In 2023 Dr. Georgios Halkias took over as director of the Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong.
One year earlier in 2022 Dr. Halkias had published a book called “The Copper-Colored Mountain: Jigme Lingpa on Rebirth in Padmasambhava’s Pure Land”, which provides valuable and groundbreaking information about his research on the history of Pure Land thought in the Vajrayana tradition, as well as the later tradition established by Jigme Lingpa during the second diffusion of Buddhism in medieval Tibet.
The story of Padmasambhava has been circulating on the Tibetan plateau since the collapse of the Tibetan Empire.
It is interesting to note that it took a long time for a Pure Land tradition centered around him to develop, despite the existence of a rich hagiographical and devotional tradition.
Georgios explains that this investigation has played a crucial role in understanding why Padmasambhava’s sacred realm became so widely appealing.
While references to Padmasambhava can be found during the time of the Tibetan Empire, his transformation into a hagiographic figure emerged much later, around the 12th century, and was closely connected to the tradition of revealed scriptures known as terma.
