Ian Charles Harris

Ian Charles Harris (1952 - 2014) was an English Orientalist, Sanskrit scholar, and Buddhist. Harris studied at Lancaster University from 1977 to 1982. He earned a master's degree in religious studies at Lancaster University, and then earned a doctorate at Lancaster, with the book The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism (1991). He then graduated from the University of Cambridge, and then became a teacher of religious studies and then head of department for schools in Bradford and Keighley. In 1987, he became a lecturer in religious studies at St. Martin's College Lancaster (later part of the University of Cumbria).

In 1996, Ian and Peter Harvey founded the The UK Association for Buddhist Studies.

Ian was Professor Emeritus at the University of Cumbria and had also held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the National University of Singapore and Dongguk University, Seoul. From 2003 to 2007 he was a senior scholar at the Documentary Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh leading a small team of researchers investigating the fate of Buddhist monks during the Pol Pot period. Some of this work has fed into the ongoing tribunal into alleged serious crimes committed by senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. During 2011–12 he was the Tun Lin Kok Yuen Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto. He also in reviving the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, Cambodia’s pre-eminent institution of monastic education. In June 2013, he became visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at King’s College, London.

Further reading

• Professor Ian Charles Harris, IABS
• Obituary: Professor Ian Charles Harris (June 17th 1952 to December 23rd 2014), University of British Columbia
• Ian Charles Harris, Buddha Nature: A Tsadra Foundation Initiative
• Ian Charles Harris, Tsadra Commons