Cécile Ducher

Research Affiliate

Profile

Cécile Ducher earned a BA in Buddhist Studies at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute in Delhi, where she studied for 6 half-years many of the classical texts of a traditional Buddhist education. She then earned a MA and PhD in Tibetan Religious History at the EPHE (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), where she studied under the direction of Matthew Kapstein. Her MA thesis is about Marpa Lotsāwa’s biographical tradition, and her PhD about the Marngok Kagyü tradition, that is to say the tantric teachings that were introduced by Marpa in Tibet, transmitted by the Ngok Family and preserved in Jamgön Kongtrül’s 19th-century treasury, the Kagyü Ngakdzö. She won the 2019 Khyentse Foundation Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation in Buddhist Studies.

Her research areas include biographical and historical studies of especially the Kagyü lineages as well as tantric studies. She is an interpreter of Tibetan Buddhism (in Tibetan, English and French) and also regularly translates practice texts (sādhanas) for various sanghas. She also participated in the Prajñājñāna Translation Group and the Vienna Buddhist Translation Studies Group. She was the Numata Invited Professor of Buddhist Studies in Vienna University in Spring 2021 and taught at Paris’ INALCO in 2022. She held a post-doc position in the FCHNT Project (For a Critical History of the Northern Treasures) between 2022 and 2025.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Book:

2017a. Building a Tradition: the Lives of Mar-pa the Translator. “Collectanea Himalayica” n°5. München: Indus Verlag. https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/41307/, DOI: 10.5282/ubm/epub.41307

Edition:

2026. Cécile Ducher, Stéphane Arguillère, Jay Valentine & Jean-Luc Achard, Northern Treasure Histories: Third Special Issue, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 81, 568 p.

2019. Arnold Dan, Cécile Ducher et Pierre-Julien Harter. Reasons and Lives in Buddhist Traditions: Studies in Honor of Matthew Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 432 p.

Dissertations:

2017b. “A Lineage in Time: The Vicissitudes of the rNgog pa bka’ brgyud from the 11^th through 19^th centuries”. « Un lignage à l’épreuve du temps : les vicissitudes des rNgog pa bka’ brgyud du XI^e au XIX^e siècle ». Thèse de doctorat, EPHE / PSL, Paris.

Articles and Book Chapters

Forthcoming. “Mar pa Lo tsā ba’s Guhyasamāja tradition: an Important but Forgotten Transmission of the bKa’ brgyud Lineage,” Chapter 9 in Early Tibetan Religious Networks, edited by Ulrike Roesler and Marta Sernesi, Leiden, Brill.

2026b. “Rigdzin Gödem and the Concealed Lands,” Chapter 8 in Northern Treasure Histories, volume II: The Life, Times and Works of Rigdzin Gödem. Edited by Jay Valentine & Jean-Luc Achard, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 82, Avril 2026, pp. 167-200.

https://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/ret/index.php?selection=1

2024. “The significance of the Byang gter in the Life and Legacy of Thang stong rgyal po,” Revue d’Études Tibétaines, no. 68, Janvier 2024, pp. 163-191.

https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_68_06.pdf

2021. “The life of Marpa Lotsawa Chökyi Lodrö,” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.996

2020a. “A neglected bKa’ brgyud lineage: the rNgog from gZhung and the rNgog pa bka’ brgyud transmission,” In Mahāmudrā in India and Tibet, 142-169, edited by Roger Jackson and Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Leiden, Brill. 

2020b. “Goldmine of Knowledge: the collections of the gNas bcu lha khang in ’Bras spungs Monastery,” Revue d’Études Tibétaines, no. 55, Juillet 2020, pp. 121-139.

http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_55_06.pdf

2019a. “From song to biography and from biography to song: the use of mgur in Mar-pa’s rnam thar,” In Life Writing, edited by Lucia Galli and Xaver Erhard, London, Routledge. DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2019.1621444

2019b. “The Treasury of Kagyü Mantra: A Nineteenth-Century Collection of Marpa’s Tantric Teachings,” In Reasons and Lives in Buddhist Traditions: Studies in Honor of Matthew Kapstein, pp. 127-139, edited by D. Arnold, C. Ducher and P.J. Hartner, Boston, Wisdom Publications.

2016a. “bKa’ brgyud treasure and rNying ma revealer: The Sras mkhar ma of Mar pa Lo tsā ba,” Revue d’Études Tibétaines, no. 37, pp. 98-126.

http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_37_07.pdf