Richard D. McBride II

10.18399/acta.2008.11.2.001

textual scholarship Korean Buddhism state of the field Korean Buddhism translation issues in Buddhist apocrypha translations current projects Korean Buddhism

Although scholars in the field are few, the prospects have never been greater for the translation into English of materials relating to Korean Buddhism. During the second half of the twentieth century, full translations of several principal texts appeared sporadically in a variety of intellectual contexts, but during the 1990s the Sourcebook of Korean Civilisation and the Sources of Korean Tradition collections made well translated excerpts from seminal Korean Buddhist texts widely accessible to students and non-specialists for the first time. The recently published Religions of Korea in Practice will allow Korean Buddhist materials to reach an even greater audience. In the spring of 2007 the long awaited first volume of the Collected Works of Wŏnhyo will be published and two more volumes are scheduled to appear in 2008. Renowned scholars of Siniric Buddhism are in the process of translating the Sajip, the basic curriculum of four texts studied in Korean Sŏn monasteries. Although Western scholars of Buddhism are making significant headway, because considerable difficulties remain, there is much room for interaction with Korean scholars of Buddhism and many kinds of Korean translations we would like to see.