Takakusu Junjirō

Early life

Takakusu was born in Yahata in Hiroshima Prefecture, adopted by the Takakusu family of Kobe, and sent to England to study Sanskrit at Oxford University (1890). After receiving his doctorate, he continued his studies in France and Germany.

Academic career

Upon his return to Japan in 1894, he was appointed lecturer and then professor at the Tokyo Imperial University and director of Tokyo School of Foreign Languages.

He founded the Musashino Girls' School in 1924. The institution evolved on the principle of "Buddhist-based human education," moving in 1929 to its present location in Nishitōkyō, Tokyo and becoming Musashino Women's University. The institution Takakusu founded is now known as Musashino University (武蔵野大学, Musashino Daigaku).

From 1924 to 1934, Takakusu, along with other 300 scholars like Kaigyoku Watanabe, and Ono Genmyo, established the Tokyo Taisho Tripitaka Publication Association (東京大正一切經刊行會), later known as the Daizo Shuppansha (大藏出版株式會社, Daizo shuppansha), which collected, edited, and published a modern academic edition of the Chinese Buddhist Canon which became known as the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō. This massive compendium is now available online as the SAT Taishō Database, and the CBETA Tripitaka. This edition of the Buddhist Canon was published in Tokyo between 1924 and 1934 in 100 volumes. It is one of the first editions of the canon with modern punctuation and modern scholarly notes. The scholars working on this project drew from various editions of the Chinese Canon, mainly the second edition of the Korean canon along with various Japanese canonical editions and the Ming era Jiaxing Canon. Furthermore, the Japanese scholars also referenced the Pali canon and Sanskrit manuscripts, making it the most scholarly and comprehensive Buddhist canon of its time.

The Taishō editors also compiled catalogues, an index, and a glossary. The Taishō scholars also provided scholarly annotations that contain alternate readings from other sources. The Taishō canon was also revolutionary in the way it organized the canonical texts. It abandoned the traditional canonical schemas of organization which date back to the Kaiyuan catalogue in favor of a modern organizational schema based on historical development.

In 1930, he was named President of the Tokyo Imperial University. He was a member of the Imperial Academy of Japan and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was a recipient of Asahi Cultural Prize and the Japanese government's Order of Culture. He was awarded an honorary degree by Tokyo Imperial University; and he was similarly honored by the universities at Oxford, Leipzig, and Heidelberg.

At the time of his death in June 1945, he was Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at the Tokyo Imperial University.