大藏經研究會

This study focuses on the Yuan-dynasty official printed Buddhist Canon (hereafter abbreviated as the Yuan Official Canon) and aims to comprehensively elucidate, from both cultural-historical and scholarly perspectives, the position it occupies and the significance it holds within the broader corpus of Chinese Buddhist texts, including printed Buddhist canons. Furthermore, through the case study of the Yuan Official Canon, this project has sought to identify the problems inherent in conventional genealogical approaches to Buddhist Canon studies and to develop a new research framework.

In the final year of the project, a specialized bibliographical database dedicated to Buddhist canons was constructed. In addition, the results of the research were published in the form of a monograph entitled Studies on Song–Yuan Printed Buddhist Canons (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, March 31, 2026). Several surveys of the Yuan-period Puning Canon preserved at Sensō-ji were also conducted.

The central question of this project has been whether focusing on the Yuan Official Canon makes it possible to identify the distinctive characteristics of Yuan-dynasty Buddhist canons and to clarify their unique significance within the history of Chinese Buddhist canons. After the establishment of the first printed Buddhist canon during the Northern Song dynasty, various printed canons were subsequently produced under the Liao, Jin, and Southern Song dynasties. These have generally been classified into such categories as the “Northern lineage” and the “Southern lineage.” In contrast, one of the major findings of this study is that the Yuan Official Canon, based on a clearly articulated editorial policy, attempted to integratively inherit and synthesize characteristics from both the northern and southern traditions. In other words, the editorial principles underlying the Yuan Official Canon embodied, for the first time, a conscious effort to unify the two lineages that had previously developed in parallel across northern and southern Eastern Eurasia. To grasp this process in its entirety is, in effect, to clarify how the Buddhist Canon, as a state-sponsored cultural enterprise, was conceived and realized during the Yuan dynasty, the first reunified empire to emerge in Eastern Eurasia after a long period of political division.

According to the original plan, the project was scheduled to continue through FY2026. However, as the research progressed, it became clear that, although many issues remain for future investigation, a certain degree of resolution had already been achieved with regard to its central question. In the monograph Studies on Song–Yuan Printed Buddhist Canons (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, March 2026), which synthesizes the results of the applicant’s previous research on Buddhist canons, the author introduced two analytical perspectives necessary for opening new horizons in Buddhist Canon studies: “textual genealogy” and “historical genealogy.” The monograph further proposed integrating these two perspectives in order to grasp the phenomenon of the Buddhist Canon in a comprehensive and holistic manner.

Although this research framework was initially conceived through the study of the Yuan Official Canon, its effectiveness cannot be sufficiently verified if research remains limited to the relatively small number of extant copies of that canon. Accordingly, the Puning Canon, which was likewise produced during the Yuan dynasty and survives in relatively large numbers in Japan, constitutes an ideal subject for applying and testing this new research framework. In particular, the Puning Canon in Sensō-ji, which preserves nearly the full scale of the canon at the time of its completion, offers exceptionally valuable materials for this purpose. For these reasons, in order to move toward the next stage of research, the currently ongoing continuing project was terminated and replaced with a new research project.