Lewis R. Lancaster (born 29 October 1932) is emeritus professor of the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and has served as president, adjunct professor, and chair of the dissertation committee at University of the West since 1992.
Lancaster graduated from Roanoke College (B.A.) in 1954 and received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Roanoke in 2007. He is also a 1958 graduate of USC-ST (M.Th.) and a 1968 graduate of the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.). He received an honorary Doctorate of Buddhist Studies from Vietnam Buddhist University in 2011.
In 1971, Lancaster established the Group in Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as the Chair of the Group in Buddhist Studies and as the Editor of the Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series.
In the fall of 1977, Lancaster accompanied artist and monk Jung-kwang as they traveled through Korea, and published a book based on their trip. [1]
Lancaster has published over 55 articles and reviews and has edited or authored numerous books including Prajnaparamita and Related Systems, The Korean Buddhist Canon, Buddhist Scriptures, Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, and Assimilation of Buddhism in Korea. He also founded the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative to use the computer-based technology to map the spread of Buddhism from the remote past to the present.
In 2008 Lancaster gave the Burke Lectureship on Religion & Society. [2]
Lancaster is the research adviser for the Buddha's Birthday Education Project, which has documented and hosted art exhibitions of the celebration of the Buddha's birthday in Chinese Buddhism throughout history. [3]
Lancaster was a key figure in the creation of descriptive catalogue and digitization of the Korean Buddhist Canon. [4] He was awarded the 2014 Grand Award from the Korean Buddhist Order for his contribution to Buddhism.
External Links
Reference List
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
Vesak, also known as Buddha Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, and Buddha Day, is a holiday traditionally observed by Buddhists in South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as Tibet and Mongolia. It is among the most important Buddhist festivals. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment (Nibbāna), and death (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha in Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism and Navayana.
Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which draws on the Chinese Buddhist canon that includes the andigonous cultural traditions of Confucianism and Taoism and the rituals of local colloquialised folk religions. Chinese Buddhism focuses on studying Mahayana sutras and Mahāyāna treatises and draws its main doctrines from these sources. Some of the most important scriptures in Chinese Buddhism include: Lotus Sutra, Flower Ornament Sutra, Vimalakirtī Sutra, Nirvana Sutra, and Amitābha Sutra. Chinese Buddhism is the largest institutionalized religion in mainland China. Currently, there are an estimated 185 to 250 million Chinese Buddhists in the People's Republic of China. It is also a major religion in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as among the Chinese Diaspora.
Jinul Puril Bojo Daesa, often called Jinul or Chinul for short, was a Korean monk of the Goryeo period, who is considered to be the most influential figure in the formation of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism. He is credited as the founder of the Jogye Order, by working to unify the disparate sects in Korean Buddhism into a cohesive organization.
Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai Temple is a mountain monastery in the northern Puente Hills, Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles County, California. The name Hsi Lai means "coming west".
The Chinese Buddhist canon refers to a specific collection of Chinese language Buddhist literature that is deemed canonical in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese Buddhism. The traditional term for the canon is "Great Storage of Scriptures". The concept of the Chinese Buddhist canon was influenced by the Indian Buddhist concept of a Tripitaka, literally meaning 'three baskets' - sutras, Vinaya, and Abhidharma. However, Chinese Buddhists historically did not have access to a Tripitaka of Indian Buddhist texts. Rather, individual texts were brought to China individually or in small batches and translated one-by-one. This led to the creation of a distinct Chinese Buddhist canon.
Mahāyāna Buddhism entered Han China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE. The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE via the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory bordering the Tarim Basin under Kanishka. These contacts transmitted strands of Sarvastivadan and Tamrashatiya Buddhism throughout the Eastern world.
Walpola Rahula Thero was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, scholar and writer. In 1964, he became the Professor of History and Religions at Northwestern University, thus becoming the first bhikkhu to hold a professorial chair in the Western world. He also once held the position of Vice-Chancellor at the then Vidyodaya University. He has written extensively about Buddhism in English, French and Sinhala. He wrote the book What the Buddha Taught about Theravada Buddhism.
Buddha's Birthday or Buddha Day is a primarily Buddhist festival that is celebrated in most of South, Southeast and East Asia, commemorating the birth of the prince Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Gautama Buddha and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition and archaeologists, Gautama Buddha, c. 563-483 BCE, was born at Lumbini in Nepal. Buddha's mother was Queen Maya Devi, who delivered the Buddha while undertaking a journey to her native home, and his father was King Śuddhodana. The Mayadevi Temple, its gardens, and an Ashoka Pillar dating from 249 BCE mark the Buddha's birth place at Lumbini.
Hsuan Hua, also known as An Tzu, Tu Lun and Master Hua by his Western disciples, was a Chinese monk of Chan Buddhism and a contributing figure in bringing Chinese Buddhism to the United States in the late 20th century.
Buddhism and Jainism are two Indian religions that developed in Magadha (Bihar) and continue to thrive in the modern age. Gautam Buddha and Mahavira are generally accepted as contemporaries. Jainism and Buddhism share many features, terminology and ethical principles, but emphasize them differently. Both are śramaṇa ascetic traditions that believe it is possible to attain liberation from the cycle of rebirths and deaths (samsara) through spiritual and ethical disciplines. They differ in some core doctrines such as those on asceticism, Middle Way versus Anekantavada, and self versus non-self.
University of the West (UWest) is a private Buddhist university in Rosemead, California. It was founded in 1990 by Hsing Yun, founder of the Taiwan-based Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan and Hsi Lai Temple, the North American order headquarters. The school offered its first class in spring of 1991.
Richard Francis Gombrich is a British Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli, and Buddhist studies. He was the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1976 to 2004. He is currently Founder-President of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. He is a past president of the Pali Text Society (1994–2002) and general editor emeritus of the Clay Sanskrit Library.
Tipiṭaka or Tripiṭaka, meaning "Triple Basket", is the traditional term for ancient collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures. The Tripiṭaka is composed of three main categories of texts that collectively constitute the Buddhist canon: the Vinaya Piṭaka, the Sutta Piṭaka, and the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.
A bhikkhunī or bhikṣuṇī is a Buddhist nun, fully ordained female in Buddhist monasticism. Bhikkhunis live by the Vinaya, a set of either 311 Theravada, 348 Dharmaguptaka, or 364 Mulasarvastivada school rules. Until recently, the lineages of female monastics only remained in Mahayana Buddhism and thus were prevalent in countries such as China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam, while a few women have taken the full monastic vows in the Theravada and Vajrayana schools. The official lineage of Tibetan Buddhist bhikkhunis recommenced on 23 June 2022 in Bhutan when 144 nuns, most of them Butanese, were fully ordained.
Bodagama Chandima Thero is a Buddhist monk. As of 2015 he taught Theravada Buddhism in Taiwan. With a group of Taiwanese Buddhists, he founded the Theravada Samadhi Education Association in Taipei.
Robert Evans Buswell Jr. is an American academic, author and scholar of Korean Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism as well as Korean religions in general. He is Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and founding director of the Academy of Buddhist Studies at Dongguk University, Korea's main Buddhist university.
Gandhāran Buddhism refers to the Buddhist culture of ancient Gandhāra which was a major center of Buddhism in the northwestern Indian subcontinent from the 3rd century BCE to approximately 1200 CE. Ancient Gandhāra corresponds to modern day north Pakistan, mainly the Peshawar valley and Potohar plateau as well as Afghanistan's Jalalabad. The region has yielded the Gandhāran Buddhist texts written in Gāndhārī Prakrit the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered. Gandhāra was also home to a unique Buddhist artistic and architectural culture which blended elements from Indian, Hellenistic, Roman and Parthian art. Buddhist Gandhāra was also influential as the gateway through which Buddhism spread to Central Asia and China.
Dānapāla or Shihu was an Indian Buddhist monk and prolific translator of Sanskrit Buddhist sutras during the Song dynasty in China.
Jung-kwang or Junggwang was a Korean monk, who became an artist known for his bizarre paintings and eccentric life style. He was born with the name Go Chang-ryul, and used that name until he became a monk at age 25. Because of his behavior, he was expelled from his monastic order in 1979.
The Āgama Section is a division of the Taishō Tripiṭaka that contains sūtras related to the Āgamas, roughly corresponding to the texts of the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon. It corresponds to the first two volumes of the Taishō Tripiṭaka and corresponds to text numbers 1–151. Notable collections within this section include the Dīrghāgama, Madhyamāgama, Saṃyuktāgama, and the Ekottarāgama, while the section also includes individual sūtras that were translated separately from these collections, but which contain parallels therein, such as the Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra.
