Jeffrey Hopkins

Jeffrey Hopkins (1940-2024), PhD, served for a decade as the interpreter for the Dalai Lama. A Buddhist scholar and the author of more than thirty-five books, he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, where he founded the largest academic program in Tibetan Buddhist studies in the West.

"No other single volume opens as wide a window into the interlocking literature of Tibet's philosophical interlocutors over the last five centuries and more, including their expansive articulation of non-Buddhist Indian systems of thought." —Anne C. Klein, author of Knowledge and Liberation and Meeting the Great Bliss Queen

"Hopkins presents here a detailed and masterful translation and study of one of the most brilliant Tibetan minds' take on the Indian Buddhist tradition. This text examines carefully the whole range of Buddhist philosophy and hence provides an invaluable source for its study. By drawing from other texts and his own understanding, Hopkins makes available this important text and provides us with a brilliant and invaluable work, a real tour de force that will be a must for any serious student of Buddhist philosophy." —Georges Dreyfus, author of Recognizing Reality and The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

"Hopkins, a master of this genre of Tibetan literature, has produced a very clear and highly organized translation of the root text. . . . He makes a serious contribution to scholarship by shedding light on the inter-sectarian debates that enlivened Tibetan religious discourse during the pre-modern period. . . . An important work of contemporary scholarship that should not be ignored by scholars of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and related fields." —Religious Studies Review

"In this encyclopedic work, Hopkins offers quite an astounding exploration. . . . He has been able to marshal all of his insight over a lifetime of work and bring it to bear on this overview of Buddhist philosophy. . . . This book shines as a new classic in the field." —Living Traditions