ZEN BUDDHISM: A HISTORY (JAPAN)

In 1988 and 1990, when his Zen Buddhism: A History, vols. 1 and 2 were published in English translation, Father Heinrich Dumoulin, S. J. was described on the back cover as "one of the world’s foremost Zen scholars." The fact that he was a Catholic priest reµected well on both him and his subject matter: here was a man who did not let his own Catholic faith prevent him from seeing the authentic spirituality of another religious tradition; here was a religious tradition whose authentic spirituality was evident even to people who were not its followers. Most of his publications were in the German language, but his publications in English included, A History of Zen Buddhism (1963), Zen Enlightenment (1979), and, with Ruth Fuller Sasaki, The Development of Chinese Zen (1953) as well as the entries for "Dogen" and "Kamo Mabuchi" in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1969), "Zen" in Encyclopedia of Japan (1983), and "Ch’an" and "Zen" in the The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987). His extensively revised two-volume, Zen Buddhism: A History, was his last, longest and most ambitious work. Yet even as it was being published, the scholarly tide was turning. His several books had helped promote a certain vision of Ch’an/Zen and in the years following the publication of his last book, this vision of Zen Buddhism came under critical attack from many sides. -Victor Hori