Meir Shahar

Meir Shahar received his undergraduate degree from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. After studying Chinese in Taipei, he went on to pursue graduate studies in the United States, receiving his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University (1992). Meir Shahar is currently Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University. His research interests include the interplay of Chinese religion and Chinese literature, Chinese martial-arts history, Chinese esoteric Buddhism, and the impact of Indian mythology on the Chinese imagination of divinity. 

Research Project 

The Chinese cult of the Horse God (Mawang)

Selected Publications 

• Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature (Harvard University Asia Center, 1998).
• Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and his Indian Origins (University of Hawaii Press, 2015).
• The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts (University of Hawaii Press, 2008) (which has been translated into numerous languages including Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, and Polish).   
• Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China, co-edited with Rober Weller (University of Hawaii Press, 1996)
• India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought, co-edited with John Kieschnick (The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
• Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, co-edited with Yael Bentor (Brill, 2017)