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NEWS | EASTERN HORIZON 51

dictionary. It offers a user-friendly interface with search Dr. Muller described Fo Guang Shan’s involvement in creating
capabilities and hyperlinked entries. The full dictionary, digital tools for Buddhism over several decades, beginning with
spanning 32,000 entries, is scheduled for digital release in July digitizing the Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism in the 1990s and
2025, with a printed edition following in July 2026.” hosting the Electronic Buddhist Texts Initiative summit in 1996,
and expressed optimism about the decades-long compilation
In her introduction to the launch event, Ven. Miao Guang of the Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism and its decade-long
extended an invitation to potential contributors and translation. “Once [the English-language FGDB] is fully online,
collaborators to join the project. “Your input will be it will be substantially used, and we can have confidence in the
instrumental in ensuring the accuracy, usability, and overall fact that we are gaining accurate and substantial information,”
quality of the final product,” she noted. he remarked.

Dr. Wu, co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist

Culture, drawing from studies on the data used in Buddhist
studies, emphasized the primacy of the Fo Guang Dictionary
of Buddhism as a comprehensive and well-rounded source:
“The FGDB is very comprehensive and non-sectarian. It is
very balanced in time and space—it covers doctrinal topics,
Buddhist organizations, monasteries, people, arts, and more.”

FGDB English Translation Project Editor Ven. Zhi Yue gave
Dr. Lewis R. Lancaster, Executive Academic Advisor of the
FGDB English Translation Project. Image courtesy of the Fo a demonstration of the new dictionary’s online interface,
Guang Shan Institute of Humanistic Buddhism highlighting important features such as linked headwords
and scholarly references: “The FGDB never has standalone
Dr. Lancaster traced the history of the Fo Guang Dictionary
entries,” she said. “Everything is connected to everything else.”
of Buddhism, from Fo Guang Shan founder Master Hsing
Yun’s earliest conceptions of the project to its present-day
Ven. Zhi Yue concluded her demonstration by extending an
achievements: “Ven. Master Hsing Yun has accomplished
open invitation to Buddhist scholars and potential contributors
what no other Chinese leader had imagined. He made a global
to help bring the translation project to completion.
movement and reformed Chinese Buddhism.”
Source: www.Buddhistdoor.net EH

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