Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia

Buddhism is a religion or philosophy based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha

The Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia was developed for self-education in Chinese Buddhism and Buddhism overall. Initially, the Encyclopedia's environment will be in two languages - Chinese Mandarin and English, the two most spoken languages of our world, and will provide a platform for international cooperation between academics, monastics and lay Buddhists.

The author and main organizer of Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia is Vello Vaartnou. He developed the concept for the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia (CBE) for many years before beginning the web page. The CBE project was officially started in December, 2012, when Vaartnou presented the idea of a Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia to the ECAI conference at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

The purposes of the CBE are to:

• provide all with Internet access a comprehensive collection of Buddhist literature
• gather all available existing digitized materials, review them, categorize them and post them online
• collaborate globally with relevant universities, monasteries, institutions, libraries, museums and individuals
• digitize materials that are currently in written form only
• preserve traditional forms of Buddhist learning and culture
• use the advantages of modern and future technology to develop different forms of Buddhist education
• create a international team of specialists interested in those topics, who will collaborate in person and online

Although the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia emphasizes different forms of Chinese Buddhism, it does not exclude any traditions, views or materials, which are not directly related to China. An academic approach will provide the opportunity to handle the materials and information scientifically, making them easily accessible for modern people, and creating the opportunity for future generations to continue building on the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia platform. Each published article will have an academic prologue. In case of traditional Buddhist texts, Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, and Mongolian terminology will be used. The meanings of the terminology will be explained in Chinese and English.

A key function for the CBE is cultural preservation. In these rapidly changing times, where computers and the internet pose a great threat to traditional forms of Buddhist learning, it is necessary to gather all available materials, translate them and digitize them. It is also important to the founders that well-educated, senior Buddhist monastics to be involved in the project. They will help ensure the Buddhist view and essence of the materials presented will not lose their religious value, and that published materials will not insult anyone’s religious beliefs or values. Followers of different traditions are also to be included, so that representatives of different traditions can express their views as well. Naturally, the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia project also has a strong interest in using available technologies to put various individuals and organizations across the globe in touch with one another, to digitize all forms of Buddhist teachings. According to the Buddhist practice in some traditions, there are texts that should never be published. The committee of the project should be aware of such conditions and never breach them. It is important for the Encyclopedia team to stay independent from any personal, political, or religious views. The working collective for the encyclopedia will have the same condition; they are to work independently of any personal or third party opinions.

Join Us

Translators - our everyday work and communications are multi lingual, especially in terms of Chinese and English. We are seeking for more people whose mother tongue would be English or Chinese and could help us with proofreading and translating letters and text materials.

We also need to translate and develop the idea of Buddhist Encyclopedia in different languages, therefore we welcome all people who are interested to be involved and master any other languages besides Mandarin and English.

Editors - the work that we have to do is enormous. We are looking for more English or Chinese speaking editors. Currently, the role of an editor is to search and post more articles. Usually every editor has his/her own research subject.

Advisers - we are seeking for more highly educated Buddhist disciples, academics, scholars or any other individuals ororganizations, who can contribute to the development of the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia.

Organizations - universities, schools, temples, monasteries, government departments, libraries, archives, museums, etc. are all welcome to propose any useful forms of cooperation

Sponsors - we need additional funds to increase the staff, buy equipment, books and conduct the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia project. You DONATIONS are most welcome.

For any request of information, please contact us on info (at)chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com

Donations

The Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia is a self funded activity with no official sponsors. Financial support is needed for hiring more staff, equipment and activities. We also accept donations like books, art and other materials, which can benefit the development of the Encyclopedia. All support is much appreciated. Still being in a early stage of development, the Encyclopedia project has a long vision. A thousand miles journey starts with a single step. For those who can afford and want to support, please MAKE A DONATION

The overall Encyclopaedia project can be divided into 3 major activates

1.Collecting and editing all useful and qualified materials, which have already been digitised and are available

There is huge amount of materials available in the internet about various aspects of Buddhism. This is great opportunity, but also a great threat as everyone can add comments and write, so the true treasures get lost in the pile of opinions and low-quality works.

So the first level of development for the project is to collect all available digitised materials, sort out the good materials, copy them and edit them to our Encyclopedia (with references to original sources). This will be done by team of editors.

We will ask permission to copy articles from the authors.

This is a lifelong work, as there are more and more small and medium sized Buddhist organizations and individuals who post very useful materials in the internet.

The work of copying and editing will be done by team of hired editors and volunteers. Every editor will have a determined topic and sources of materials.

The editors will be supervised by educated scholars, monks and academics, who will do quality control and strategic planning.

2.Translating texts (sutras, tantras, commentaries, chronicles, etc.) to English and Chinese

There is great need to translate ancient Buddhist text and materials into modern languages. And it has to be done NOW!!!!!!!!, while there is still few educated Buddhists left, who understand the ancient Buddhist language and thought forms, and more importantly, are able to assist in translating large volumes. If translations are done without proper supervision, it can be damaging.

The problem modern young people have with Buddhism is that the language and symbols in linguistics are changing very fast and it is very difficult for young people to penetrate the meaning and idea of the words of the ancients. Therefore, it is vital and necessary to translate such materials into modern language without losing any or much of the original meaning. This truly is a task that requires skilful means, great wisdom and harmonious team work between many different people.

For us to reach the stage of starting translating ourselves might take a few years, but we have already started co-operation with several Buddhist translating organisations to publish their translations.

3. Using and developing IT & software usage for/in Buddhist studies

The potential of IT, computers and internet goes beyond our imagination. We are living in the age of Information Technology. Buddhist MUST start implementing all available hard- and software solutions to develop Buddha teachings according to tools and technology available in the 21th century.

Buddhist texts used to be carved on Bamboo’. It was revolution to start using paper and later print. This change took hundreds of years’ time to happen.

IT was developed only few decades ago and it is developing with explosive speed.

So the Stage 3 of the project is to use all IT and software solutions available. For example:

• We will collect and post all movie and documentaries about Buddhism on our website
• We will create an online Buddhist Photo Gallery, where people can view thousands of photos about Buddhism in structured and simple form.
• We have already been contacted by Buddhist computer game developers. It is very useful to collect and promote Buddhist computer games. And more importantly develop new ones. This is a skilful mean to approach young people to get interested in Buddhism

We are open to all new technological solutions, which can be implemented for the use of developing and spreading Buddhism in modern times.

The author and main organizer of Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia is Vello Vaartnou. He developed the concept for the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia (CBE) for many years before the actual work started web page. The CBE project was officially started in December, 2012, when Vaartnou presented the idea of a Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia on ECAI conference at University of California, Berkeley, USA.