Dr. des. Michael Zrenner

Research Fellow

Address

University of Hamburg

Numata Zentrum für Buddhismuskunde

Alsterterrasse 1

20354 Hamburg

Ven. Gyalten Jigdrel (Mchael Zrenner) is a Tibetan Buddhist monk currently enrolled at the Sera Jey Monastic University in Bylakuppe, India, where he is pursuing his studies of the traditional Geshe curriculum whilst carrying out translation-work in the context of the Khyentse Foundation’s 84 000 project: “Translating the Words of the Buddha”. His specific focus within the project is on the vinaya-section of the Kanjur.

As a research fellow at the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies, he wishes to contribute to the fostering of intellectual and structural cooperative endeavours—concretely between Sera Jé Monastic University and the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies at Hamburg—and between Western and traditional Tibetan intellectual and contemplative traditions more broadly.

He submitted his PhD in Buddhist studies at the University of Hamburg in February 2022, carried out under the tutelage of Prof. Dr. Harunaga ISAACSON and Prof. Dr. Michael ZIMMERMANN who were indefatigable in their support and inestimable in their capacity to guide him with their knowledge and expertise through a doctoral project that principally comprises a philological study of the extant Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources both of the initial section of the fourth chapter of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and the commentary to said section as contained in Yaśomitra’s Sphuṭārthābhidharmakośavyākhyā.

His chief interests remain with the distinctive ways in which Buddhist schools formulate models of cause and effect (karma), especially against the backdrop of the concepts of phenomena “arising in dependence” (pratītyasamutpāda) and “emptiness” (śūnyatā), and how this impacts formulations of Buddhist ethics (vinaya).

His CV can be found here.

A list of publications can be found here (external link).

Dissertation

Vijñapti, avijñapti, and avijñaptirūpa in the Sphuṭārthābhidharmakośavyākhyā: a critical edition-cum-translation of Yaśomitra’s commentary to Vasubandhu’s investigation of early Buddhist causal models as presented in the Abhidharmakośa(bhāṣya), IV.1–4.

The aims for the dissertation were threefold:

1. To produce critical editions of the opening sections of the fourth chapter of the Sphuṭārthābhidharmakośavyākhya in Sanskrit and Tibetan on the basis of 6 manuscripts, 3 editions for the Sanskrit and the renditions preserved in the Tibetan bstan-‘gyur as translated by ska-ba dpal-brtsegs and Paṇḍita Viśuddhasiṃha.

2. Translate the critical edition from the Sanskrit and the Tibetan into English using text-critical methods.

3. Provide contextual philosophical, historical and philological commentary to facilitate ready access to exegetical literature on early Buddhist models of causality.