Luis Gómez (1943–2017), esteemed scholar of Buddhism, had a long career in Buddhist Studies and translation. From 1973 to 2009 he taught at the University of Michigan, where he founded the PhD program in Buddhist Studies and trained many scholars now prominent in the field. Later, as academic director of the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages, he helped establish the Buddhist Translators Workbench to translate Sanskrit terms into English. He also held the position of Profesor Investigador at El Colegio de México. Among his many influential works are definitive studies on the Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtras, published as The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light, the
Bodhicaryāvatāra, including an English translation in the Norton Anthology of World Religions, and Kamalaśīla’s Bhāvanākrama.

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, where he is also currently department chair and co-director of the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford. The primary focus of his research is Buddhist literature, especially Mahāyāna sūtras, often on the basis of original manuscripts. His publications include studies, editions, and translations of key Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, including the Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhisūtra
(The Samādhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present), the Vajracchedikā (The Diamond Sūtra), and the Śikṣāsamuccaya (Śāntideva’s Anthology on Training).