Center for Buddhist Studies announces 2011 “Toshi” Book Prize winner

The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is pleased to announce that the 2011 Toshihide Numata Book Prize has been awarded to Todd Lewis and Subarna Man Tuladhar for their jointly authored book, Sugata Saurabha: An Epic Poem from Nepal on the Life of the Buddha by Chittadhar Hridaya (Oxford University Press, 2010).

The Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism is awarded on an annual basis to an outstanding book in the area of Buddhist studies. Sugata Saurabha was selected by members of an outside committee who praised the authors for their elegant English rendering of Chittadhar Hrdaya's complex poetic vernacular. In the words of one of the committee members, "Sugata Saurabha's great value lies in the fact that not only is it a contemporary life of the Buddha written in a vanishing classic style, a text that has been translated in painstakingly careful fashion, it is a marvelous introduction to the rich textures of Nepali religious culture in general."

The authors will be presented with the Toshihide Numata Book prize on the afternoon of November 4, 2011, at the Jodo Shinshu Center in Berkeley (2140 Durant Avenue, at the south west corner of the Berkeley campus). The presentation will be followed by a public lecture by Professor Lewis, and a panel on the theme of "Biographies of the Buddha" that will include presentations by Professors Gregory Schopen (UCLA), John Strong (Bates College), and Alexander von Rospatt (UC Berkeley). More details will be available shortly on the Center for Buddhist Studies website.

For more information on the Toshihide Numata Book Prize, please contact:

Sanjyot Mehendale
Vice Chair, Center for Buddhist Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Tel: (510) 643-5104
Email: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu
Website: http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu