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REFERENCE WORKS FOR CHAN RESEARCH

A Selective Annotated Survey by Urs APP

This annotated bibliography was first published in the Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie No. 7 (1993-1994), pp. 357-409. No new additions of printed materials have been made since 1994. However, the notes were slightly edited, and some links were added for this network version.
The parts of the original bibliography that dealt with electronic materials have been set up as a separate unit; as I pointed out in the original article, electronic materials do not fit so nicely into the categories of printed matter. For example, properly structured and tagged electronic text can function as its own "reference work," and "reference work" entries can be linked to text files.
  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES
  3. DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS
  4. INDICES AND CONCORDANCES
  5. ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

I. INTRODUCTION

Ten years ago, in 1982, I wrote a first draft of a bibliography of reference works for Chan research. That list made the round among some friends and colleagues, and the echo proved that it corresponded to a real need. While participating in the study meetings led by Prof. Yanagida Seizan and Prof. Iriya Yoshitaka at Kyoto University's Jinbun kagaku kenkyûjo and at the Zenbunka Institute, I studied the reference materials that were used by the participating researchers, and my list quickly grew to su ch an extent that selection and annotation became essential. In 1987, the portion of that bibliography which dealt with works by Mujaku Dôchû was published in an article about that patron saint of Chan research ("Chan/Zen's Greatest Encyclopaedist Mujaku Dôchû ñ„íòì¼íâ [1653-1744]", Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 3, 1987, pp. 155-174). Some of the bibliographical information of that article is included in section III of the present, less specialized bibliography.

As the title indicates, this bibliography has a rather narrow focus on Chan research. Thus Son and Zen research tools are not specifically targeted; that task is left for specialists of those fields, as is the listing and assessment of Korean works of reference. However, since anyone doing research in Son or Zen will need at least some of the works listed and described here, the present list should be of some use to a rather broad spectrum of students and scholars.

Since this is a selective list, it goes without saying that no claim is made for completeness. One of the achievements of post-war Chan research spearheaded by Profs. Yanagida and Iriya is the realization that, despite the pressure of a living tradition that has long resisted such attempts, Chan texts (and of course also rituals etc.) must also be studied in their specific historical, cultural, religious, and linguistic context. Thus many works belonging to general sinology, Chinese Buddhism, Dunhuang studi es, linguistics, etc. are important for Chan research. Each of these domains is rich in reference works that are not covered here. In particular, there are many Buddhist dictionaries and other reference works that all researchers of Chinese Buddhism, including Chan researchers, use. Such indispensable reference works are not included here.

Researchers invariably classify works of reference by location: frequently used ones are found on or around the working table, less frequently used ones on a bookshelf not too far away, and seldom used ones possibly at a university library or research institute. The length of the discussion (or its absence) in this list is not indicative of a work's quality. I'd like to thank all readers of draft versions of this survey; but my special thanks go to Michel Mohr and Kenji Kinugawa who made a number of corrections and valuable suggestions.

Electronic Materials as "Reference Works"

With electronic text, the very categories of "primary source" and "reference work" or "research tool" become blurred. For example, with only minimal tagging (page and line breaks), electronic text can easily be given the form of a concordance. Therefore it is both "primary source" and "reference work." Though the electronic sphere is presently in a phase of rapid growth and nobody is yet able to grasp its full potential (nor its pitfalls and limits), it is already clear that the digital medium will in the n ear future become the primary source and method of reference.

Author:Urs APP
Last updated: 4/22/95