Advancing the Development of
Digital Scholarship: SAT, CEH,
and the DDB



Charles Muller, Masahiro Shimoda, Kiyonori Nagasaki
Center for Evolving Humanities, Graduate school of
Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo
(Powerpoint file for this presentation available at:
http://www.acmuller.net/articles/2011-03-31SAT_DDB-AAS.ppt)
Shortcomings in the Ongoing Development of
Digital Scholarship: In General

Joseph Raben: “Humanities Computing in an
Age of Social Change,” Keynote Lecture,
Digital Humanities, King’s College, 8th July
2010. http://www.artshumanities.net/video/roberto_busa_award_lec
ture_joseph_raben_%E2%80%93_humanities
_computing_age_social_change_dh2010
Shortcomings in the Ongoing Development of
Digital Scholarship: In General
Joe Raben: “It seems ironic that the community of
scholars dedicated to promoting wired access to the
riches of the humanist tradition have so far failed to
create a Wiki of their own activities. To rely on the
imprecise algorythmic methods of Google, which is
basically an advertising medium designed by
computer engineers without any evident input from
the scholarly community, scarcely seems like
appropriate behavior for a group that prides itself on
the minute accuracy of its own documents. . .“
Shortcomings in the Ongoing Development of
Digital Scholarship: In General

“. . .And while Wikipedia probably contains a good
deal of information regarding Digital Humanities,
that information is so scattered among all the other
types of information it contains, and is so subjected to
random editing that it cannot be relied on for
comprehensiveness, interconnectivity, or timeliness.
A Wiki for humanities computing therefore, which
could be called Digital Scholar, would provide many
benefits to both the inner community itself, and the
general world of scholarship. “
Shortcomings in the Ongoing Development
of Digital Scholarship: In General

Scholarly Wikis, yes, but more than this is
needed to improve the situation.
Obstructions to the Ongoing Development of
Digital Scholarship: In Japan
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Digital Humanities in Japan has its own
shortcomings:
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A overall sluggishness in the acceptance of the
digital medium in the humanities disciplines
Lack of institutional recognition.
Buddhist Studies as Leader: A Star in the
Field
Ironically, in North America, Europe, and Asia,
since the early days of the WWWeb, the field
of Buddhist Studies, normally associated with
the oldest trappings of inertia in humanistic
studies, has emerged as one of the leading
forces in the digitization of scholarship.
 Spearheaded by canonical digitization projects.

Efforts at the University of Tokyo
SAT Taishō Database Project: Centered on
the Taishō Canon, INBUDS database, and
DDB, and now linking with numerous other
projects worldwide through the RBIB.
 Center for Evolving Humanities (CEH).
Academic unit at the University of Tokyo
promoting digital scholarship through the
development of a DH curriculum, seminars,
symposia, workshops, and conferences, and
support of young DH researchers.

Aims of the SAT Project
To cooperate with various related projects in
the field of Buddhist Studies
 To resolve a range of problems from an
approach that understands the methods of
traditional humanities as well as humanities
informatics.
 Construction of a “Research Base for Indology
and Buddhist Studies”

Digital
Dictionary of
Buddhism
bibliographic
database
INBUDS
Multilingual
Imager
Web API
SAT
DB
DDB
Character
Ontology
10
Type in 阿羅漢
(arhat) and search
Select a page
from the search
results
Located term 阿羅漢
Select a portion of text
Basic meanings from DDB, along
with a link into the dictionary are
generated
DDB entry on Arhat
Search for 阿羅漢 in the
article database
CiNii database information
indicates the availability of a
PDF
PDF of article from
CiNii
The International Research Alliance
SARDS
SARDS
(Germany)
(Austria)
INBUDS
(Japan)
Various other
international projects
ITLR
(Germany)
DDB
(Japan)
International Buddhist
Studies alliance
International connection of basic
research via hyperlink
SAT
(Japan)
Pali Canon
(Thailand)
English Daizōkyō
(Numata)
Collected Works of Korean
Buddhism (Korea)
20
Past Indological
and Buddhist
Research
RBIB
Revised texts
and Tripiṭaka
as result
Legacy and
Digitization
Single-dimensional
data in the form of
transcripts、images,
music, film
SARDS
(Germany)
DDB
(International)
International Buddhist
Studies alliance
English
translation of
Daizōkyō
SAT
(Japan)
International connection
of basic research via
hyperlink
ITLR
(Germany)
collaborative
management
Buddhist
Research Base
Various other
international projects
Pali Canon
(Thailand)
Collected Works of
Korean Buddhism
(Korea)
research on
evaluation
Analyzing
Next-Generation
Humanities
Storing
Digital
Humanities
INBUDS
(Japan)
Research on
Media and
Buddhism
Next-Generation
Buddhist Studies
The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
[DDB]: A Model for the Sustainable
Development of a Collaborative
Scholarly Field-wide Web Reference
Service
恕
DDB Process of Development
1986 – work initiated with book publication in
mind.
 1995 – placed on web with approx. 2800
entries
 1995-2000 HTML hardlinked version (base
files maintained in SGML then XML)
 2001 – "Beddow Version." Web delivery with
Perl/XSL (approx. 5,000 entries)
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DDB Process of Development
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2002 – Completion of input of Soothill data (funded
by JSPS), along with user contributions, raising the
DDB content to 15,000 entries.
2002-2011 – rapid addition of entries based on
translation work and user input (esp. Karashima,
Hodge, Sinclair, Foulk, Radich, Swanson, Chun,
Lusthaus, plus scores of others). Entry total has
reached 55,000 and continues to grow rapidly
DDB Interoperation with SAT
Database
2008 – For the first time, the DDB was applied
directly to an online textual database, based on
the work of Kiyonori Nagasaki of IIDH.
 2008 – Reverse linking: based on
documentation provided on the SAT web site,
we were also able to link entries directly back
into their locations in the Taishō via SAT.
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"DDB 2.0"
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Fall 2010 – Michael Beddow completes radical
rewrite of DDB and CJKV-E programming
structure.
Access and Collaboration
Guest user (5 searches per day). Policy
developed gradually based on experience.
 Full access (contribution—basic: 1 A4 page
for two years of full access; or fee).
 Success of the model is based greatly on
devoting energy to making known the
contributions of collaborators: node level, web
site (Contributors), monthly newsletter,
monthly data postings.
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Access and Collaboration
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Institutional Subscriptions. More than 38
university libraries are now subscribed to the
DDB/CJKV-E dictionaries, perhaps the
greatest single validation of the acceptance of
the project as scholarly resource.
"CJKV-E 2.0"
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We have received a three-year research grant
for the purpose of expanding the coverage of
the CJKV-E dictionary. We are making
excellent progress, such that by the end of
2013, users will have access to a significantly
larger lexicon for the study of classical
Chinese texts.
Thank you!
恕
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(Powerpoint file for this presentation available at:
http://www.acmuller.net/articles/2011-03-31-SAT_DDBAAS.ppt)