
Robert Thurman | EdX
Explore an overview of the history and philosophy of Buddhism throughout India, South and Southeast Asia, Tibet, and Central Asia, featuring the basics of the Buddhist view of reality and its educational principles of sciences, mind and social ethics with Robert A.F. Thurman.
“The Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism” EdX Online course with Robert A.F. Thurman can be audited and enjoyed for free with the option of receiving an instructor-signed certificate to verify your achievement and completion for $49.99.
To learn more about this online offering, please visit: www.edx.org.

About this online course:
The course begins with a survey of the origins of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent in the mid-first millennium BCE, as well as its transformation in the first millennium CE into the Sanskrit-language-based Mahayana Buddhism(s) that permeated the monastic traditions and flourished in India until around 1100 CE, and that persists up to present day in East Asia, Central Asia, and Vietnam.
The Tibetan aspect of this course surveys the Tibetan and Central Asian reception and development of these Indian Buddhist traditions that occurred in two distinct historical periods: (1) from 650 CE until ca. 850 CE, and (2) from ca. 950 CE to the present.
Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism Syllabus:
- Buddha and Dharma: The Individual Vehicle
- The Mendicant Sangha and the Cool Revolution in Indic Societies
- The Individual Vehicle Launches the Universal Vehicle (Mahāyāna)
- The Three Styles of the Buddhist Development Movement
- Exporting The Cool Revolution to Tibet
- Tibet’s Enlightenment Culture and The Example of the Dalai Lama
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To begin studying with Robert A.F. Thurman & EdX online, please visit: www.edx.org.