![“Once [the FGDB] is fully online, it will be substantially used, and we can have confidence in the fact that we are gaining accurate and substantial information,” said Dr. Muller.](/export/sites/fgsihb/news-event/images/news/20240801_5.png_1788226112.png "“Once [the FGDB] is fully online, it will be substantially used, and we can have confidence in the fact that we are gaining accurate and substantial information,” said Dr. Muller.")
The Fo Guang Shan Institute of Humanistic Buddhism convened five eminent Buddhist studies scholars and nearly 200 participants in an online panel to unveil the English BETA version of the Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism (FGDB) on July 30, 2024.
The FGDB’s BETA version includes 5,000 headwords, or approximately 15% of the total dictionary, on a web interface that allows for ease in searching and hyperlinking. The full dictionary, spanning 32,000 entries, is scheduled for digital release in July 2025 and its printed edition in July 2026.
The two-hour panel featured remarks and presentations from Dr. Lewis Lancaster, Emeritus Professor of the Department of East Asian Languages at UC Berkeley and Executive Academic Advisor of the FGDB English Translation Project; Dr. Robert Buswell, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies at UCLA with experience in compiling two Buddhist encyclopedic dictionaries; Dr. Charles Muller, Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo and creator of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism; Dr. Jiang Wu, Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona; and Dr. Marcus Bingenheimer, Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University.
FGDB English Translation Project Director Ven. Miao Guang led by highlighting the dictionary’s significance as an indispensable reference in Buddhist studies for over three decades.
“The Fo Guang Dictionary has been a cornerstone in the study and understanding of Buddhist terminology and concepts in the Chinese-speaking world since its first publication in 1988,” said Ven. Miao Guang. “The English version of the Fo Guang Dictionary is not just a translation; it is a bridge that connects the rich heritage of Chinese Buddhist literature with the global community.”
In her introduction, Ven. Miao Guang also extended an invitation to potential contributors and collaborators who may be interested in joining the project and welcomed feedback from the audience.
“Your input will be instrumental in ensuring the accuracy, usability, and overall quality of the final product,” said Ven. Miao Guang.
Dr. Lancaster followed her introduction by tracing the history of the FGDB, from Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s earliest conceptions of the project to its present-day achievements.
“Venerable Master Hsing Yun has accomplished what no other Chinese leader had imagined,” said Dr. Lancaster. “He made a global movement and reformed Chinese Buddhism.”
Underscoring the importance of an English edition, Dr. Lancaster noted the centrality of English in international communication, attributing this in part to the language’s openness to loanwords and neologisms.
Dr. Buswell, an experienced compiler of Buddhist dictionaries and encyclopedias, outlined the methods involved in making a dictionary. These include hierarchical dictionaries brainstormed and written by a small editorial team, crowdsourced dictionaries that rely on user-input, and the dictionaries of the future, which will be extracted from large datasets. Using a threefold concept of “known knowns,” “known unknowns,” and “unknown unknowns,” Dr. Buswell described dictionary-making as a progression towards expanding the field of existent knowledge.
Continuing on dictionary-building, Dr. Muller traced Fo Guang Shan’s involvement in creating digital tools for Buddhism over the decades, beginning with digitizing the Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism in the 1990s and hosting the Electronic Buddhist Texts Initiative summit in 1996. Dr. Muller shared optimism regarding the dictionary in its decades-long compilation and now decade-long translation.
“Once [the FGDB] is fully online, it will be substantially used, and we can have confidence in the fact that we are gaining accurate and substantial information,” said Dr. Muller.
Dr. Wu, co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture, discussed Buddhist reference materials from the perspective of information and data analysis. Drawing from studies on the data used in Buddhist studies, Dr. Wu emphasized the primacy of the FGDB as a comprehensive and well-rounded source.
“The FGDB is very comprehensive and non-sectarian,” said Dr. Wu. “It is very balanced in time and space—it covers doctrinal topics, Buddhist organizations, monasteries, people, arts, and more.”
To close the panel, Dr. Bingenheimer looked towards the future of translation, positing that continual improvement in large language models will lead to easily accessible translations of Buddhist texts.
“We are moving into the next generation in which all texts can be translated on the fly with reasonable accuracy,” said Dr. Bingenheimer.
In this digitally dominated future, Dr. Bingenheimer warned of a trend towards skill loss, in which mastery of classical languages is replaced by overreliance on technological aids. He proposed plans for translations of the future as being projects of evaluating, accrediting, and platforming machine-generated translations, with human editors and institutions vetting each translation as opposed to doing the work personally.
Following the panel, FGDB English Translation Project Editor Ven. Zhi Yue demoed the BETA version’s online interface and provided a temporary account to attendees. She highlighted additional features in the English digital edition such as linked headwords and scholarly references.
“The FGDB never has standalone entries,” said Ven. Zhi Yue. “Everything is connected to everything else.”
At the end of the demo, Ven. Zhi Yue renewed a call to potential contributors and collaborators to bring the translation project to completion. First conceived in 2014, the translation project has convened over a hundred volunteers to date. The ambitious project aims to translate the monumental Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism, first published in 1989 through Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s vision of creating a reference source to help Buddhists to read canonical texts. Since its initial publication, this colossal text has been one of the most widely utilized Buddhist reference sources in Chinese.
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