Louise Roche Receives 2025 KF Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation in Buddhist Studies

This year’s Khyentse Foundation Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation in Buddhist Studies for Europe goes to Louise Roche of the École Pratique des Hautes Études – PSL / Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE/UMR 8170) in Paris, France.

The world of Khmer Buddhism is vast, ancient, and little known. Some may have glimpsed its refined subtlety in one of the many Khmer Hevajra statues housed in museums around the world. The tradition spans several languages (Khmer, Sanskrit, Pali, etc.) and various modes of Buddhist practice, and has flourished in dharma songs still sung today and in marvels of Buddhist architecture that extend far beyond a handful of iconic sites.

Roche’s dissertation, “Une histoire du temple de Banteay Samrae à Angkor,” prepared at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE-PSL) and the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE) in Paris under the supervision of Dominic Goodall and Éric Bourdonneau, with the support of the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), is a groundbreaking contribution to the history of Buddhism in Cambodia. Through a rigorous and interdisciplinary engagement with a wide range of sources and fields—including history, iconography, and epigraphy—Roche offers an unprecedented analysis of a monument that has long resisted comprehensive scholarly interpretation. The dissertation sheds new light on the temple’s ritual functions, religious significance, and place within the broader landscape of 12th-century Cambodian Buddhism. Particularly noteworthy is the extensive and meticulously executed documentation presented in volumes 2 and 3, which provides an invaluable reference point for future scholarship. Through careful analysis and well-substantiated argumentation, the work not only reconstructs the detailed history of Banteay Samrae but also offers critical insight into royal ideology, spatial organization, and the relationship between kingship and religion during the period of the so-called Mahidharapura dynasty (c. 1080–1220). In so doing, this dissertation marks a major advancement in Southeast Asian art history and Buddhist studies.

“It is a great honor for me to have been awarded this year’s Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation in Buddhist Studies by Khyentse Foundation. I am extremely grateful that my work has been recognized by such a prestigious foundation. This award is all the more significant to me that it shines a spotlight on medieval Cambodia, a field that has long remained on the margins within international Buddhist studies.” — Louise Roche

We wish Louise all the best for her future endeavors in Buddhist studies.

The next round of nominations for the Khyentse Foundation Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation in Buddhist Studies will be open from October 1 through December 31, 2025. Accredited institutions that offer PhD programs in Buddhist studies or religious studies in Asia are invited to nominate one dissertation that was completed during the academic year 2024–25. For full information, see the relevant KF awards page.

Featured image above: Louise Roche.

All photos courtesy Louise Roche.