An annotated list of online resources for the study of Buddhism in China
This list is intended to supplement the guides and collections of bookmarks currently available online. The linked
resources are not maintained by me; I've only collected those which are potentially useful to scholars and researchers
studying Buddhist religious traditions in China. If you find that any links are dead, resources have moved or want to
suggest a resource please email [gas2122(use @ at)columbia.edu]. This page is maintained by
Gregory Adam Scott 史瑞戈, Ph.D. candidate in the
Department of Religion
at Columbia University.
The OICB was first compiled and published on August 26, 2006. It was moved to buddhiststudies.net in late 2011, and last updated on May 9, 2013.
Please note that some resources are listed with their Chinese or Japanese names; you may need to download language packs
or fonts to have the characters display properly.
1. Language and Fonts
Tools for mastering the languages required for study, including but not limited to Modern and Classical Chinese, Modern
and Classical Japanese, and Sanskrit.
GPL-licensed, Unicode-compliant OpenType fonts that include diacritic marks for rendering scriptural languages and "Indological" characters. Includes fonts similar to
Courier, Helvetica, New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, and Times. Freely availible to download and distribute under the provisions of the GPL.
A collection of links to free fonts offered elsewhere on the web. Japanese fonts also available.
2. Texts
Digitized source texts available online. They have the advantage of being searchable and are often edited and corrected
versions of the originals.
Hosted by the College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University. Includes language lessons for Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pali, as well as fulltext documents and sutras.
The Special Collections are particularly interesting, and include some rare digitized texts, both monographs and periodicals.
An ongoing project to digitize temple gazetteers, 224 are currently online as scanned images with 13 also having full-text and image availible. A project of the Dharma Drum Buddhist College.
Digitized documents that were published by the London Missionary Society in China, many of which touch upon Buddhist figures, texts, and organizations, as well as the general religious context of the time. See also this staff paper [link updated] on the collection from 1998.
Although their main collection of texts appears to be an archived copy of those available on CBETA, there are other
tools available on this site, including dictionaries. Also includes a number of non-canonical 藏外 texts. Link goes to
the server hosted in Xiamen 廈門.
Takes the Unicode database of characters as its basis, provides
different East Asian readings for each character, as well as a brief
English definition. Also includes indices organized by HSK level and
USENET frequency of use. Requires a font that includes as many
character gylphs as possible to be used effectively, such as SimSun
(Founder Extended).
A dictionary and encyclopedia of Buddhist topics. Incorporates the Soothill-Hodous dictionary formerly listed here. Many
libraries have subscribed for full access, otherwise users can only make a limited number of searches per day.
Searchable dictionary, automatic translation, with several dictionary databases to choose from, one of which is a
selection of entries from the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (above). A complete list of
mirror sites is available.
Online dictionary that offers multuiple character definitions as well as digitized entries from the Kangxi dictionary
and the Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字. Main interface is in Simplified, but the Kangxi and Shuowen sections are in Traditional
characters.
The mother of all Chinese dictionaries (not literally). This site does not seem to offer a radical search option. You can also view the scanned pages
of the original.
An extension for Firefox, provides dictionary translations for Japanese text when you mouseover a word. Note that you
must install the extension and a dictionary for it to work.
Video recording of the opening session and keynote speech by Lewis Lancaster at a conference on the Chinese Buddhist canon held in Tucson, Arizona from March 26 to 27, 2011.
6. Collected Links, Bibliographies, and Guides
Sites in this category are lists and collections of links, as well as more traditional bibliographies of print resources.
There are also guides to researching Chinese Buddhism, created by universities or professors for their students and scholars
to consult.
Focused on Chinese popular religion rather than Buddhism, but certainly an invaluable resource for studying Chinese Religion in general or Buddhism at the local/popular level.
Now includes a dataset of Chinese Buddhist temples circa 1820, one version of which can be viewed using Google Earth. Downloading requires a (free) registration. For details on how the set was compiled, see the production notes.
