BUDDHIST STUDIES IN THE ORIENTAL SCHOOL OF ROME: THE LEXICAL AND EXEGETICAL CONTRIBUTION OF CORRADO PENSA (1939-2024) ON SANSKRIT AND PĀLI BUDDHIST TEXTS

Abstract

The Indological branch of the Oriental School of Rome has undergone several stages of development, characterized by addressing new areas of study, immense projects, and innovative lexical choices. All those changes have affected the knowledge of South-Asian texts within the international academy and for a wider public, in Italy and in the world. A great protagonist of some of the major changes which have occurred is Corrado Pensa, whose academic career ranged from the early 60s to the late 90s, accompanied by intensive outreach activity lasting up to the present day and consisting mainly in teaching Theravāda meditation to a wide audience. Corrado Pensa's research scope encompasses subjects such as Sāṅkhya, Prajñāpāramitā, and Theravāda Buddhism. He assimilated the worldwide cultural changes in the perception of Buddhism with academic achievements in Indology, and developed an original contemporary Buddhist lexicon that has directly impacted scholars and meditators as well. Along with that, Pensa has popularized a significant number of Pāli and Sanskrit scriptures. The current work examines some of the lemmas he contributed - through translations and essays - to Italian Buddhology.