Alexander von Rospatt is Professor for Buddhist and South Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. He specializes in the doctrinal history of Indian Buddhism, and in Newar Buddhism, the only Indic Mahayana tradition that continues to persist in its original South Asian setting (in the Kathmandu Valley) right to the present. His new, forthcoming book "The Svayambhu Caitya and its Renovations" deals with the historical renovations of the Svayambhu Stupa of Kathmandu. Based on Newar manuscripts and several years of fieldwork in Nepal, he reconstructs the ritual history of these renovations and their social contexts. His current research focuses on Newar Buddhist narrative literature and on life-cycle rituals of old age among the Newars. Prof. von Rospatt was trained in Germany and England, and taught at the universities of Leipzig, Vienna and Oxford before joining UC Berkeley in January 2004
