Peter Della Santina
was born in the USA. He has spent many years studying and teaching in South and East Asia. He received his BA. in religion from Wesleyan
University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA in 1972 and a MA in philosophy from
the University of Delhi, India two years later. He did his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies
also from the University of Delhi, India in 1979.
He worked for three years for the Institute for Advanced Studies of world
Religions, Fort Lee, New Jersey as a research scholar translating 8th century
Buddhist philosophical texts from the Tibetan. He taught at several Universities and
Buddhist centers in Europe and Asia including, the University of Pisa in Italy, the National
University of Singapore and Tibet House in Delhi, India. He was the Coordinator
of the Buddhist Studies project at the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore,
a department of the Ministry of Education from 1983 to 1985.
More recently, he was a senior fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study,
Simla, India and taught Philosophy at the Fo Kuang Shan Academy of Chinese Buddhism
, Kaoh-shiung, Taiwan.
For twenty-five years Peter Della Santina has been a student of H.H. Sakya Trizin,
leader of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism and of eminent abets of the Sakya
Tradition. He has practiced Buddhist meditation and has completed a number of
retreats.
He has published several books and articles in academic journals including
Nagarjuna's Letter to King Gautamiputra, Delhi 1978 and 1982 and Madhyamaka
Schools In India, Delhi 1986 and the Madhyamaka and Modern Western Philosophy,
Philosophy East and West, Hawaii, 1986.