Resources

Buddhist Studies

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
- Encyclopedia of Buddhism
  Robert E. Buswell Jr., editor-in-chief. New York: Macmillan Reference, 2004. xxxix + 981.Over 400 entries. The standard English-language encyclopedia for Buddhism. Coverage is pan-Asian; those looking for in-depth treatments of local traditions will not find adequate detail here. Excellent place for beginning a term paper or getting a better idea of how Buddhists have thought of, say, usury, or how they have understood rebirth. Entries are signed and include “further reading” lists. Users should remember that the bibliographies and lists for further reading will not contain anything post-2004.
- Encyclopedia of Religion
  2nd ed., 15 vols. Lindsay Jones, editor-in-chief. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. cxlvi + 10735 pp.Approximately 3,350 entries. Although this work is not focused specifically on Buddhism, some of the entries in the Encyclopedia of Religion are in fact longer than their counterparts in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and they are all written by Buddhist Studies scholars with expertise on the entry topic. Some of the entries on Buddhism are contained with multi-entry sections on a particular topic, which makes this work particularly useful for thinking about Buddhism in relation to other religions, for one will find the entry on gender in Buddhism, for example, next to the entries on gender in Judaism, Islam, Zoroastianism, Native American religions, Chinese religions, and so on. If nothing else, readers will get a different take on the topic in question, and would thus be advised to consult both encyclopedias’ entries for any given topic. References and bibliographies will not include works post-2005.
- Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
  Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. xxxii + 1265 pp.Over 5,000 entries. Entries include not only a relatively concise definition but also a longer explanation that usually (but not always) addresses the entry-topic’s relevance in multiple Buddhist cultures, schools, and periods; thus this is a good place to look if searching for the way in which multiple Buddhist cultures and thinkers have understood, say, karma. Front matter includes a timeline of developments in Buddhist history, maps of Buddhism’s geographical spread and range, and diagrams of Buddhist cosmological models. Contains cross-reference of nearly 150 pages that can be used to find the entry for a term by searching for it in Sanskrit, Pāli, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, or Japanese.
- Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (https://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/) Ed. A. Charles Muller.
  Over 64,000 entries. While this resource is not peer-reviewed, it is monitored by the editor as well as by a host of Buddhist Studies scholars, and the entries are also written by such individuals. Coverage is not consistent, since the project depends entirely on volunteered submissions. Gives pages numbers for six or so Japanese Buddhist Studies dictionaries where the entry in question can be found.
- Hōbōgirin: Dictionnaire encyclopédique du bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoise et japonaises. 8 vols. Paul Demiéville, editor-in-chief. Tokyo: Maison franco-japonaise, 1974–2003. Approxiamtely 1178 pp.
  A French-language collection of small research articles published over a period of three decades. Each article takes as its point of departure a particular term or concept (which serves as the entry heading in this case). The entry headings are all in romanized Japanese and the extant volumes cover A–D. (This is an ongoing project.) While the incomplete nature of the project makes it less than comprehensive, if there happens to be an entry on the topic for which one is searching, one will find much greater detail here than in any of the aforementioned resources. Includes entries such as dato (Buddhist relics), chū (the Buddhist concept of emptiness), Aizen myōō (a esoteric Buddhist deity), and ai (love).
Peer-reviewed Journals
- Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. Open access. Single issue per annum. Quality of scholarship tends to be very high, with a very slight tendency towards more traditional approaches to Buddhist Studies (i.e., philological and doctrinal).
- Contemporary Buddhism. Two issues per annum. As the name would suggest, a good source for articles on Buddhism as practiced in the modern period. Special issue topics include Buddhism and film, Buddhism and the environment, the mindfulness movement(s), and early Western Buddhist monastics. Interdisciplinary.
- Journal of Buddhist Ethics. Open access. Single issue per annum. The premiere journal for Buddhist ethics.
- Buddhist Studies Review. Journal of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies. Partially open access. Two issues per annum. Particularly strong in South/Southeast Asian Buddhism, but also has good coverage of Himalayan, East Asian, and Western Buddhism.
- Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies. Open Access. Three issues per annum. Vast majority of articles are in Japanese but each issue has a few in English, which tend to focus on Indian Buddhism and doctrinal matters. Articles are very short.
- Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies. Open access. Well-established (about three decades). Limited to China and the historical Chinese cultural sphere.
- Journal of the Pāli Text Society. Open access up to 2006. Single issue every three or four years. Focus in on Pāli Buddhism and Theravāda traditions.
- Eastern Buddhist. One or two issues per annum. Published by Ōtani University, Japan. Focus is on East Asia, especially Japan. Topics covered are both pre-modern and modern, though there is a stronger emphasis on the latter, as can be seen in the choice of topics for recent special issues (e.g., reformulating “socially-engaged Buddhism,” modernity and Buddhism).
- Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies. Single issue per annum. Slight emphasis on Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and doctrine.
- Journal of Buddhist Philosophy. Single issue per annum. Very new (first issue published in 2015).
- Buddhist-Christian Studies. Single issue per annum. Well-established (over three decades). Emphasis on inter-religious dialogue, comparative religion, and the modern period.
- Journal of Global Buddhism. Single issue per annum. Focuses on globalization of Buddhism. While the JGB does not limit its articles to those focused on the past two centuries, in practice a majority of articles address early-modern or modern periods.
- Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Open access. Single issue per annum.
- Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Open access. Single issue per annum. In addition to general coverage, there are a large number of articles on Japanese True Pure Land Buddhism. (The Institute of Buddhist Studies is a True Pure Land seminary and graduate school.) However, the journal is in no way sectarian, and it attracts respected scholars of South and East Buddhism from a variety of disciplines.
Collections of Primary Texts in Translation
- Access to Insight: Readings Theravāda Buddhism(www.accesstoinsight.org)
  Contains many English translations of Pāli texts. Also includes many articles about Theravāda Buddhism. While this is not peer-reviewed, a vast majority of the translations are those of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu (of Metta Forest Monastery) and Bhikkhu Bodhi (one-time president of the Buddhist Publication Society in Sri Lanka), both of whom are seasoned translators and respected scholars.
- Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai English Tripiṭika (www.bdk.or.jp/bdk/digitaldl.html)
  Translations of about forty-five works from the Chinese Buddhist cannon. Most can be downloaded free-of-charge as PDFs.

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