Elena Shulman
Biographic Data
| ID | 1044203 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elena Shulman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elena |
| FAMILY NAME | Shulman |
| SIGNATURE | SHULMAN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4906-3382 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Introducing a Special Collection on the Ethics of Mindfulness
Healing Through Letting Go: On the Maturation of a Certain Conception of Medicine in Indian Buddhism
Illness itself is emptiness", says Vīmalakīrti, in a statement that appears to reflect on the nature of sickness and disease. However, Vimalakīrti's approach of non-duality may not satisfy the rising interest in Buddhist medicine, for which philosophical ideas of emptiness seem too far removed from practical interventions with real people's pain. Nevertheless, there may be more in Vimalakīrti's ideas than mere sophistry, and the vision he express…
Performing the Buddha’s Word: The Role of the Bhāṇaka
The bhāṇaka s were the main textual practitioners of early Buddhism. Although scholarship has been naturally critical of traditional accounts regarding the shaping of the canon, scholars have accepted many of their underlying assumptions, including a ubiquitous reference to bhāṇaka s as “reciters,” without questioning the category. However, bhāṇaka s were no less performers, storytellers, poets, expounders of the teaching and preachers. This arti…
Performing Theravāda: Introduction
Clarifying and Advancing the Play of Formulas: A Response to Bhikkhu Anālayo
This is my rejoinder to Bhikkhu Anālayo’s “critical reply” to my monograph published in late 2021, titled Visions of the Buddha: Creative Dimensions of Early Buddhist Scripture. Anālayo was heavily critical, but he did not really address the main argument of the book: that the early Buddhist discourses are much more than an attempt to preserve the Buddha’s words, and that they are driven by a diversity of creative and literary techniques. These d…
Early Buddhist Wisdom Literature: The "Book with Verses" (Sagāthāvagga) of the Saṃyutta nikāya
The Sagāthāvagga, the Book with Verses, and especially its third chapter, the Kosala-chapter (Kosala Saṃyutta), is presented here as a collection of early Buddhist wisdom literature. As the first book of the Pāli Saṃyutta-nikāya, the Book with Verses seems as an anomaly-the other four books contain some of the denser articulations of early Buddhist philosophy in the canon. Thus, scholars question whether the first book, which normally introduces …
The Idea of Text in Buddhism: Introduction
The Play of Formulas in the Early Buddhist Discourses
Embodied Transcendence: The Buddha's Body in the Pāli Nikāyas
This article reassesses the role of the body in advanced meditation as it is presented in the early Buddhist Pāli discourses, showing that certain theorizations of liberation held that it contained a marked corporeal element. The article also reflects upon the understanding of the Buddha's body in this textual corpus, and demonstrates that for important strands of the early tradition, the Buddha's liberation was thought to manifest in his body, s…
The Protective Buddha: On the Cosmological Logic of Paritta
Paritta — ritual chanting — is a central institution in Theravāda Buddhism, with deep roots in all historical forms of Buddhism in Asia. Nevertheless, no study provides a convincing framework for how the protective potency of the Buddha and his words is understood. Earlier strands of scholarship highlighted the psychological aspects of ritual chanting that were thought to have a positive effect on participants. Later scholars emphasized the role …
Contemplating the Buddha in the Jatakas
This study takes a fresh look at the ideology of (semi-)canonical Jatakas assembled in the Jataka-atthakatha, arguing that they are rather un-interested in biography. Although this notion is normally at the centre of the study of Jataka in modern scholarship, these texts are not driven by an historical approach and do not attempt to relate the Buddha’s path to enlightenment in linear, logical fashion. Rather, Jatakas are interested in what a Budd…
Aśvaghoṣa’s Viśeṣaka: The Saundarananda and Its Pāli “Equivalents”
Buddha as the Pole of Existence, or the Flower of Cosmos
The Early Discourses of the Buddha as Literature: Narrative Features of theDīgha Nikāya
Language, Understanding and Reality: A Study of Their Relation in a Foundational Indian Metaphysical Debate
Ratnāvalī: A Precious Garland of Buddhist Philosophical Systems
The Commitments of a Madhyamaka Trickster: Innovation in Candrakīrti’s Prasanna-padā
Mindful Wisdom: TheSati-paṭṭhāna-suttaon Mindfulness, Memory, and Liberation
Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination
Soviet Maidens for the Socialist Fortress: The Khetagurovite Campaign to Settle the Far East, 1937‐39
Mindful Wisdom: TheSati-paṭṭhāna-suttaon Mindfulness, Memory, and Liberation
Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination
The Commitments of a Madhyamaka Trickster: Innovation in Candrakīrti’s Prasanna-padā
Embodied Transcendence: The Buddha's Body in the Pāli Nikāyas
This article reassesses the role of the body in advanced meditation as it is presented in the early Buddhist Pāli discourses, showing that certain theorizations of liberation held that it contained a marked corporeal element. The article also reflects upon the understanding of the Buddha's body in this textual corpus, and demonstrates that for important strands of the early tradition, the Buddha's liberation was thought to manifest in his body, s…
The Protective Buddha: On the Cosmological Logic of Paritta
Paritta — ritual chanting — is a central institution in Theravāda Buddhism, with deep roots in all historical forms of Buddhism in Asia. Nevertheless, no study provides a convincing framework for how the protective potency of the Buddha and his words is understood. Earlier strands of scholarship highlighted the psychological aspects of ritual chanting that were thought to have a positive effect on participants. Later scholars emphasized the role …
Performing Theravāda: Introduction
Early Buddhist Wisdom Literature: The "Book with Verses" (Sagāthāvagga) of the Saṃyutta nikāya
The Sagāthāvagga, the Book with Verses, and especially its third chapter, the Kosala-chapter (Kosala Saṃyutta), is presented here as a collection of early Buddhist wisdom literature. As the first book of the Pāli Saṃyutta-nikāya, the Book with Verses seems as an anomaly-the other four books contain some of the denser articulations of early Buddhist philosophy in the canon. Thus, scholars question whether the first book, which normally introduces …
The Play of Formulas in the Early Buddhist Discourses
Aśvaghoṣa’s Viśeṣaka: The Saundarananda and Its Pāli “Equivalents”
Buddha as the Pole of Existence, or the Flower of Cosmos
The Early Discourses of the Buddha as Literature: Narrative Features of theDīgha Nikāya
Soviet Maidens for the Socialist Fortress: The Khetagurovite Campaign to Settle the Far East, 1937‐39
Soviet Maidens for the Socialist Fortress: The Khetagurovite Campaign to Settle the Far East, 1937‐39
Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination
The Commitments of a Madhyamaka Trickster: Innovation in Candrakīrti’s Prasanna-padā
Mindful Wisdom: TheSati-paṭṭhāna-suttaon Mindfulness, Memory, and Liberation
Ratnāvalī: A Precious Garland of Buddhist Philosophical Systems
Language, Understanding and Reality: A Study of Their Relation in a Foundational Indian Metaphysical Debate
Buddha as the Pole of Existence, or the Flower of Cosmos
The Early Discourses of the Buddha as Literature: Narrative Features of theDīgha Nikāya
Contemplating the Buddha in the Jatakas
This study takes a fresh look at the ideology of (semi-)canonical Jatakas assembled in the Jataka-atthakatha, arguing that they are rather un-interested in biography. Although this notion is normally at the centre of the study of Jataka in modern scholarship, these texts are not driven by an historical approach and do not attempt to relate the Buddha’s path to enlightenment in linear, logical fashion. Rather, Jatakas are interested in what a Budd…
Aśvaghoṣa’s Viśeṣaka: The Saundarananda and Its Pāli “Equivalents”
The Protective Buddha: On the Cosmological Logic of Paritta
Paritta — ritual chanting — is a central institution in Theravāda Buddhism, with deep roots in all historical forms of Buddhism in Asia. Nevertheless, no study provides a convincing framework for how the protective potency of the Buddha and his words is understood. Earlier strands of scholarship highlighted the psychological aspects of ritual chanting that were thought to have a positive effect on participants. Later scholars emphasized the role …
The Play of Formulas in the Early Buddhist Discourses
Embodied Transcendence: The Buddha's Body in the Pāli Nikāyas
This article reassesses the role of the body in advanced meditation as it is presented in the early Buddhist Pāli discourses, showing that certain theorizations of liberation held that it contained a marked corporeal element. The article also reflects upon the understanding of the Buddha's body in this textual corpus, and demonstrates that for important strands of the early tradition, the Buddha's liberation was thought to manifest in his body, s…
The Idea of Text in Buddhism: Introduction
Clarifying and Advancing the Play of Formulas: A Response to Bhikkhu Anālayo
This is my rejoinder to Bhikkhu Anālayo’s “critical reply” to my monograph published in late 2021, titled Visions of the Buddha: Creative Dimensions of Early Buddhist Scripture. Anālayo was heavily critical, but he did not really address the main argument of the book: that the early Buddhist discourses are much more than an attempt to preserve the Buddha’s words, and that they are driven by a diversity of creative and literary techniques. These d…
Early Buddhist Wisdom Literature: The "Book with Verses" (Sagāthāvagga) of the Saṃyutta nikāya
The Sagāthāvagga, the Book with Verses, and especially its third chapter, the Kosala-chapter (Kosala Saṃyutta), is presented here as a collection of early Buddhist wisdom literature. As the first book of the Pāli Saṃyutta-nikāya, the Book with Verses seems as an anomaly-the other four books contain some of the denser articulations of early Buddhist philosophy in the canon. Thus, scholars question whether the first book, which normally introduces …
Performing the Buddha’s Word: The Role of the Bhāṇaka
The bhāṇaka s were the main textual practitioners of early Buddhism. Although scholarship has been naturally critical of traditional accounts regarding the shaping of the canon, scholars have accepted many of their underlying assumptions, including a ubiquitous reference to bhāṇaka s as “reciters,” without questioning the category. However, bhāṇaka s were no less performers, storytellers, poets, expounders of the teaching and preachers. This arti…
Performing Theravāda: Introduction
Healing Through Letting Go: On the Maturation of a Certain Conception of Medicine in Indian Buddhism
Illness itself is emptiness", says Vīmalakīrti, in a statement that appears to reflect on the nature of sickness and disease. However, Vimalakīrti's approach of non-duality may not satisfy the rising interest in Buddhist medicine, for which philosophical ideas of emptiness seem too far removed from practical interventions with real people's pain. Nevertheless, there may be more in Vimalakīrti's ideas than mere sophistry, and the vision he express…
Introducing a Special Collection on the Ethics of Mindfulness
Philosophy (18 works) · Buddhism (16 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (16 works) · Theology (14 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (10 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Gautama Buddha (9 works) · Literature (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works)