Dr. Anne MacDonald

Dr. MacDonald is a researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria. Her primary focus is the development of Madhyamaka thought in India and Tibet. Her research on Chandrakirti’s Prasannapada and Madhyamakavatarabhaṣya is based on newly available manuscripts of these works.

“Although the title suggests clarity, the text is actually quite challenging,” said Dr. MacDonald in an article published in Der Standard, a Viennese newspaper. The Prasannapada, written in Sanskrit by the 7th century scholar Chandrakirti, is a commentary on Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika.

“I would like to sincerely thank Khyentse Foundation for having selected my book for their Prize for Outstanding Translation…I am sure that Chandrakirti would be thrilled were he alive today to see his work acknowledged by such a remarkable foundation, and by extension, by its exceptional founder and head, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, held by the Tibetan tradition to be an emanation of Manjushri, the bodhisattva associated with prajna, insight, who is repeatedly mentioned and praised by Chandrakirti in his works.