RYŪICHI ABÉ
Reischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions
After completing an undergraduate degree in Economics at Keio University, Ryūichi Abé acquired a master’s degree from School of Advanced International Affairs, the Johns Hopkins University. He then turned to Religious Studies and was awarded an M. Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Abé’s research interests center around Buddhism and visual culture, Buddhism and literature, Buddhist theory of language, history of Japanese esoteric Buddhism, Shinto-Buddhist interaction, and Buddhism and gender. He has been teaching wide-ranging graduate and undergraduate courses on East Asian religions and premodern and early modern Japanese religions.
His publications include Great Fool–Zen Master Ryōkan (University of Hawaii Press); The Weaving of Mantra–Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse (Columbia University Press); Hyōden Ryōkan - Wakehedate no nai yo wo hiraku kotsujikisō (Ryōkan, A Biography: the beggar monk who created a world without divisiveness) (Mineruva Shobō); “Word” (in Donald Lopez ed., Critical Terms in Buddhist Studies) (University of Chicago Press); “Revisiting the Dragon Princess: her role in medieval origin stories and its implications in reading the Lotus Sutra” (Japanese Journal of Religious Studies); "Women and the Heike nōkyō: The Dragon Princess, the Jewel and the Buddha" (Impressions, The Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America); “The first royal abhiṣeka in Japan,” in Fabio Rambelli and Or Porath eds., The Rituals of Consecration and Initiation in Premodern Japan: Power, Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion and the Arts (De Gruyter); “Waters, Mountains, and Dharmakāya – Kūkai’s irrigation project,” in Jeffery Moser and Jason Protass eds., Countless Sands: Medieval Buddhists and Their Environments (University of Hawai’i Press); and “Genjō yaku Hannya shingyō no tokuchō – chūsei no jingi shinkō wo itoguchi to shite (The major traits of the Heart Sutra translated by Xuanzang – an approach from the medieval Japanese kami worship),” in Sakuma Hidenori, Chikamoto Kensuke, and Motoi Makiko eds., Genjō sanzō – arata naru Genjōzō wo motomete (The Tripitaka Master Xuanzang – searching for new dimensions of Xuanzang), (Bensei Shuppan).