Kate Crosby


Kate Crosby is a British scholar of Theravāda Buddhism who is the Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Oxford. She is affiliated with the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Balliol College.

Early life and education

Crosby studied Sanskrit with Pāli at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She furthered her studies through the Michael Foster Memorial Scholarship at the University of Hamburg and the Commonwealth Scholarship at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka, followed by traditional Sanskrit study in Pune and Varanasi. She completed her DPhil at Oxford in 1999 with a thesis on medieval Sri Lankan Pāli literature.

Career

Crosby has held academic positions at the universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster, Cardiff, SOAS London, and King’s College London, and has held visiting professorships in Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, and Cambodia. She currently leads the Numata Professorship at Oxford, teaching Buddhist Studies, Pāli, and Buddhist Sanskrit.
She also co-edits the international peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Buddhism. Her research spans textual analysis, Theravāda history, meditation traditions, ethics, and intersections with humanitarian law.
Crosby is known for her work on diverse aspects of Theravāda practice, particularly pre-modern and esoteric meditation traditions.
Crosby’s scholarship has highlighted the historical presence of Southern Esoteric Buddhism, pre-modern esoteric meditation traditions across Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, integrating visualization and somatic techniques within the framework of Theravāda Abhidhamma. She attributes their decline in part to colonial modernist influences, shifting temple authority, and war.

Selected works

Books

  • Theravāda Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, Identity.
  • Esoteric Theravāda: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia.

Selected articles & chapters

  • “Heresy and Monastic Malpractice in the Buddhist Court Cases of Modern Burma,” *Contemporary Buddhism*, co-authored with Janaka Ashin.
  • “The Sutta on Understanding Death in the Transmission of Borān Meditation From Siam to the Kandyan Court,” *Journal of Indian Philosophy*, co-authored with Andrew Skilton & Amal Gunasena.
  • “Women in Theravāda Literature and Society,” in *Theravāda Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity and Identity*.