Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman passed away on June 16, 2026, at the age of eighty-four, at his home in Woodstock, New York.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Prof. Robert Thurman viewing a White Tara thangka offered by Shantideva Meditation Center to Tibet House, New York, August 2015. Photo by Edward Sczudlo. Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Professor Robert Alexander Farrar (Bob) Thurman was widely regarded as America’s foremost scholar of Tibetan Buddhism and a tireless advocate for the Tibetan people and their culture. He held a Ph.D. from Harvard University and the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University—the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West. A prolific author whose books brought Tibetan Buddhist thought to a broad readership, he was also co-founder and president of Tibet House New York and the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, and a recipient of the Padma Shri award. In 1997, Time magazine named him one of its 25 Most Influential Americans. Professor Thurman was an FPMT Registered Teacher in the Senior Teachers in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition category. He remained active in his work for Tibet House and Menla, his retreat center in the Catskills, up until his death. 

Ven. Roger Kunsang shares, “Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Bob Thurman had a long relationship going back to the 1970s with many meetings filled with lots of laughter– joking and then serious discussions on teachings, texts, and Tibet.”

Professor Thurman first met Lama Thubten Yeshe in 1978 in Delhi, where Nick Ribush arranged a lunch at the Imperial Hotel. Lama Yeshe shared with him a vision: to translate all volumes of the Tibetan Tengyur into English. The Tengyur comprises over 3,600 treatises on the “liberating arts and sciences”—too vast for any single person to translate in a lifetime. Years later, in 2011, Professor Thurman led the monumental effort to begin the translation of the Tengyur collection into English, Chinese, Hindi, and other languages through the American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University Press, as the Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences series. He taught at several FPMT centers and contributed articles to Mandala magazine. In August 2015, he welcomed Lama Zopa Rinpoche to Tibet House during Rinpoche’s visit to New York City. 

Born in New York City in 1941, Professor Thurman was among the earliest Western scholars and practitioners to devote his life to Tibetan Buddhism. He made tremendous contributions to the study, preservation, and dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism through his extensive writings, translations, and academic work, a contribution that was also recognized by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. His Holiness expressed his condolences, describing Professor Thurman as one of the world’s foremost scholars of Buddhism:

“As a Buddhist scholar, his knowledge was truly remarkable, including his command of the Tibetan language. He devoted his entire professional life to sharing that knowledge, not only with his students, but with the wider world through his writings and teachings. He understood profoundly that the survival of Tibetan Buddhist culture is inseparably linked to the future of Tibet itself. I greatly valued his efforts on behalf of the Tibetan people and their culture, expressed so visibly through institutions such as Tibet House.”

Dalai Lama’s tribute to Robert A.F. Thurman, June 17, 2026

In 1964, Professor Thurman became the first Westerner ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk directly by the Dalai Lama. He studied for almost thirty years as a personal student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama who described him as a great friend.

“I learned with deep sadness of the passing of […] my dear friend, Prof. Robert Thurman. […] As you know, Bob and I shared many years of warm friendship since we first met in India in the late 1960s.”

Professor Thurman belonged to the first generation of scholars and practitioners who made authentic Tibetan Buddhist teachings broadly accessible to Western students following the Tibetan diaspora. Among his many publications, Professor Thurman was the translator of The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bantam Books, Inc., 1993), and author of many other books, including Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness (Riverhead Trade, 1999), The Central Philosophy of Tibet: A Study and Translation of Jey Tsong Khapa’s Essence of True Eloquence (Princeton University Press, 1994), Brilliant Illumination of the Lamp of the Five Stages: Practical Instructions in the King of Trantras, The Glorious Esoteric Community (Columbia University Press, 2011), Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (Harry N. Abrams, 2000), and Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World (Simon and Schuster, 2008), among others.

Rinpoche with Professor Bob Thurman Photo: Ven.Sherab Aug 2015

His Holiness reflected “Bob lived a meaningful life and has left behind a legacy that will continue to inspire future students of Tibetan Buddhism and culture for generations to come. I am sure that the merit he accumulated through a lifetime of service to humanity will bear fruit in lives to come.”

To explore Professor Bob Thurman’s life work in more detail, please visit his personal website. 

Please pray that Robert A.F.  (Bob)Thurman may never ever be reborn in the lower realms, may he be immediately born in a pure land where he can be enlightened or to receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified guru and by only pleasing the guru’s mind, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. More advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on death and dying is available, see Death and Dying: Practices and Resources (fpmt.org/death/).

To read more obituaries from the international FPMT mandala, and to find information on submission guidelines, please visit our new Obituaries page (fpmt.org/media/obituaries/).

An interview with Dr. Robert A.F. Thurman, “Engaged Realism,” originally published in Mandala, October–November 2006, is available to read online.