Robert Thurman, a pioneering American scholar of Tibetan Buddhism and advocate for the Tibetan cause, has died at the age of 84. Widely recognized as the first Westerner to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Thurman played a key role in popularizing meditation and related practices in the United States while bridging Eastern spiritual traditions with Western academia.

Born Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman on August 3, 1941, in New York, he came from a family with artistic and affluent roots, though much of the family’s wealth had diminished by his youth. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy but was expelled after an attempt to join Cuban guerrillas. Thurman then entered Harvard University, where his path took a dramatic turn following a racing accident at 19 in which he lost his left eye. This event prompted him to reconsider his life direction, leading to a period of travel in the Near East and India.

During this time, Thurman taught English to Tibetan refugees who had fled China’s takeover of their homeland. Upon returning to the United States, he met a Mongolian lama, Geshe Wangyal, who became his spiritual mentor. Thurman then returned to India, where he studied under the Dalai Lama after reportedly learning Tibetan in just 10 weeks. The Dalai Lama ordained Thurman as a monk in 1965, requiring him to take 253 vows.

Despite his early monastic commitment, Thurman eventually moved away from the strictly cloistered life, returning to academia and abandoning his vow of chastity. After divorcing his first wife, Marie-Christophe de Ménil, he married Nena von Schlebrügge, a German-Swedish model, in 1967. The couple raised four children, including actress Uma Thurman. Thurman’s relationship with his elder daughter from his first marriage became strained, and his grandson, artist Dash Snow, died of an overdose in 2009.

Thurman earned his doctorate from Harvard in 1972 and held professorships at Amherst College and Columbia University. At Columbia, he occupied the nation’s first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies until 2020. An accomplished scholar, he published approximately two dozen books and translations, including key Buddhist texts such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and was renowned for his rapid reading of Tibetan manuscripts.

He was known for a commanding presence and a teaching style that energized students while challenging conventional perceptions of Buddhism. Thurman rejected the notion of Buddhism as solely a religion or a quietistic practice. Instead, he framed it as an ethical education grounded in the natural world, emphasizing the necessity of intellectual rigor alongside meditation.

In 1986, at the Dalai Lama’s instruction, Thurman cofounded Tibet House US in New York with actor Richard Gere and composer Philip Glass, focusing on preserving Tibetan culture. He received the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest honors, in 2020. In 2025, he addressed the British House of Commons on the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. Thurman and the Dalai Lama had joked about living until 2048 to witness the success of the Tibetan cause.

Robert Thurman is survived by his wife, children, grandchildren, and extended family, including actress Maya Hawke. He died on June 16, 2026, leaving a lasting legacy as a bridge between East and West in both Buddhist scholarship and cultural advocacy.