Glorious Sun Professorship in Buddhist Studies

Buddhism has long stood as a major civilizational force, profoundly shaping the cultural, ethical, and aesthetic landscapes of Asia. Beyond its historical significance, it continues to serve as a transformative path of self-discovery and enduring well-being for countless individuals. In recent decades, global academic and public engagement with Buddhism has expanded dramatically drawing the attention of scholars and practitioners from an ever-widening array of disciplines and intellectual traditions.

The Centre of Buddhist Studies (CBS) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a pioneer educational institution that bridges ancient wisdom with contemporary global challenges and trends. Since its establishment in September 2002, CBS has distinguished itself as a trailblazer in traditional and interdisciplinary Buddhist education. 

Georgios T. Halkias has been a faculty member of HKU since 2013 and is currently the Glorious Sun Professor in Buddhist Studies and Director of the Centre of Buddhist Studies.  His scholarship demonstrates his versatility as a scholar across several domains of intellectual inquiry that brings philological rigor, historical sensitivity and ethnographic insight into several aspects of Indian, Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism. 

His leading research on Tibetan Pure Land Buddhism has fundamentally reshaped scholarly understanding of devotional traditions, culminating in Luminous Bliss: A Religious History of Pure Land Literature in Tibet (University of Hawai'i Press, 2012/2017). This groundbreaking work traces the translation, transmission, and transformation of Pure Land teachings within the Tibetan Buddhist milieu, revealing previously underappreciated ritual, intellectual and institutional dimensions of Tibetan soteriological thought.

Beyond his work on Pure Land traditions, Professor Halkias has made significant contributions to the study of Buddhism as a Eurasian tradition perpetually engaged in linguistic, cultural, and conceptual translation. His research has focused on diverse topics including the complex dynamics of Buddhist-Muslim interactions in Himalayan borderland societies, Buddhist manuscript cultures in Ladakh, cross-cultural encounters between Hellenism and Buddhism, and the ritual and contemplative practices of Indo-Tibetan Vajrayāna. 

A British Academy post-doctoral fellow, Professor Halkias has held research appointments at the Warburg Institute, University of London, and Ruhr-Universität Bochum. His scholarship is distinguished by its integration of archival and historical research with sustained fieldwork in monastic and lay Buddhist communities across the Tibetan plateau, Ladakh, Nepal, and Bhutan.

His numerous publications appear in leading academic journals and with distinguished university presses. Beyond his written work, Professor Halkias continues to advance our understanding of Buddhism as both a regional and global phenomenon and as a living tradition through his teaching, international collaborative research, supervision of doctoral students, and, since 2015, as the co-editor-in-chief for the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Buddhism.

Born in Athens, Greece, Professor Halkias studied Mathematics, Physics, Classics, and Philosophy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His graduate training in comparative philosophy led him to the study of Asian philosophies and religious practices. He read for a DPhil in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, which he completed in 2006.