The Japanese Association for Indian and Buddhist Studies

The Japanese Association for Indian and Buddhist Studies is a learned society in Japan dedicated to scholarship on Ancient India, South Asia, and Buddhism. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, the association has served as a hub for Japanese researchers connecting work on Pāli Canon, Sanskrit textual traditions, and archaeological research from sites such as Nalanda and Taxila. Its membership and outputs intersect with institutions and scholars across Asia, Europe, and North America, including exchanges with University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Oxford University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies.

History

The association was established in 1949 as part of a postwar resurgence in Japanese scholarship that traced intellectual lineages to figures like Motoori Norinaga, Kitarō Nishida, and Toshihiko Izutsu. Early leadership included scholars influenced by work at Berlin Schöneberg-era contacts and by excavations led by Sir John Marshall at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, which stimulated comparative work on Indus Valley Civilization and Jōmon period research. During the 1950s and 1960s the association fostered ties with projects at Nalanda Archaeological Survey and with philologists working on the Mahābhārata, Ramayana, and Pāli commentarial literature such as the Visuddhimagga. In the 1970s and 1980s collaborations expanded to include scholars associated with the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the American Oriental Society, and the École française d'Extrême-Orient. The 1990s and 2000s saw increased internationalization with conferences featuring researchers from Harvard University, University of Chicago, Leiden University, and Sanskrit Commission of India-linked projects. Contemporary initiatives engage digital humanities tools pioneered at Digital South Asia Library and metadata projects inspired by WorldCat and the Getty Research Institute.

Objectives and Activities

The association aims to promote critical study of Buddhist texts, Sanskrit manuscripts, and South Asian history through comparative philology, archaeology, and textual criticism. It supports research on sources ranging from the Pāli Canon and Theravāda commentaries to Mahayana sutras and Vajrayana treatises, while encouraging work on epigraphy such as inscriptions in Brahmi and Kharosthi. Activities include organizing symposia on figures like Asoka, Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and Dignāga; facilitating workshops that involve curators from the National Museum of India, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum; and sponsoring archival projects with holdings related to Aśvaghoṣa, Xuanzang, Faxian, and I-tsing.

Membership and Governance

Membership comprises academics affiliated with universities and research institutes such as University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Nagoya University, Hitotsubashi University, SOAS, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and specialist museums including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Governance follows a council model with elected officers—president, vice-presidents, secretary-general—drawn from scholars with expertise in areas like Indology, Pāli studies, Tibetan studies, and South Asian archaeology. The association’s statutes outline committees for publications, conferences, awards, and international liaison with bodies such as the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Association for Asian Studies, and national academies including the Japan Academy and the Indian Council of Historical Research.

Publications and Conferences

The association publishes a peer-reviewed journal that features articles on philology, manuscript studies, and field reports, attracting contributions by specialists from Harvard Divinity School, Department of South Asian Studies at Cambridge, École Pratique des Hautes Études, and Japanese centers like Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia. It issues monograph series on critical editions of texts such as editions of the Dhammapada, the Lalitavistara, and regional histories of sites like Sarnath and Bodh Gaya. Regular conferences and annual meetings rotate among host institutions—University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Kobe University—and feature keynote lectures by scholars affiliated with Princeton University, Yale University, National University of Singapore, and the University of California, Berkeley. Special sessions have convened on topics including manuscript digitization with partners from Digital Himalaya and cataloguing projects in collaboration with the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

Collaborations and Influence

The association has influenced curricula and research priorities at university departments and institutes such as Department of Buddhist Studies, University of Delhi, Lumbini Buddhist University, Royal University of Bhutan, and regional projects like the Greater India Project. Joint projects with the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum, Tokyo have enhanced conservation of manuscript collections and museum exhibitions. Its networks connect to leading editors and translators working on critical editions and commentaries—figures associated with Sanskrit Text Society, Pāli Text Society, and editorial projects housed at Tibetan & Himalayan Library. Through fellowship exchanges with institutions such as Fulbright Program, Japan Foundation, and the Konnichiwa Foundation its alumni occupy roles across academic publishing houses like Routledge, Brill, and Cambridge University Press, thereby shaping global discourse on Buddhist and South Asian studies.

Category:Learned societies of Japan Category:Buddhist studies