhD), History of Religions and Religious Anthropology (École Pratique des Hautes Études, 5th section, Paris. Received summa cum laude). Dissertation title: “La formation du Mahāvastu et la mise en place des conceptions relatives à la carrière du bodhisattva [The formation of the Mahāvastu and the development of conceptions pertaining to the bodhisattva and his career].”
• 2005 Diplôme d'Études Approfondies, Sciences of Antiquity (History of Religions Pathway (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg)
• 2004 Maîtrise, History (Major: History of Religions) (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg)
• 2003 Licence, History (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg)
• 2003 Licence, Anthropology (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg)
• 2002 Diplôme d'Études Universitaires Générales, History (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg)
• 2000 Baccalauréat général, série scientifique (Scientific Pathway, Major in Biology) (Lycée Laurent de Lavoisier, Mulhouse)

Grants, Awards, and Research Fellowships

• 08/2026-07/2027 Nominated as “Project Professor” at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia of the University of Tokyo.
• 01/2026- Co-principal investigator of the Research Cluster “Cross-Cultural Philology. New Perspectives on Premodern Textualities”, established through the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments (2026–32). (Granted May 2025)
• 11/2024- Project Director of the project “Buddhist Manuscripts from Gandhāra” (2012–32), sponsored by the Federal Academies of Germany, and based at LMU Munich.
• 01/2024- Co-investigator, with Pia Brancaccio and Akira Shimada, of the collaborative project “Mapping Ancient Kanheri (MAK),” sponsored by the Khyentse Foundation.
• 05/2019- Research Associate in the project DHARMA (“The Domestication of ‘Hindu’ Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia”), funded from 2019 through 2026 by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 809994).
• 2018 Award of the Colette Caillat Foundation at the Institut de France, for the publication of the book La formation du Mahāvastu et la mise en place des conceptions relatives à la carrière du bodhisattva, published in 2017 (EFEO, Paris).
• 2011 Award of the Treilles Foundation, for the project “The extended canon of the Mahāsāṁghika-Lokottaravādins and the incorporation of Bodhisattvayāna scriptures.”

Organisation of Research Events

• 08/2025 Co-convener of the Panel “Light on the “Dark Mountain”: Buddhism in First-Millennium Kanheri,” 20th Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS), 10–15 August 2025, University of Leipzig.
• 02-03/2025 Co-organiser and lecturer of the EFEO/EPHE/LMU “Winter School of Buddhist Textual Scholarship,” 24 February–1 March 2025, EFEO Centre of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• 05/2024 Co-organiser of the 4th LMU–UC Berkeley Buddhist Studies Workshop, “Dynamics of Tradition Building in Asian Buddhism(s),” 24–26 May 2024, LMU Munich.
• 03/2024 Co-organiser and lecturer of the EFEO/EPHE/LMU “Winter School of Buddhist Textual Scholarship,” 4–9 March 2024, EFEO Centre of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• 06/2023 Co-organiser of the Workshop “Doctrine, Precepts, and Apologetics in Middle-Period Indian Buddhist Narratives,” 16 June 2023, LMU Munich.
• 10/2022- Convener of the Lecture series in Indology, Tibetology, and Buddhist Studies, LMU Munich.
• 11/2019 Co-organiser of the Workshop “Regards croisés sur l’ascèse : Méditerrannée, Asie(s),” 22 November 2019, École française d’Athènes, Athens.
• 12/2017 Organiser of the Workshop “Mahāyāna and the Precepts,” 9 December 2017, SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies, London.
• 09–12/2017 Convener of the Robert H.N. Ho Lecture Series in Chinese Buddhism, SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies.
• 09/2013–12/2017 Convener of The Buddhist Forum lecture series, SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies.
• 08/2017 Co-organiser of the conference “From Vijayapurī to Śrīkṣetra? The beginnings of Buddhist exchange across the Bay of Bengal,” 31 July-7 August 2017, EFEO, Pondicherry.
• 08/2017 Co-convener of the Panel “Deeds of a Buddha,” 18th Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS), 20-25 August 2017, University of Toronto.
• 12/2015 Co-organiser of the International Workshop “Spirited Dharma: Exploring Spirit Possession in Asian Buddhist Traditions,” 5 December 2015, SOAS.
• 12/2014 Organiser of the International Workshop “Just Buddhists? Monasticism and issues of hierarchy, freedom, and fairness in Buddhist Asia,” 11-12 December 2014, SOAS.
• 08/2014 Convener of the Panel “Scriptural Formation and Authentication,” 17th Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS), 18-23 August 2014, University of Vienna.
• 04/2009 Co-organiser of the workshop “Textual Approaches to the study of Indian and Tibetan cultures. Symposium organised by the Gonda Fellows at the International Institute for Asian Studies,” 16 April 2009, Leiden University.
• 06/2006 Organiser of the workshop “Études indiennes, études bouddhiques,” 20 June 2006, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.

Ph.D. Supervision

• Danping Long, “Dāna in the reconfiguration of the greater Gandhāran area as a Buddhist holy land from the 1st to the 7th century CE.”
• Shuning Zhang, “Beyond Wealth for Merit: Buddhist-Merchant Interactions through Microscopic Evidence”
• Navpreet Singh, “The Avalokita-sūtra Textual Family: Formation, Transmission and Historical Import.”
• Fu Fan, “Sanskritization of the Epigraphic Languages in the Deccan: from the Second to the Fifth Century CE.”
• Upulvehere Dhammawasa, “Interpreting the Pāli Vinaya between the 1st century BCE and the 4th century CE: Views of the Elders Mahāpaduma and Mahāsumma as reflected in the Samantapāsādikā.”
• Yiren Zhang, “A Study on Zhi Qian’s Translations of Madhyamāgama Sūtras and the Dharmapada in Light of Their Parallels.”
• Yael Shiri, “The Identity of the Śākya Clan as a Mirror of Buddhist Identity in Ancient South Asia,” SOAS. Defended December 2019.
• Aruna Gamage, “Buddhaghosa’s Critique of Divergent Buddhist Views: A Doctrinal Study Mainly Based on Pāli Commentarial Exegesis,” SOAS. Defended May 2019.

Commissions of Trust

• Member of the Council, Pali Text Society (2015–).
• Member of the Board, International Association of Buddhist Studies (2019–).
• Subject editor (with P.-D. Szántó), South Asia Section, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, volume IV (History) [Edition of 15 entries totalling ca. 120,000 words].
• Member of the editorial board of the Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University (ARIRIAB).
• Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Gandhāran Buddhist Texts.
• Member of the board of advisors of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (2020–).
• Member of the International advisory board of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Art and Conservation, The Courtauld Institute (2016–2020).
• Member (2014–2019) and chair (2020–2023) of the academic board for the Khyentse Foundation PhD Dissertation Prize in Buddhist Studies (Europe).
• Member of the teaching and learning committee of the MA in Asian Studies, EPHE/PSL (2019–2022).
• Member of the executive board of the Postgraduate Programme in Religious Studies, PSL University, Paris (2021–2022).
• Member of the scientific board of the Thematic Interdisciplinary Institute (ITI) “Histoire, sociologie, archéologie et anthropologie des religions,” University of Strasbourg (2021–).
• External examiner for the MPhil and MSt in Buddhist Studies and Oriental Studies —Indian Religions, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford (2015–2021).
• Evaluator of research projects for the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), and the Research Foundation — Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek — Vlaanderen, FWO).
• Evaluator of the Centre of South and South-East Asian Studies (CSSEAS), University of Naples “L’Orientale”, as part of the evaluation of the programme “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza”.
• Peer-reviewer for the following publications: Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology; Archaeological Review from Cambridge; Écriture et image; Indo-Iranian Journal; inTRAlinea: Online Translation Journal; Journal of Indian Philosophy; Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies; Puṣpikā; Religion; Scripta: An International Journal of Codicology and Paleography; Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism (Wisdom Publications).

Publications

Projects

Current projects

• 11/2024– Project Director of the project “Buddhist Manuscripts from Gandhāra” (2012–32), funded by the Federal Academies of Germany, and based at LMU Munich.
• 01/2024– Co-investigator, with Pia Brancaccio and Akira Shimada, of the project “Mapping Ancient Kanheri (MAK)”, funded by the Khyentse Foundation.
• 05/2019– Research Associate in the project DHARMA (“The Domestication of ‘Hindu’ Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia”), funded from 2019 through 2025 by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 809994). Project website.
• 2017– Early Inscriptions of Āndhradeśa. Documentation, edition, and translation of ca. 900 early (pre-7th c.) inscriptions, from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Edited by Vincent Tournier and Arlo Griffiths, with contributions by Stefan Baums, Emmanuel Francis, and Ingo Strauch. Published by instalments here.

Past projects and research fellowships

• 09/2015–08/2017 Collaborative Research Fellow, The American Council of Learned Societies/Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, for the collaborative project “From Vijayapurī to Śrīkṣetra? The beginnings of Buddhist exchange across the Bay of Bengal as witnessed by inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh and Myanmar.” Research project co-ordinated by Prof. A. Griffiths (EFEO), also involving Prof. I. Strauch (Lausanne), Dr. S. Baums (LMU) and Dr. J. Wheatley (independent scholar).
• 01/2012–08/2013 Research Fellow within the VICI Project “Buddhism and Social Justice,” directed by Prof. J. Silk, and sponsored by the Dutch National Research Fund (NWO). Research project on “Social Hierarchy within Monastic Communities of South Asia, during the Middle Period of Indian Buddhism.”
• 12/2008–04/2009 Gonda Foundation Fellowship, for the project “A study of the Bahubuddhakasūtra textual traditions.”
• 02–05/2008 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship (Short Term), for a project on the edition of selected portions of the Mahāvastu, under the guidance of Prof. S. Karashima (Soka University).