Mark Allon

Biography

Mark Allon is Associate Professor of South Asian Buddhist Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. His first degree was in fine art undertaken at Alexander Mackie College, Sydney, majoring in sculpture, drawing and printmaking. He then completed a BA (Honours 1st class and University Medal) at the Australian National University, Australia, and PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Cambridge, England, followed by postdoctoral research positions at the Kyoto University, University of Washington, and the University of Sydney. Since 2006 he has taught Buddhist and Indian studies and the ancient languages of India (Sanskrit, Pali and Gandhari) at the University of Sydney.

His primary research interests are the composition and transmission of early Buddhist texts, the ways in which texts have been used by Buddhist communities, and the Indic languages used by early Buddhist communities (Pali, Gandhari, Sanskrit). He is involved in two major research projects. The first concerns the study and publication of the recently discovered Gandhari Buddhist manuscripts from Pakistan and Afghanistan (e.g. https://gandhari-texts.sydney.edu.au/), in particular with the conservation, study, and publication of a major collection of Gandhari manuscripts housed at the Islamabad Museum, Pakistan (https://gandhari-texts.sydney.edu.au/gandhari-manuscripts/). The second involves the conservation, photographing, and study of the Kuthodaw Pagoda marble stelae recension of the Pali canon in Mandalay, Myanmar. He is the author of Style and Function: A Study of Dominant Stylistic Features of the Prose Portions of Pāli Canonical Sutta Texts and Their Mnemonic Function (Tokyo, 1997), Three Gāndhārī Ekottarikāgama-Type Sūtras: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments 12 and 14 (Seattle, 2001), The Composition and Transmission of Early Buddhist Texts with Specific Reference to Sutras (Hamburg, 2021), and numerous articles on early Buddhist literature.