This book is a revised version of my thesis, ‘Personal Continuity in Theravāda Buddhism’, approved for the D.Phil, degree at Oxford University in 1979.

I am glad to be able to thank all those who have helped me to produce the book. The original thesis was written at Wolfson College, Oxford, and the revision for publication at Exeter College, Oxford, during my all-too-brief tenure of a Junior Research Fellowship there. The University of Bristol have kindly given me a small award to help toward prepublication costs. I am grateful to these three institutions for providing me with a home during the course of writing the book.

My debts to individuals are many. Margaret Cone helped me through my first steps in the Pali language; conversations with Paul Williams and Alexis Sanderson have many times given me valuable guidance, correction, and stimulation. The examiners of the thesis, Clifford Geertz and Friedhelm Hardy, made valuable criticisms and suggestions for revision, which I have tried to incorporate into this revised version. To two men, above all, I owe a personal and intellectual debt which cannot be adequately conveyed by the references to their work in this book. Richard Gombrich, my upajjhāya, taught me Sanskrit, and as my D.Phil. supervisor gave me a level of help, advice and encouragement beyond anything I could have expected or hoped for. Michael Carrithers, my kalyāna-mitta, has with unfailing kindness over the last six years given me the benefit of his sensitive understanding of anthropology and of Buddhism. To adapt a familiar Buddhist formula: if there is any intellectual merit in this book, I transfer it to the reputation of these two friends and teachers.