Dr. Stephen Hodge

Undergraduate studies at SOAS University of London (1969-72), post-graduate studies Tōhoku Universty (1972-81) – formation of early tantric Buddhism, early Yogācāra. Ordained Shingon monk at Mt Koya (1974).  Since returning to UK, apart from some teaching work, Hodge mainly engaged in translation work and also independent research into the textual formation of early Mahāyāna, especially focussing on the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra and related texts.  He is currently working on a translation of the Tibetan and two Chinese versions of the Nirvāṇasūtra, to be accompanied by an exhaustive textual analysis demonstrating the compositional methods and stratification of this text and the relationship between the three versions. Hodge has recently embarked upon a parallel study of the development and texts of early 1st century CE Messianic Judaism and the Hebreo-Aramaic basis of the Gospels, as well as investigating possible ideological influences in Southern India.

Publications include:  An Introduction to Classical Tibetan (1990), The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead (1998), The Dead Sea Scrolls (2001), The Mahā-Vairocana Tantra with  Commentary by Buddhaguhya (2001), The Daodejing (2002), the following sections of the Yogācāra-bhūmi-ṣāstra: Vyakhyā-saṃgrahaṇī, Paryāya-saṃgrahaṇī, Vastu-saṃgrahaṇī, Śrāvaka-bhūmi (forthcoming with BDK).  Hodge is also currently publishing a series of interim study papers on the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra:  Paper I “The Textual Transmisssion of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra”, Paper II “Who Compiled the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, Where & When ?” (forthcoming), Paper III “The Development of the Conceptual Terminology of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra” (forthcoming).

Link to his publication:“The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra: The Text and Its Transmission.” Corrected and revised version of a paper presented in July 2010 at the Second International Workshop on the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, Munich University.