The Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese: 大正新脩大藏經; pinyin: Dàzhèng Xīnxīu Dàzàngjīng; Japanese: Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō; lit. "Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka")[1] is a definitive edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon and its Japanese commentaries used by scholars in the 20th century. The Taishō Tripiṭaka project was initiated by the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Tokyo Imperial University.[2] It was edited by Takakusu Junjiro and others.
The name is abbreviated as "大正藏" in Chinese (Dàzhèngzàng) and Japanese (Taishōzō).
Contents
Volumes 1–85 are the literature, in which volumes 56–84 are Japanese Buddhist literature, written in Classical Chinese. Volumes 86–97 are Buddhism related drawings, includes drawings of many Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Volumes 98–100 are texts of different indexes of Buddhist texts known in Japan ca. 1930. The 100 volumes of literature contains 5,320 individual texts, classified as follows.
Siddhaṃ Script (esoteric script imported to Japan by Kūkai)
T85a
2732–2864
古逸部
Gǔyì bù
Koitsu-bu
Ancient
T85b
2865–2920
疑似部
Yísì bù
Giji-bu
Doubtful
T86–97
圖像部
Túxiàng bù
Zuzō-bu
Illustrations (exegesis of standard Buddhist imagery, with inserts)
T98–100
昭和法寶 總目錄
Zhāohé fǎbǎo zǒngmùlù
Shōwa Hōbō Sōmokuroku
Shōwa Treasures of the Faith (catalogs of scripture collections and canon editions)
Digitalization
The SAT Daizōkyō Text Database edition contains volumes 1–85. The Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) edition contains volumes 1–55 and 85. The Fomei edition (佛梅電子大藏經) contains texts in Classical Chinese other than Nichiren Buddhism.[3]
Volumes 56–84, although they were written in Classical Chinese, were composed by Japanese Buddhist scholars.
^Wilkinson, Greg (2016). "Taishō Canon: Devotion, Scholarship, and Nationalism in the Creation of the Modern Buddhist Canon in Japan". In Wu, Jiang; Chia, Lucille (eds.). Spreading Buddha's word in East Asia: the formation and transformation of the Chinese Buddhist canon. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 295.