Thomas Yarnall

Ph.D., Religion, Columbia University, 2003
M.Phil., Religion, Columbia University, 1998
M.A., , Religion, Columbia University, 1995
B.A., Religion, Amherst College, 1983

Dr. Tom Yarnall (B.A. in Religion, Amherst College, 1983; MA., MPhil., and PhD in Religion, Columbia University, 2003) is an Associate Research Scholar.

As a researcher Dr. Yarnall works with the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies (CUCBS), serving as the Executive Editor (2003–present) for the two series of scholarly translations/studies entitled the Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences (Tibetan Tengyur texts and associated literature) and the Treasury of the Indic Sciences, copublished by CUCBS, the American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS), and Tibet House US (THUS), and distributed by Columbia University Press (CUP, 2004–18); copublished by AIBS, CUCBS, THUS, and Wisdom Publications (WP, scholarly series), and distributed by WP (2018–present). To date (March 2025) he has edited and produced 36 titles within these series, with 6 more forthcoming in 2025–26, and has developed a comprehensive plan for ongoing future publications within these series. In a related capacity, Dr. Yarnall also has served as a principal organizer, steering committee member, and participant in numerous international conferences (in India, US, Canada, Taiwan, etc.) on topics involving methodological, theoretical, philological, technical, and practical issues pertaining to the translation and transmission of Buddhist texts and ideas.

Dr. Yarnall’s own scholarly research has focused on Mādhyamika philosophy, Buddhist ethics, and especially on Indian and Tibetan Tantric materials of the Unexcelled Yoga class. His study and translation of the creation stage chapters of Tsong Khapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of Mantra (sngags rim chen mo) was published in the Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences series in 2013, and was a finalist for the Tsadra Foundation’s “Shantarakshita Award for Excellence in Translation” for books published 2012–15. His forthcoming book—under consideration for publication by Columbia University Press and by Wisdom Publications (scholarly series) in 2027—is entitled The Emptiness that is Form: The Nonconceptual Embodiment of Buddhahood. It contains a detailed analysis and study of the relationship between the view of emptiness and the practice of deity yoga in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, informed both by traditional Indian and Tibetan sources and perspectives as well as by a wide variety of contemporary disciplines and methodologies.