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Paul Williams (born 1950) is Emeritus Professor ofIndian andTibetanPhilosophy at theUniversity of Bristol,England, where he had been Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. Until his retirement in 2011 he was also director for the University's Centre for Buddhist Studies, and is a former president of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies

Williams studied atSimon Langton Grammar School, Canterbury and theUniversity of Sussex's School ofAfrican &Asian Studies where he graduated with a first classBA in 1972. He then went on to studyBuddhist Philosophy atWolfson College andWadham College,University of Oxford, where he was the Bowra Research Fellow and awarded hisDPhil in 1978.^[1] His main research interests areMadhyamaka Buddhist philosophy,Mahayana Buddhism, and Medieval philosophical and mystical thought.

Williams was a Buddhist himself for many years but has since converted toRoman Catholicism, an experience he wrote about in his bookThe Unexpected Way^[2][3] and in an article, "On converting from Buddhism to Catholicism – One convert's story."^[4] He is now a professed lay member of theDominican Order.^[4]

Williams has been married to Sharon since 1971 and they have three adult children (Myrddin, Tiernan and Tara), six grandchildren and two great grandchildren (2025).^[4][5]

• Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London: Routledge, 1989; Completely revised Second Edition, 2009).ISBN 978-0-415-35653-4. Translations of First Edition in Italian, Polish and Korean.
• The Reflexive Nature of Awareness: A Tibetan Madhyamaka Defence (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998).ISBN 978-0-7007-1030-0
• Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryavatara (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998).ISBN 978-0-7007-1031-7
• (with Anthony Tribe)Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition (London: Routledge, 2000; completely revised Second Edition, with Anthony Tribe and Alexander Wynne, 2011).ISBN 978-0-415-57179-1. Translations of First Edition in Italian, Korean and Czech.
• The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism (London: Continuum/T & T Clark, 2002).ISBN 978-0-567-08830-7. Translations in German and Polish.
• Songs of Love, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the 6th Dalai Lama (I.B. Tauris, 2004).ISBN 978-1-85043-479-5
• ’Aquinas meets the Buddhists: Prolegomenon to an authentically Thomas-ist basis for dialogue’, inAquinas in Dialogue: Thomas for the Twenty-First Century Edited by Jim Fodor and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 87-117.ISBN 978-1-405-11931-3
• Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies Edited and with a new introduction by Paul Williams (London: Routledge, 2005). Eight volumes.ISBN 978-0-415-33226-2
• Buddhism from a Catholic Perspective (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2006).ISBN 978-1-86082-404-3
• 'Catholicism and Buddhism', inThe Catholic Church and the World Religions Edited by Gavin D'Costa (London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 141–177.ISBN 978-0-567-46697-6
• Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China Edited by Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).ISBN 978-1-107-00388-0

• Paul Williams atUniversity of Bristol Department of Theology and Religious Studies
• Oral History of Tibetan Studies. (2021, December 2). An interview with Paul Williams. Retrieved 31 May 2025, fromhttps://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/paul-williams/.

• Academics of the University of Bristol
• Converts to Roman Catholicism from Buddhism
• Lay Dominicans
• English Roman Catholics
• 1950 births
• Living people
• British scholars of Buddhism
• English Roman Catholic writers

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