John Guy | Piprahwa and Relic Practice in Early Buddhist India - An Archaeological Perspective

John Guy

Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, Department of Asian Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Guy, FSA, FAAAS, is the Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He joined The Met in 2008, having formerly served as Senior Curator of South Asian art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London for 24 years. In 2024 he was awarded a Republic Day Commendation Award by the Government of India for services to Indian culture and in 2026 the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bard Graduate Center, New York.  He has worked on a number of archaeological excavations, including maritime sites, and served as an advisor to UNESCO on historical sites in Southeast Asia. He has curated numerous international exhibitions and published widely. His books include Indian Art and Connoisseurship. Essays in honour of Douglas Barrett (ed., 1995), Woven Cargoes. Indian Textiles in the East (1997), Indian Temple Sculpture (2007), Interwoven Globe: Textile Trade 1500-1800 (co-author 2013), Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia (2014) and Tree & Serpent. Early Buddhist Art in India (2023).

Jonathan Gold

Chair of the Department of Religion, and D. T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies

Jonathan C. Gold is Chair of the Department of Religion, and D. T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies. A scholar of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, he is especially interested in Buddhist approaches to meaning, ethics, language and learning. He is the author of The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007) and Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (2015) as well as numerous articles, including recently “Pyrrho’s Buddha on Duḥkha and the Liberation from Views” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, “Wholesome Mind Ethics: A Buddhist Paradigm” in the Journal of Value Inquiry and the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Vasubandhu and Sakya Paṇḍita. He is co-editor, with Douglas S. Duckworth, of Readings of Śāntideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra) (2019). In his current work he is developing a Buddhist approach to politics and social thought.