University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of Indian Sub-Continental Studies / Staff / Academic Staff

Dr Nicolas Morrissey

Ph.D., Buddhist Studies/History of Indian Art (University of California, Los Angeles)
M.A., Asian Languages and Cultures (University of Texas, Austin)
B.A., History (University of California, Los Angeles)

Dr Morrissey has been a Lecturer in the History of Art and Visual Culture Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles and served as Adjunct Instructor on the Antioch College Buddhist Studies Abroad program in Bodhgaya, India. He has taught courses on Classical Indian religion and art, the history of Buddhism as well as Buddhist and general Indian philosophy. His research interests include the Buddhist history, archaeology, epigraphy, architecture and art history of South Asia. Most recently Dr Morrissey’s research has focussed on the emergence and early development of Mahāyāna Buddhism, specifically on the relationship of Mahāyāna sūtra literature and formal doctrine to actual practice as accessible through the extant material records of ancient India.

Research areas

  • Early Mahāyāna Buddhism in India
  • Asceticism and Monasticism in Buddhist Literature
  • History of Visual Culture in South Asian Religious Traditions
  • Indian Epigraphy

Current projects

  • On the Cult of the Lotus Sūtra in Indian Art: Mahāyāna Buddhist Visual Culture at a 5th century Indian monastic complex
  • A study of previously unpublished epigraphic and art historical material from the Buddhist rock-cut monastery at Piṭalkhora (Maharashtra, India)
  • The Ajitasenavyākaraṇanirdeśa-sūtra from Gilgit: A “Proto-Mahāyāna” Text?
    Rethinking the nature of ‘early’ Mahāyāna Buddhist literature in India

Conference activity

  • “Out with the Old, in with the New: Gupta Hegemony and the Transformation of Buddhism in Early Medieval India,” Paper submitted for the Panel “The Lost Fourth Century in India: An Ending, a Beginning, or a Transition?” at the 38th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison Wisconsin, October 2009.
  • “Jātaka, Tiracchānakathā and Dharmakathā : On the Presentation of Monastic Values in the Buddhist art of Bhārhut,” Paper accepted for presentation at the International Association of Buddhist Studies Bi-annual Meeting, London, August/September, 2005
  • “Conjuring an Illusion of the Mahāyāna: A New Interpretation of a Painting from Ajaṇṭā,” Annual Conference of the American Council for Southern Asian Art, Symposium XI, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, May, 2004
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