• 2021-11-27: SAT has released Digital 法寶義林 (Hôbôgirin) in collaboration with Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres).
• 2021-11-18: SAT has released SAT IIIF Image Server providing digital facsimiles of East Asian and Buddhist resources compliant with IIIF.
• 2021-09-27: SAT has released Database for Sanskrit manuscripts in the UT Library. More information (in Japanese).
• 2021-07-13: SAT Taishōzō Image DB has been updated with 20,800 annotations to the icons and a newly developed plugin for Mirador version3.
• 2020-03-10: 329 characters used in Taishō have been encoded in Unicode 13.0
• SAT DB 2018 has been released. (30 Mar 2018)
• Over 2800 unencoded Han characters in Taisho Tripitaka have been encoded in Unicode 10.0 by proposal of the SAT project. See the list of the characters.
  The detailed explanation is here (PDF in Japanese).

SAT Daizōkyō Text Database 2012 Edition (SAT 2012)

The 2012 edition of the SAT Daizōkyō text database (SAT 2012) aims at enhancing the usability of the online Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō. It reflects the results of our latest research regarding the methods of accurate gathering and confirmation of academic information. This is based on four main principles: (1) assuring the reliability of textual sources; (2) construction of a sustainable collaboration system for researchers; (3) achievement of cooperation between research projects while respecting individual independence, and (4) offering an interface that can apply these various functions in an integrated manner. As is explained below, it is at present a cutting-edge example of the kind of digital approach to research that is advancing rapidly around the world. The value of this work has been well-acknowledged at the various academic symposia where it has been presented, and it is buttressed by a high level of academic reliability. These efforts have been advanced based on the collective power of the various academic societies (both domestic and international), cooperation from public service corporations, domestic and foreign scholars, and graduate students, as listed in item #5 below.

(1) Assuring the reliability of textual sources

The Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō has been widely used in the field of Buddhist Studies as a basic canonical authority both in Japan and abroad. It has a form suitable for modern literary studies in its maintenance and presentation of "location information" — an indispensable basis for sharing the results of one's research; thus the digital form of the Daizōkyō has taken on the role of basis for the entire domain of Buddhist textual research. Securing this location information for the continuity and maintenance of the research when the medium is converted from paper to digital is in itself an important issue. The SAT database is constructed in such as way as to allow access to the location information in the book and the location information in a digital medium in a confirmable manner.

An especially important new addition in SAT 2012 is the making available of the image of the original pages with the ability to zoom in and out, so that one may confirm the words of the text in detail. For example if the reader accesses the below URL he or she can go to the pointed line location:

At present, using this function, to reflect the text of the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō more accurately, proofreading of the original texts is being continually carried out at present with the help of many young researchers. Various problems concerning the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō will be solved in the future, and a canonical source with high reliability or more that reflects study results of Buddhist Studies to up to present is planned to be offered through the digital medium. [Related presentations]

(2) Construction of a sustainable collaboration system for researchers

Not only in Buddhist Studies, but also in the humanities in general, the gathering of the cooperation of various information and research results in a single location to become the basis for conducting research is an extremely important concern. By collaboration through the Internet, in recent years this is rapidly becoming feasible — in various fields around the world research and practice are now developed based on this model. Making this zeitgeist its priority, SAT, through web collaboration, is aiming to construct the basic material of the Buddhist studies research in a collaborative manner through the digital medium. Presently, as part of this activity, we are also conducting the proofreading of the text of the Taishō Daizōkyō and the matching of parallel sentences in the English translations of the Taishō done by the Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai (BDK). This kind of system is theoretically extensible to the study of Buddhist canonical corpora as a whole as different portions of the Taishō canon can be compared to Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other versions of the canon. We intend to extend this practice in the near future.[Related presentations]

(3) Achievement of cooperation between research projects while respecting individual independence

Recently, various digitization projects are growing around the world in the fields of Indian, East Asian, and Buddhist Studies. Although from the user's perspective it is preferable to be able to have access to them in an integrated manner, each project has developed in its own distinct way through its own distinct history, and is usually stored in its own distinct format, with its own delivery system. And for funding purposes, as well as for future development, the maintenance of that distinct identity is of utmost importance. Thus, in order to use such various resources in an integrated manner, it is necessary to overcome various kinds of technical hurdles. SAT has now reached a certain level of success in achieving a format that allows the integrated usage of these resources while preserving their independent identity. Thus, in SAT 2012, readers have access to the lexical reference work, the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism along with the article databases of INBUDS, SARDS, CiNii, and the logographic information resources Chise, Chise Linkmap, HMS, and the Unihan database. We expect to expand the scope of this integrated functionality in the future. [Related presentations]

(4) Offering an interface that can apply these various resources in an integrated manner

SAT aims at the offering of an interface that can use the above-mentioned various functions integrated in a Web browser. SAT 2012 offers the separate functions of the main Taishō text view (and related footnotes), search and retrieval, and linking with other data in a convenient manner. Search options include enhanced functions of narrowed-down searches, and Keyword in Context (KWIC) display. For details, see the instructions for usage. [Related presentations]

(5) SAT 2012 Groups and persons collaborating in the development of SAT 2012

See here.

(6) Related presentations

The following is a list of presentations related to development of SAT 2012.

• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Seinaru shomotsu no kanata ni: Aratanaru bukkyō-shi e (*Beyond Sacred Scriptures: Toward the New Horizon of the History of Buddhism, in Japanese)," Gengo to shintai: Seinarumono no ba to baitai (*Language and Corpus: Topos and Medium of Sacredness), Iwanami kōza shūkyō (*Iwanami Series of Religion) Vol. 5, 25-52. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2004.
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "The State of Research on Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Mahāyāna as Seen in the Development in the Study of Mahāyāna Sūtras," Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture No. 96, edited by A. Saito, 1-23. Tokyo: Tōhō gakkai, 2009. .
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Baitai no tenkai tosite no bukkyōshi: Kyōten kenkyū to jinbungaku no ichi shōraizō (*History of Buddhism Seen from the Development of the Medium as an Example for the Humanities in the Future, in Japanese)," Shūkyōshi towa nanika (*What is the History of Religion?) edited by H. Ichikawa, K. Matsumura, and K. Watanabe, 451-476. Tokyo: LITHON, 2009.
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Some Reflections on the History of Buddhist Canons in Ancient India", Indian Philosophy and Text Science, edited by T. Wada, 33-57. Delhi: Motiral Banarsidass, 2010.
• Muller, A. Charles, Kōzaburō Hachimura, Shoichiro Hara, Toshinobu Ogiso, Mitsuru Aida, Koichi Yasuoka, Ryo Akama, Masahiro Shimoda, Tomoji Tabata, and Kiyonori Nagasaki, "The Origins and Current State of Digitization of Humanities in Japan," Digital Humanities 2010 (2010): 68-70.
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Kindai bukkyōgaku no keisei to tenkai (*Formation and Development of Modern Buddhist Studies, in Japanese)," Bukkyō no keisei to tenkai: Shin ajia bukkyōshi 02 (*Formation and Development of Indian Buddhism: A New History of Buddhism in Asia), India 2 edited by M. Shimoda et. al., 13-55. Tokyo: Kōsei Publishing, 2010.
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Kyōten (*Scriptures, in Japanese)," Shūkyōgaku jiten (*A Dictionary of Religious Studies), 22-25. Tokyo: Maruzen, 2010.
• Shimoda, Masahiro, "Kyōten kenkyū no tenkai kara mita Daijōbukkyō (*The Mahāyāna as Seen in the Development in the Study of Mahāyāna Sūtras, in Japanese)," Daijōbukkyō towa nanika: Shirīzu daijō bukkyō 1 (*What is Mahāyāna Buddhism?: Series Mahāyāna Buddhism 1, in Japanese), edited by M. Shimoda et.al., 39-71. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2011.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Daizōkyō no Rekishi to Genzai,(*History and current status of Daizōkyō, in Japanese)," Gendai Bukkyō no Kanōsei: Shin-Asia bukkyō-shi 15 (*Possibilities of Buddhism in the modern world: A New History of Buddhism in Asia), Japan 5, edited by Fumihiko Sueki et al., 15-33. Tokyo: Kōsei Publishing, 2011.
• Kyūma, Taiken, Izumi Miyazaki, and Tōru Tomabechi, "Hyper-Lamotte, Cyber-Frauwallner? Transmitting "traditional" methods of Buddhist Studies in the Web-sphere," (paper presented at the XVIth Congress of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 2011, Dharma Drum Buddhist College (Taiwan), June 25, 2011).
• Tomabechi, Tōru, "Buddhist Philology in the Age of Digital Humanities: Retro- and Prospect," (paper presented at the Osaka Symposium on Digital Humanities 2011, Osaka University (Osaka), September 13, 2011).
• Matsuda, Kuninori, Nobumi Iyanaga, and Kiyonori Nagasaki, "Digitizing the Hōbōgirin Following the Mark-up Guidelines of TEI: Potentialities and Problems," (paper presented at the Osaka Symposium on Digital Humanities 2011, Osaka University (Osaka), September 13, 2011).
• Iwasaki, Yōichi, Kiyonori Nagasaki, Masahiro Shimoda, and Hiroko Kume, "Multi-Device Delivery of Research Results: Case Study of Ningbo Project," (paper presented at the Culture and Computing 2011, Kyoto University (Kyoto), October 22, 2011).

• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "On a Database of Indian Buddhist Philosophy Based on Division by Syllables," IPSJ SIG Technical Report 2006-CH-71 (2006): 33-40.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Digital Archives of Indian Buddhist Philosophy Based on the Relationship between Content Objects," IPSJ SIG Technical Report 2007-CH-75 (2007): 31-38.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, and Masahiro Shimoda, "Towards an Appropriate Method of Description of Digitized Texts in theField of Eastern Classics," IPSJ Symposium series Vol. 2010 No. 15 (2010): 311-316.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, Tōru Tomabechi and Masahiro Shimoda "Toward a Digital Research Environment for Buddhist Studies," Digital Humanities 2011 (2011): 342-343.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "How to Treat Digital Media in the Field of Indian and Buddhist Studies," Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 60-2 (2012): 1111-1116.

• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, Takayasu Suzuki and Masahiro Shimoda, "The Development of a Collaboration System for the Text Database of the Taisho Tripitaka," IPSJ SIG Technical Report 2006-CH-70 (2006): 33-40.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Stake-holders related to the Digital Archives for the Humanities as Seen through the Digital Archives for the Buddhist Texts," IPSJ Symposium series Vol. 2007 No. 15 (2007): 347-354.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "A Collaboration System for the Philology of the Buddhist Study," Digital Humanities 2008 (2008): 262-263.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, Hiroyuki Shirasu, and Masahiro Shimoda "A Multilingual Parallel Corpus System for Daizōkyō," IPSJ Symposium series Vol. 2009 No. 16 (2009): 129-134.

• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Cycle of Contents of Digital Archives in the Humanities," Seminar on Applying Computers to Oriental Studies (2008): 115-125.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori and Masahiro Shimoda, "Towards an Appropriate Method of Description of Digitized Texts in theField of Eastern Classics," IPSJ Symposium series Vol. 2008 No. 15 (2008): 19-26.
• Muller, A. Charles, and Kiyonori Nagasaki, "The Present Status of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and its Potentials for Usage in Translation and Markup," (paper presented at the workshop on Early Chán Manuscripts among the Dūnhuáng Findings - Resources in the Mark-up and Digitization of Historical Texts, University of Oslo (Oslo), October 1, 2009).
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, A. Charles Muller, Masahiro Shimoda "Aspects of the Interoperability in the Digital Humanities," Digital Humanities 2009 (2009): 375-377.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Interoperation of Databases for Buddhist Studies," (paper presented at the XVIth Congress of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 2011, Dharma Drum Buddhist College (Taiwan), June 25, 2011).

• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, "Buddhist texts as Internet resources," Seminar on Applying Computers to Oriental Studies (2007): 125-134.
• Nagasaki, Kiyonori, Tōru Tomabechi, Dorji Wangchuk , Orna Almogi, and Masahiro Shimoda, "Collaboration in the Humanities --- Through the Case of Development of the ITLR Project ---," IPSJ Symposium series Vol. 2011 No. 8 (2011): 155-160.