Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
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Subject: Asian Studies
Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is the first comprehensive academic reference work devoted to the plurality of Buddhist traditions across Asia, offering readers a balanced and detailed treatment of this complex phenomenon in six thematically arranged volumes: literature and languages (I, publ. 2015), lives (II, publ. 2019), thought (III, forthcoming 2022), history (IV, forthcoming 2023), life and practice (V, forthcoming 2025), index and remaining issues (VI, forthcoming 2026).
Each volume contains substantial original essays by many of the world’s foremost scholars, essays which not only cover basic information and well-known issues but which also venture into areas as yet untouched by modern scholarship. An essential tool for anyone interested in Buddhism.
An online resource will provide easy access to the encyclopedia’s ever-growing corpus of information.
The online edition of volume 2 (Lives, publ. 2019) will be added in (mid-)2021, with further volumes following after their original publication in print.
Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is under the general editorial control of Jonathan Silk (Leiden University, editor-in-chief), Richard Bowring (University of Cambridge) and Vincent Eltschinger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris). In addition, each volume has a dedicated board of specialist editors.
More information: Brill.com
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Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is the first comprehensive academic reference work devoted to the plurality of Buddhist traditions across Asia, offering readers a balanced and detailed treatment of this complex phenomenon in six thematically arranged volumes: literature and languages (I, publ. 2015), lives (II, publ. 2019), thought (III, forthcoming 2022), history (IV, forthcoming 2023), life and practice (V, forthcoming 2025), index and remaining issues (VI, forthcoming 2026).
Each volume contains substantial original essays by many of the world’s foremost scholars, essays which not only cover basic information and well-known issues but which also venture into areas as yet untouched by modern scholarship. An essential tool for anyone interested in Buddhism.
An online resource will provide easy access to the encyclopedia’s ever-growing corpus of information.
The online edition of volume 2 (Lives, publ. 2019) will be added in (mid-)2021, with further volumes following after their original publication in print.
Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is under the general editorial control of Jonathan Silk (Leiden University, editor-in-chief), Richard Bowring (University of Cambridge) and Vincent Eltschinger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris). In addition, each volume has a dedicated board of specialist editors.
More information: Brill.com
Hachiman
(3,678 words)
The
kami Hachiman (八幡神) is one of the most popular Shinto deities in Japan today, with estimates that a third of the nation’s shrines are dedicated to his cult. Yet, in his incarnation as Great Bodhisattva (Hachiman Daibosatsu [八幡大菩薩 ]), the god has historically been a Shintō/Buddhist deity
par excellence. His cult has had an enormous capacity for incorporating and harmonizing a multiplicity of sometimes conflicting aspects: at various different times Hachiman can function as a god of war, a deity that brings peace to the nation by protecting the emperor’s rule, an oracular
kami given to…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Hakuin
(3,019 words)
Disliked by every one of a thousand buddhas, Despised by every one of a myriad demons, I crush those who practice silent illumination today, I slaughter those blind monks who still refuse to see the truth. This ugly, evil, aged, balding monk, Adding yet another layer of ugliness to ugliness (Meiwa 4, 1767). So wrote the Japanese Zen monk Hakuin Ekaku (白隠慧鶴; 1686–1769), two years before his death. It was brushed in a rough hand along the top of a witty self-portrait, one of about ten such portraits that he produced after reaching his 70s. He was a …
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Hanshan Deqing
(3,282 words)
A charismatic and ambitious monk, Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清; 1546–1623) was educated at the imperially sponsored Bao’en si (報恩寺) in Nanjing. However, his early rise to prominence was cut short by court infighting and ended, despite patronage from the Cisheng (慈聖) Empress Dowager Li (李; 1545–1614), with his 1595 exile to the military garrison in Leizhou (雷州) at the southern tip of Guangdong province where, having been officially stripped of his membership in the saṅgha, he was required to grow out his…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Haribhadra
(3,355 words)
Haribhadra (Tib. Seng ge bzang po; Chn. Shizixian [師子賢] is late, although the form itself is attested for another, earlier individual [Helibatuo (呵梨跋陀)], T. 2154 [LV] 526a27) is one of the most important Indian commentators and specialists of the Prajñāpāramitā literature, in particular of its scholastic offspring, the
Abhisamayālaṃkāra. His authority grew during the last centuries of Buddhist presence in India to become almost uncontested in Tibet. While he was not the first commentator of the Prajñāpāramitā literature, he amplified its exe…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Haribhaṭṭa
(1,325 words)
Haribhaṭṭa is an Indian Buddhist poet who, in succession of Āryaśūra, has written a further
Jātakamālā (Garland of narratives related to former births of the Buddha); up to now, no other works under his name are known to be extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan or Chinese. Since he praises the “teacher Śūra” (
ācāryaśūra) as a composer of
jātakas in the second introductory stanza of his
Jātakamālā (ed. & trans. Hahn, 2011, 3–5), he must have lived contemporary with or later than this author. Haribhaṭṭa’s upper limit is established by the fact that a series of six stanzas from the opening story (
Prabhāsaj…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Harivarman
(1,340 words)
Life There is no record of the author Harivarman in Indian sources. The only information we have comes from a brief biography (
Helibamo zhuan [訶梨跋摩傳]) written by Xuanchang (玄暢; 416–484) preserved in the
Chu sanzang ji ji (出三藏記集; T. 2145 [LV] 78b28–79b25) of Sengyou (僧祐; 445–518). According to Xuanchang, Harivarman was born 900 years after the Buddha’s
parinirvāṇa in a Brahmin family of Central India; in his childhood he studied the Veda and other Brahmanical texts, but later he was converted to Buddhism. He became a disciple of Kumāralāta of the Sarvāstivāda school and learned the
Jñānapra…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Harṣa
(2,395 words)
Harṣa (also known as Harṣavardhana, Harṣadeva, Śrīharṣa, Śīlāditya; c. 590–647 CE) is credited with the authorship of three major Sanskrit plays – the
Nāgānanda, the
Ratnāvalī, and the
Priyadarśikā – as well as a few minor works. He is also celebrated as an outstanding personality in the political history of India, the mighty king who ruled over the greater part of northern India for most of the first half of the 7th century. Compared with those of most early Indian kings, Harṣa’s reign is relatively well documented. The main sources for our knowledge of the period are: the
Harṣacarita (The…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Hayagrīva
(5,363 words)
Origins of Hayagrīva in South Asia It is generally agreed that the word Hayagrīva means “Horse-headed” or “Horse-necked,” deriving from the Sanskrit
haya (horse), and
grīva (head, neck). In the Indian context, it refers to both an
asura and a
deva featured in myth surrounding the revelation and transmission of ritual knowledge. The
Śānti Parva (the 12th book of the
Mahābhārata), presents Hayagrīva as a form of Viṣṇu who retrieves the Vedas, stolen and hidden underneath the ocean by the two demons Madhu and Kaitabha (Dutt, 1903, 572–576; Mbh. (cr. edn.) X…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online
Hevajratantra
(4,770 words)
The
Hevajratantra is the most important scripture of the
yoginītantra class. Shortly after its appearance around 900 ce in East India (Davidson, 2004, 41), it engendered – or promoted in a codified form – a widespread and influential cult of its eponymous deity and his retinue; its teachings became of such authority that there were hardly any esoteric Buddhist authors who could afford to ignore them. While the text continued the antinomian tradition set out in the
Guhyasamājatantra and the
Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālaśaṃvara, it also introduced a number of innovations – mo…
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Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online