Alex Wayman (January 11, 1921 – September 22, 2004) was a

Tibetologist Tibetology () refers to the study of things related to Tibet, including its history, religion, language, culture, politics and the collection of Tibetan articles of historical, cultural and religious significance. The last may mean a collection of ...

and

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') i ...

and worked as a professor of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He was of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

background.Amanda Porterfield, ''The Transformation of American Religion : The Story of a Late-Twentieth-Century Awakening'', Oxford University Press (2001), p. 159 After finishing his B.A. (1948), M.A. (1949) and Ph. D. (1959) at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

he came to Columbia as a visiting professor in 1966. In 1967 he was made professor of Sanskrit and remained in this position until his retirement in 1991. Wayman wrote many books on

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

, especially Tantric Buddhist themes, and on

Buddhist logic Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship for ''pramāṇa-vāda'' (doctrine of proof) and ''Hetu-vidya'' (science of causes). Pramāṇa-vāda is an epistemological study of the nature of knowledge; Hetu-vidya is a syste ...

References

* Columbia News
Alex Wayman, Pioneer of Tibetology, Dies at 83
3. November 2004. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wayman, Alex 20th-century American Jews American Indologists Tibetologists 1921 births 2004 deaths 21st-century American Jews University of California, Los Angeles alumni