I've been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 2005. At my ordination I was given the name Jayarava (जयरव) "roar of victory", which I use in most circumstances. I have written and self-published books on mantra (based on my website Visible Mantra), Buddhist names, and the History of Karma. My peer reviewed publications have appeared in Buddhist Studies Review, Contemporary Buddhism, International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, and Pacific World.

I'm the world's leading Heart Sutra scholar at present. My groundbreaking work on the Heart Sutra covers the history, philology, and philosophy of the text. My work is notable for having discovered and corrected errors in Conze's edition, presenting the first English language study of the Fangshan stele (the oldest dated Heart Sutra artefact), tracing the origins of the phrase "form is emptiness", and for developing a phenomenological reading of the Heart Sutra. I am the leading advocate of the Chinese origins conjecture, first proposed by Jan Nattier in 1992, and have published the definitive study of this issue (2021, JIABS)

Despite publishing in reputable mainstream scholarly journals my work on the Heart Sutra is not covered in the Wikipedia article because the people who edit it refuse to acknowledge my contribution.

I have written over 600 essays for my blog on topics relates to Buddhism. I have various other interests related to Indology, linguistics, art, calligraphy, and music.

I used to edit as Mahābāla.