Top/shimoda

Masahiro Shimoda

Professor, Indian Philosophy and Buddhist Studies

Prof. Shimoda specializes in the history of Buddhism, and especially the history of the formation of the Buddhist canon formation, with the aim of clarifying the process of the production and transmission of the sutras and vinayas from ancient Indian Buddhism. The center of his concerns are especially on the process by which early Indian Buddhism developed into Mahāyāna Buddhism, which he attempts to clarify from the viewpoints of social and intellectual history. Recently he has been paying special attention to the problems raised when the process of the development of the Buddhist canon is examined from the perspective of modern and western methodologies. These he compares to the traditional treatments of the canon.

Since the late 1990's, Prof. Shimoda has been deeply involved with the process of digitizing the Taishō Buddhist canon, and making its texts available as a research platform that is used by researchers of Buddhism around the world. His work in this project has led him to become deeply involved in the field of Digital Humanities. He is the first president of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, and has been endeavoring to help develop the field of DH both at the University of Tokyo, and broadly throughout Japan.

Link to page in web pages of UTokyo Faculty of Letters, including full CV and list of publications