Lancaster, L.

Lewis Lancaster

Lewis Lancaster (born 27 October 1932) is Emeritus Professor of the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and has served as President, Adjunct Professor, and Chair of the dissertation committee at University of the West since 1992. He graduated from Roanoke College (B.A.) in 1954 and received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Roanoke in 2007. He is also a 1958 graduate of USC-ST (M.Th.) and a 1968 graduate of the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.). He received an Honorary Doctorate of Buddhist Studies from Vietnam Buddhist University in 2011.

Professor Lancaster has published over 55 articles and reviews and has edited or authored numerous books including Prajñāpāramitā and Related Systems, The Korean Buddhist Canon, Buddhist Scriptures, Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, and Assimilation of Buddhism in Korea. He also founded the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative to use the computer-based technology to map the spread of Buddhism from the remote past to the present. In 2008 he gave the Burke Lectureship on Religion & Society. Professor Lancaster is the research advisor for the Buddha's Birthday Education Project. He was the Chair of Buddhist Studies at UC, Berkeley, USA and Editor of the Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series. . . .

Professor Lancaster was a key figure in the creation of descriptive catalogue and digitization of the Korean Buddhist Canon. He was awarded the 2014 Grand Award from the Korean Buddhist Order for his contribution to Buddhism. (Source Accessed March 23, 2020)

Library Items

Book

Early Ch'an in China and Tibet

Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism was popularized in the West by writers such as D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts as a kind of 'romantic abstraction' outside of history. The papers in this volume, originally presented at a unique conference sponsored by U.C. Berkeley and the San Francisco Zen Center, go a long way

towards revealing the complex historical development of Ch'an theory and practice both in China and Tibet.
      The papers on China reveal Ch' an not as a single line of transmission from Bodhidharma, but as a complex of contending and even hostile factions. Furthermore, the view which sees Ch'an as the sinicization of Buddhism through Taoism is questioned through an examination of the Taoism that was actually prevalent during the establishment of Ch' an in China.
      The papers on Tibet take us to the heart of the controversies surrounding the origins of Buddhism in that country, based on exciting research into the Tunhuang materials, the indigenous rDzogs-chen system, and the 'Sudden vs. Gradual Enlightenment' controversy.
      Of particular note in this volume is the inclusion of several translations of papers by noted Japanese scholars who have led the way in this type of research,

made available to the Western reader for the first time. (Source: inside jacket)

Lai, Whalen, and Lewis R. Lancaster, eds. Early Ch’an in China and Tibet. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 5. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1983.

Lai, Whalen, and Lewis R. Lancaster, eds. Early Ch’an in China and Tibet. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 5. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1983.;Early Ch'an in China and Tibet;Zen - Chan;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Indian Buddhism;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism;Early Ch'an in China and Tibet

Affiliations & relations

University of California, Berkeley · workplace affiliation
University of the West · secondary affiliation
City University of Hong Kong · secondary affiliation