Medicine is central to the religion of Buddhism, and Buddhism has been an vitally important vehicle for transnational exchange of medicine globally. In all periods and all locations across the world, Buddhism has provided individuals with tools to frame and understand illness, has shaped health-seeking behaviors in conscious and unconscious ways, and has offered a range of popular therapies and institutional structures for dealing with the sick. Comprising the major focus of my scholarly work, the relationship between Buddhism and medicine is explored in detail in the materials below….


Monographs & edited volumes

Essays on global circulations of Buddhist medicine in the modern period (2024).
Summarizing a decade of research on Buddhist medicine, and accompanying the anthologies (2022).
Translations of texts and ethnographic transcripts about Buddhist healing in the modern era (2020).
Translations of numerous texts about Buddhism and medicine from across Asia (2017).
Demonstrating the richness of Buddhist healing as a way to explore cross-cultural exchange (2020).
Special issue: “Buddhism & Healing,” focusing on historical and contemporary (2017).
Focusing on the introduction and assimilation of Indian medicine in medieval China (2014).
A brief overview of traditional medicine in Thailand for scholars and practitioners (2016).



Multimedia Project

The Jivaka Project Philadelphia is a collaborative project with filmmaker and historian Lan A. Li. This is a multimedia ethnography exploring the role of Buddhist institutions, practices, and cultural orientations in the American healthcare landscape between 2015 and 2020. The website encompasses a series of professionally produced documentary films in addition to photos, audio, and other data captured by student researchers at about 50 institutions in the city. Covering various intersections between Buddhism and health, these are intended for use in the classroom and are accompanied by background information and suggestions for further readings. 


Selected interviews & lectures


Selected scholarly articles & chapters

(To download PDFs that are not linked below, see my Academia.edu page)

  • 2024, “The Chinese Biography of Jīvaka, Buddhist King of Physicians,” Pacific World, Series 4, vol. 5: 35-67 [co-authored with William Giddings]. https://pwj.shin-ibs.edu/2024/7112
  • 2024, “American Buddhism and Healthcare.” In Scott Mitchell and Ann Gleig (eds.), Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism, pp. 318–34. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • 2023, “‘Meditation Sickness’ in Medieval Chinese Buddhism and the Contemporary West.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 30: 169–211. https://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2023/08/Salguero-Finalized-ms-for-publication47.pdf.
  • 2022, “Beyond Mindfulness: Buddhism & Health in the US.” Pacific World, Series 4, vol. 3. https://pwj.shin-ibs.edu/2022/7006.
  • 2021, “Buddhist Healthcare in Philadelphia: An Ethnographic Experiment in Student-Centered, Engaged, and Inclusive Pedagogy.” Religions 12.6. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060420
  • 2021, “The Role of Buddhist Studies in Fostering Metadisciplinary Conversations and Improving Pedagogical Collaborations.” Religions 12.1. https://dx.doi.org/ 10.3390/rel12010001
  • 2019, “Varieties of Buddhist Healing in Multiethnic Philadelphia,” Religions 10.48. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10010048.
  • 2018, “A Missing Link in the History of Chinese Medicine: A Research Note on the Medical Contents in the Chinese Buddhist Taishō Tripiṭaka,”East Asian Science, Medicine, and Technology 47: 93–119.
  • 2018, “‘This Fathom-Long Body’: Bodily Materiality & Ascetic Ideology in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Scriptures,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 92: 237–60.
  • 2018, “Healing and/or Salvation? The Relationship Between Religion and Medicine in Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” Working Paper Series of the HCAS: Multiple Secularities — Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities 4. [Open Access]
  • 2017, “Medicine in the Chinese Buddhist Canon: Selected Translations.” Asian Medicine 12.1/2: 79–294. (Co-authored with four other contributors.)
  • 2017, “Cultural Associations of Water in Early Chinese and Indian Religion and Medicine,” Special Issue: Water and Asia, Education About Asia 22.2: 23–28.
  • 2017, “Honoring the Teachers, Constructing the Tradition: The Role of History and Religion in the Waikrū Ceremony of a Thai Traditional Medicine Hospital,” in Hans Pols, Michele Thompson, and John Harley Warner (eds.), Translating the Body: Medical Education in Southeast Asia (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press).
  • 2015, “Reexamining the Categories and Canons of Chinese Buddhist Healing,” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 28: 35–66.
  • 2014, “Medicine,” Oxford Bibliographies Online: Buddhism. Last update: 2018. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393521-0140 [Link]
  • 2013, “Fields of Merit, Harvests of Health: Some Notes on the Role of Medical Karma in the Popularization of Buddhism in Early Medieval China,” Asian Philosophy 23.4: 341–9.
  • 2009, “The Buddhist Medicine King in Literary Context: Reconsidering an Early Medieval Example of Indian influence on Chinese Medicine and Surgery,” History of Religions 48.3: 183-210.


Deprecated articles

(Please cite the updated versions instead.)

  • 2020, “Countercurrents and Counterappropriations: The Role of Mindfulness in Traditional Korean Medicine,” Asian Medicine 15.2: 291–300. [Incorporated into my chapter in the 2024 volume edited by Salguero, Cheung, and Deane.]
  • 2018, “Buddhist Medicine and its Circulation.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Ed. David Ludden. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.215 [This is essentially a summary of my 2022 book Buddhism & Medicine: A Global History.]
  • 2015, “Toward a Global History of Buddhism and Medicine,” Buddhist Studies Review 32.1: 35–61. [Revised version appears in Buddhism & Medicine: A Global History, chapter 5.]
  • 2014, “Buddhism & Medicine in East Asian History,” Religion Compass 8.8: 239–50. [Revised partial version appears in the Buddhism & Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources, Introduction.]
  • 2013, “‘On Eliminating Disease’: Translations of the Medical Chapter from the Chinese Versions of the Sutra of Golden Light,” eJournal of Indian Medicine 6 (1): 21–43. [Revised version appears in Buddhism & Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources, ch. 4.]
  • 2012, “‘Treating Illness’: Translation of a Chapter from a Medieval Chinese Buddhist Meditation Manual by Zhiyi (538–597),” Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 7.2: 461–73. [Revised version appears in Buddhism & Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources, ch. 37.]
  • 2010–11, “Mixing Metaphors: Translating the Indian Medical Doctrine Tridoṣa in Chinese Buddhist Sources,” Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 6.1: 55–74. [Revised version appears in Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China, ch. 2.]
  • 2010, “‘A Flock of Ghosts Bursting Forth and Scattering’: Healing Narratives in a Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Hagiography,” East Asian Science Technology & Medicine 32: 89–120. [Revised version appears in Buddhist Healing in Medieval China and Japan, ch. 1]

See my errata page