The Scholars
The Newar Online Dictionary is the result of a collaborative effort among
many individuals. Listed below are the scholars who contributed to the
development of this resource.
Christoph Emmerick
Principal Investigator
Christoph Emmrich (PhD University of Heidelberg) is interested in ritual, childhood, translation, material culture, and sexual difference among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley from the 17th century till today. He has worked on the history of Buddhist and Hindu manuals for domestic rites involving Newar girl children, on the textualization of early modern literary Newar through translation from Sanskrit and the emergence of print, on the interface of travel and translation as practiced by Newar and Burmese Buddhist monastics, on the role of the bookseller in the production, reception, and distribution of Newar literary texts, as well as on shopkeeping, list-making, and the circulation of Newar liturgical materials. He is Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto and the NOD’s principal investigator.
Aristo Bravo
Editor
Arist Bravo is an MA student in Religion at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion. While he primarily works on engaging Pali and Burmese Buddhist texts in conversation with the Western philosophical tradition (particularly hermeneutics, pragmatism, and the philosophy of language), he is also interested in translation studies and the methodological-theoretical issues it raises for Buddhist studies. He is further interested in issues of archiving and documenting Buddhist languages, largely owing to his involvement with updating the Myanmar Manuscript Digital Library website. Thus, he was naturally drawn to the issues of translation, classification, and archival that are central to the NOD. He is currently working on adapting Iswaranand Sresthacharya’s Newari Root Verbs for the NOD.
Liwen Liu
Editor
Liwen Liu is a postdoctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London. She received her PhD in the Study of Religion from the University of Toronto in 2024. Her dissertation, titled Justifying Violence: Ritual and Doctrine of Sacrificial Killing in Medieval Hindu Traditions, explored the justification and ritualization of sacrificial killing, drawing on the medieval Sanskrit textual sources. She holds an MA in South Asian Studies and a BA in Hindi from Peking University. Liwen’s research interests include Tantric studies, Ritual Studies, and Newar Hindu traditions. As a member of the NOD team, Liwen worked on adapting the Saṃkṣipta Nepāla Bhāṣā Śabda-kośa of Vaidya Pannaprasāda Jośī.
ALEXANDER JAMES O’NEILL
Editor
Alexander James O’Neill is a specially appointed assistant professor in Buddhist Studies at the Department of Liberal Arts at Musashino University, Tōkyō. He was previously a research fellow at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion in 2022. His research focuses on Newar Buddhism, Newar linguistics and NLP, and Mahāyāna Buddhist ritual and literature. With the Newar Online Dictionary, Alexander worked on optimising the project’s OCR workflow, script conversion, and adapting the Classical Newar dictionaries: A Dictionary of the Classical Newari (Jørgensen, 1936) and A Dictionary of Classical Newar (Malla et al., 2000).
Gaurav Shrestha
Editor
Gaurav Shrestha is a PhD student in Religion at the Department for the Study of Religion, with a collaborative specialization in South Asian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. His research focuses on studying contemporary manifestations of Jatras in the Kathmandu Valley, particularly how these historical and religious celebrations—rooted in Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious attributes—are actively reinterpreted by the youth. His work critically examines the interplay between tradition, identity, and political change, exploring how Jatras serve as dynamic spaces where cultural heritage intersects with contemporary social realities. As an emerging Newar scholar, Gaurav brings a reflexive perspective, situating himself within the context of his research, while drawing on Indigenous studies frameworks, particularly around themes of positionality and indigeneity. He is also an active member of the NOD team, working on OCR and script review for Nepal Bhasa and Nepali texts.
Austin Simões-Gomes
Editor
Alexander James O’Neill is a specially appointed assistant professor in Buddhist Studies at the Department of Liberal Arts at Musashino University, Tōkyō. He was previously a research fellow at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion in 2022. His research focuses on Newar Buddhism, Newar linguistics and NLP, and Mahāyāna Buddhist ritual and literature. With the Newar Online Dictionary, Alexander worked on optimising the project’s OCR workflow, script conversion, and adapting the Classical Newar dictionaries: A Dictionary of the Classical Newari (Jørgensen, 1936) and A Dictionary of Classical Newar (Malla et al., 2000).
Ian Turner
Editor
Ian Turner is an anthropologist, literary scholar, and modern historian of Nepalese religions, especially Buddhism, completing his dissertation at the University of Toronto, Dept. for the Study of Religion. Ian’s particular expertise finds a home amidst the competing Newar Buddhist counter—publics and private lineages of intellectualism, ritual performance, and cultural memory. He focuses primarily on questions of the home through ritual, storytelling, ethics and lived experience. Ian teaches undergraduate courses on the Study of Religion, and on Buddhist Ritual, Literatures, and Life Stories. He is also an instructor in the Nepalbhasa summer school and a member of a Nepalbhasa poetry translation collective. A core member of the NOD team since its inception, Ian has contributed his knowledge of contemporary and premodern Nepalbhasa, Nepali, Sanskrit and, notably, Italian – for the transliteration of the Capuchin Gian Gualberto da Massa’s 18th cent. Newar-Italian dictionary.
Andrea Wollein
Editor
Andrea Wollein received her PhD in the Study of Religion from the University of Toronto in late 2024. Her dissertation, informed by ethnographic and textual studies, examined the co-existence of Newar, Tibetan, and Theravāda Buddhist traditions through the case study of a Newar Buddhist monastery in Lalitpur called Yampi Mahāvihāra, or E yi gtsug lag khang in Tibetan. She holds an MA in Modern South Asian Studies and a BA in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies from the University of Vienna. With the Newar Online Dictionary, Andrea worked on adapting the Newari English Dictionary: Modern Language of Kathmandu Valley (Mandhar and Vergati 1986) and English – Nepal Bhasa Dictionary (Tuladhar 2003). For her publications see: https://utoronto.academia.edu/AndreaWollein
PT Anderson
Consultant
PT Anderson (PhD Tulane University) is a language technology consultant with Revitalization Technology. As both a linguistic anthropologist and a software engineer, Anderson brings an interdisciplinary approach to helping dictionary teams design platforms that genuinely serve their users. Their collaboration with the Newar Online Dictionary team focuses on process optimization, OCR integration, and user‑centered testing to strengthen the site’s functionality and long‑term sustainability. Additional examples of Anderson’s work are available at www.revitalizationtechnology.com.
Kashinath Tamot
Consultant
Kashinath Tamot, retired Reader from the Central Department of Nepalbhasa, Tribhuvan University, Patan Campus, is one of the world’s foremost specialists of Classical Newar. Besides being the chief compiler of A Dictionary of Classical Newari (Kathmandu: 2000) and of the online Nepalese Amarakośa database, he has worked on the history of the Kathmandu Valley, the Nepalese historical time reckoning, Newar language and literature, and medieval epigraphy. In his long career as a researcher, has collaborated with innumerable Nepalese and international scholars and projects, including the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP). For the NOD, Kashinath Tamot has been serving as a consultant on Newar script, semantics, grammar, and lexicography.
Nirmal Man Tuladhar
Consultant
Nirmal Man Tuladhar, retired Professor of Linguistics from Tribhuvan University (TU), is one of Nepal’s leading scholars and academic institution builders. He served as Executive Director of Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), TU, from 2003 to 2008, was editor, managing editor and chief editor of Contributions to Nepalese Studies, and taught at Central Department of Linguistics as well as the Central Department of Buddhist Studies, TU. He has also been a visiting professor at many universities and has coordinated several research projects and international conferences. For the NOD, Professor Tuladhar has been serving as a consultant on Modern Newar linguistics and indigenous grammatical literature.
Than Grove
Developer
Nathaniel (Than) Grove received his PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia in 2004, focusing on the Mahāyoga system of Tantra propounded by the Old Schools (rnying ma) of Tibetan Buddhism. A self-taught programmer, he has worked in Digital Humanities since 2000 with the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL). Than is currently the Web Technologies Manager for Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia. He also works with the UVA Library and the THL in developing and supporting the scholarly digital asset management system, Mandala, which is use on this site. He develops the front-end interface for the Newar Online Dictionary.
Andres Montano
Developer
Andres Montano received his PhD in Tibetan Studies from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. From 2005 to the present, he has served as director and resident teacher of Casa Tibet Guatemala, where he designs workshops, courses, seminars and retreats on meditation, advice, philosophy, epistemology and Buddhist psychology. As scholar-translator, he has translated Indian root texts, Tibetan commentaries, and meditation guides from Tibetan to Spanish. As a computer engineer, he has designed, developed, and maintains a number of digital platforms for the study of Himalayan culture and language. He works on importing, indexing, and maintaining the data for the Newar Online Glossary.