by Camille Simon

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Shannon Ward on 9th September 2025. Her work as a linguistic anthropologist provides precious insights into multilingual socialization, at a time when the issue of language transmission is a pressing concern among Tibetan communities both in Tibet and in the diaspora.

Immediately after completing her PhD entitled “Learning Language, Transforming Knowledge: Language Socialization in Amdo, Tibet” in 2019 (published as Amdo Lullaby: An Ethnography of Childhood and Language Shift on the Tibetan Plateau, University of Toronto Press, 2024), she took up a position of Assistant Professor in Linguistic Anthropology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Her paper “Style and Standardization: A Case Study of Tibetan Family Interaction in Greater New York” (2015) paved the way for the study of language transmission and language shift among the Tibetan diaspora outside South Asia. From 2020 on, she further engaged in deepening our understanding of Tibetan as a heritage language in the West, with research projects on the preservation of Tibetan language in Canada and a study of linguistic interactions during mealtimes among Tibetan-Canadian families.

I have been in intermittent contact with Shannon since the summer of 2017, when we first met in Xining, and I was particularly pleased to hear her talk about her research on language socialization and acquisition in Amdo. Language acquisition is a field dominated by research on a restricted array of dominant languages, mainly spoken in Western societies. Shannon’s careful documentation of language acquisition and socialization among minoritized families in the multilingual context of Amdo thus represents a much-needed contribution to this field. Furthermore, her analysis of the dynamics of language shift in the current political context in Amdo and the role and place of children in this process also provides an invaluable insight into the situation. Over time, I have increasingly learned to admire Shannon’s precise and thorough analyses of linguistic phenomena and everyday interactions, always based on intensive fieldwork and a deep familiarity with the people she worked with. Such scientifically impressive results were only permitted by her in-depth knowledge of Tibetic languages.

With the untimely death of Shannon Ward, we not only lose a brilliant scholar but also an enthusiastic and dedicated colleague. Her genuine interest in converting her research findings into practical tools for the Tibetan communities can be illustrated, for example, by the workshop on Tibetan Heritage Language Education she organized in May 2024 with the Tibetan community in Vancouver. I cannot claim to have known Shannon very well on a personal level, but our exchanges were always full of prospects for new ideas and projects, and I deeply regret that we did not have time to collaborate more.

Details on Shannon Ward’s research projects can be found here. An interview about her book Amdo Lullaby can be found here.

Written by Birgit Kellner, Pascale Hugon and Reinier Langelaar, with support of Anne MacDonald.

We are deeply saddened to announce that our colleague and friend, Michael Hee Ium, passed away at Vienna’s General Hospital on April 9, 2025, after a sudden onset of severe illness. Michael joined the Austrian Academy of Sciences in January 2025. He worked at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) as a Postdoctoral Fellow within the project “TibSchol: The dawn of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism (11th–13th c.).” We felt very fortunate to have him as a member of our Institute, even if his stay with us was cut short, and far too brief.

Born and raised in Toronto as the son of South Korean immigrants, Michael completed degrees at the University of Toronto (BSc Psychology), Maitripa College (MA Buddhist Studies), and the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the Department of Religious Studies (MA, PhD 2023, Religious Studies), where he also began to gain teaching experience. After having earned his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion and the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies. He subsequently taught at the University of Toronto, Mississauga’s Department of Historical Studies.

A textualist and historian of religion, his research focused on the religions of Tibet and South Asia, and in particular, on the early history of Ganden Monastery and the construction of the Geluk tradition in Tibet, which was the subject of his dissertation. Although the Geluk tradition is largely regarded as a monastic and scholastic tradition, Michael’s research emphasized the importance of understudied aspects of the tradition, such as mahāsiddhas, oracular prophecy, and pilgrimage, for its growth and development. His 2022 article “Tsongkhapa as a mahāsiddha: A Reevaluation of the Patronage of the Gelukpa in Tibet” (Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 45, 73-117) provides a glimpse of his intellectual brilliance and his nuanced approach to Tibetan religious history. Michael also served as co-editor for the Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies (CJBS, https://thecjbs.org/).

During his short period at the IKGA and as a member of the TibSchol project, we swiftly came to appreciate Michael not only for his insightful scholarship, deep intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm, but also for his warm and gentle nature, his humility and compassion. In only a few months time, Michael became a close colleague and friend to many at our Institute, as well as to colleagues and students at the University of Vienna. He was excited to embark on a new phase in his life, and the community in Vienna warmly embraced him. We all were looking forward to working with him, learning from him, and enjoying his amicable and uplifting company. His untimely passing was a shock that reverberated far beyond Vienna, however, and our thoughts are with everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him. Michael spent his final days with his beloved mother. Close colleagues and friends were by his side.

His academic accomplishments can be found in Michael’s CV.

by Gyalrong Tenzin Jinpa

Professor Tsanlha Ngawang Tsültrim Yéshé Drönmé (1930–2025) passed away on February 16, 2025, at the age of 95 in a hospital in Chengdu. His passing marks the loss of a scholar whose enduring legacy will continue to shape our understanding of Tibetan culture, history, and language. Born in 1930 in Tsanlha, Gyalrong, on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, his life was deeply intertwined with the political upheavals, personal struggles, and cultural resilience that defined Tibet in the twentieth century.

Recognized as a tulku from an early age, Professor Ngawang moved to Lhasa to pursue his education in the 1940s, where he quickly established himself as a brilliant debater and one of the top students at Drepung Loserling College. However, disillusioned by the political dynamics within the monastic community and the Lhasa aristocracy, he returned to Gyalrong in 1948, determined to chart a path of his own. In the 1950s, captivated by the promises of justice and equality offered by the Chinese Communist Party, he became involved in their United Front efforts. Yet, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the political upheavals that followed led him to reassess his path, turning his focus instead to the preservation of Tibetan culture and heritage, a mission he would carry for the rest of his life.

Under the mentorship of Tibet’s foremost scholars, Mugé Samten and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé, and with the encouragement and inspiration of his classmate Döndrup Gyel — an exceptionally innovative modern Tibetan writer and intellectual of his era — Professor Ngawang emerged as a leading figure in Tibetan studies. Among his many contributions, The Dictionary of Classical Tibetan (1997, 2023) remains a cornerstone of Tibetan language scholarship, an indispensable resource for scholars and students alike. Yet his work transcended lexicography. Driven by an unwavering commitment to preserving the cultural legacy of Gyalrong, he devoted himself to documenting its history, unearthing lost archives, and revitalizing the cultural memory of his homeland. His monumental achievement, the Gyalrong Tibetan History and Culture Series (2017), a 10-volume collection published by Sichuan Minzu Press, ensured that Gyalrong’s rich history would never be lost to time.

In his memoir, The Beggar Lama: The Life of the Gyalrong Kuzhap (2023), Professor Ngawang offered a deeply personal account of his life, navigating the complex intersections of religion, politics, and scholarship. His reflections also found their way into other works, including Small Peoples, Big Histories: Speaking from China’s Margins, a new book project by Tenzin Jinba. This work delves into the deep-rooted issues within Tibetan society—regional and religious divides, and the evolving role of Tibetan Buddhism in the modern world. For instance, Professor Ngawang endured ridicule from the Gelug establishment, who labeled him a “Bönpo lama” for his engagement with Bön history and materials. He saw these internal divisions within Tibetan society as shadows—tumors—that needed urgent self-reflection. He believed that only through such self-critique could Tibetan identity and culture thrive.

Despite the many challenges and disappointments he faced, Professor Ngawang remained steadfast in his belief in the future of Tibetan culture and religions. At times, he expressed a longing for a place where Tibetan spiritual traditions remained intact, even suggesting that he would rather be reborn in Bhutan. Yet he never wavered in his conviction that Tibetan traditions had a vital role to play in the future of humanity, offering profound wisdom and guidance to a world in desperate need. A man of profound contrasts—critical yet hopeful, disillusioned yet unwaveringly dedicated to preserving Tibetan heritage—his legacy will resonate for generations to come.

Professor Ngawang’s life was a testament to resilience, intellectual rigor, and an unyielding commitment to the survival of Tibetan culture. As a tulku, scholar, revolutionary, and above all, a guardian of Tibetan heritage, he faced enormous challenges yet remained undeterred in his efforts to preserve the Tibetan language, history, and traditions. His tireless work, scholarly contributions, and enduring spirit have left an indelible mark. His memory will continue to inspire future generations, and his legacy will live on in the hearts of all those who share in the struggle to protect cultural identities in an ever-changing world.

Selected works

Btsan lha Ngag dbang Tshul khrims. 1997. Brda dkrol gser gyi me long/Guzangwen cidian 古藏文辭典 [The Dictionary of Classical Tibetan]. Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe; updated edition, 2023.

———. 2009. A Lexicon of the Rgyalrong Btsanlha Dialect: Rgyalrong-Chinese-Tibetan-English. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.

———, ed. 2020. Rgyal rong yul skad zhib ‘jug/Zangyu Jiarong Fangyan 藏語嘉絨方言研究 [Research on the Tibetan Gyalrong Dialect]. Chengdu: Sichuan Minzu Chubanshe.

Seng ge ‘bum, Btsan lha Ngag dbang Tshul khrims, Tsheng dbang, Bstan ’dzin sbyin pa, and Nam mkha’ tshul khrims, eds. 2017. Shar rgyal mo tsha ba rong gi lo rgyus dang rig gnas dpe tshogs/Jiarong Zangzu Lishi Wenhua Congshu 嘉絨藏族歷史文化叢書 [Gyalrong Tibetan History and Culture Series]. Chengdu: Sichuan Minzu Chubanshe.

Dear colleagues,

It is with great sadness that I must inform you that Jeffrey Hopkins passed away in Vancouver (BC) overnight following complications with cancer.

Born Paul Jeffrey Hopkins in Barrington, Rhode Island in 1940, Hopkins attended Pomfret Preparatory School, following which he matriculated at Harvard University. It was there that he met his fellow student Robert Thurman, who in turn, encouraged him to pursue their mutual studies with Geshe Wangyal in Freewood Acres, New Jersey.

After four years of study with Geshe Wangyal and his community of scholars and practitioners, Hopkins matriculated at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to pursue an advanced degree in Buddhist Studies under Richard Robinson. Working closely with the former abbot of the Gomang College of Drepung Monastic University, Kensur Ngawang Lekden, as well as other learned scholars from the Tibetan tradition, Hopkins completed his PhD in 1973, “Meditation on Emptiness,” an extensive response to T.R.V. Murti’s contention that meditation in Prāsaṅgika-Mādhyamika lacked an object, a work that was eventually published by Wisdom Publications in 1983.

Hopkins’s first academic appointment was in the Religious Studies department at the University of Virginia, where he proceeded to build what would become the premier program of studies in Tibetan Buddhism in the Western hemisphere, serving as advisor to eighteen completed Ph.D. and thirty-one masters students, and where he remained throughout the rest of his academic career until his retirement in 2005.

In his personal reflections and autobiographical writings, Hopkins stated that he remembered elements of his previous life as a monk in Tibet, including the manner of his death. In addition, as a child, he maintained that he had a private language in which he thought, and from which he needed to translate into English when speaking with others. Having abandoned his internal language around the age of ten for the ease of communicating in English, it was not until he began his studies with Geshe Wangyal in the 1960s that he realized that the private internal language of his childhood was Tibetan.

Feeling a close personal connection to Tibet, throughout his career, Hopkins performed many additional roles in the larger sphere of Tibetan Buddhism, such as serving as the Dalai Lama’s official interpreter from 1976 to 1996, testifying before the U.S. congress as an expert witness on the Tibetan political situation, as well as organizing conferences and the visitations of leading Tibetan scholars to the University of Virginia for his students to study with.

He was 83 years old.

Paul Hackett

Written by: Chizuko Yoshimizu

Zuihō Yamaguchi, a prominent Tibetologist, passed away on Saturday, April 15, 2023, due to pneumonia. He was 97 years old and had lived a long life, but we still feel the loss of a great pioneering scholar who devoted his life to Tibetology. He discussed not only Tibet’s history and language, but everything related to Tibet, including the calendar, Dunhuang documents, and Religion. His significant contribution to the development of Tibetan studies will be forever deeply appreciated.

He was born in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, on February 21, 1926. He was sent to a temple managed by one of his relatives when he was a child, and “Zuihō Yamaguchi” was the name he was given there. After graduating from Kanazawa College of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering (he was very fond of any sort of machinery and was one of the first among us to start using a computer), he went on to the Department of Literature at Daiichi High School and then entered the University of Tokyo, where he studied Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit Literature, graduating in 1953. He studied the grammatical characteristics of the Tibetan language translated from Sanskrit under the great professors of Sanskrit and Buddhist studies, Naoshirō Tsuji and Hajime Nakamura.

After postgraduate studies, in 1958, at the age of 32, he moved to Paris as a researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), where he studied under eminent Sinologists and Tibetologists, particularly R. A. Stein and M. Lalou, and worked on ancient and medieval Tibetan and Dunhuang texts at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) in Paris. He spent six years in France, partly with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. He was accompanied by his wife, Eiko, and their son was born there. At the time, students from Japan were rare in Paris, and so at times it must have been quite difficult for him. However, his studies under Professor Stein and others were extremely fruitful, and it was during this time that he developed his wide knowledge and critical spirit. In his own words, Professor Stein first charged him with two tasks: collecting the names of persons, places, and monasteries from Tibetan historical books and preparing an outline of the biography of the 6th Dalai Lama. While proceeding with these tasks together with Professor Stein and Jampa Gyatsho (i.e. Dagpo Rinpoche), whom Stein had invited to Paris, he developed a growing interest in the Tibetan calendar and the history of the Dalai Lamas’ regime. For a better understanding of the later history of Tibet, he thought it necessary to understand the earlier history of the Tibetan empire and started studying the Dunhuang documents. At this point, he also expanded his field of study from history to language and the calendar. His colleagues were A.-M. Blondeau, A. Spanien, Samten Karmay, Yoshirō Imaeda, and others, who have all left their mark in the field of Tibetan studies.

With Prof. Hajime Nakamura in front of the statue of J.-F. Champollion in the courtyard of the Collège de France.

He returned to Japan in September 1964 and started his academic career in Japan as a researcher at the Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library) in Tokyo. In 1970, he was appointed associate professor at the Institute for Cultural Exchange Studies of the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, and in 1979 he took up a full professorship there. The Institute for Cultural Exchange Studies was established in 1966 as a transdisciplinary research institute (the forerunner of the current Division of Cultural Exchange Studies, Center for Evolving Humanities, https://bunkakoryu.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp). In the graduate school, he belonged to the Department of Indian Philosophy and Indian Literature, where he taught students together with Professors Minoru Hara, Jikidō Takasaki, and Sengaku Maeda. The first person to work as his assistant was Soshū Nishioka, followed by Kimiaki Tanaka. Nishioka, Tanaka, Ryūtoku Kimura, Katsumi Okimoto, and others gathered under his guidance at the Toyo Bunko to investigate the Tibetan documents collected by Sir Aurel Stein, and it became a center for the study of Dunhuang documents in Tokyo.

In 1979, Yamaguchi received his doctorate from the University of Tokyo for “Toban ōkoku seiritsushi kenkyū” 吐蕃王国成立史研究 (A Study on the Establishment of the T’u-fan Kingdom), a revised version of which was published in 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, and it was awarded the Japan Academy Prize the following year. In February–March 1981, he was invited by the Collège de France to give a series of lectures titled “La fondation du royaume tibétain d’après les sources anciennes, tibétaines et chinoises.” His Japanese translation of R. A. Stein’s La civilisation tibétaine with Akira Sadakata (published in 1971) received the Japan Translation Culture Prize in 1972. He was nominated a membre d’honneur de la Société Asiatique, France, in 1985 and was also awarded the Nakamura Hajime Eastern Studies Prize in the same year.

Most of Yamaguchi’s articles in the period between 1954 and 1981 were devoted to the study of the ancient history and language of Tibet. Whereas the book mentioned above was the culmination of his research on ancient Tibetan history, the fruit of his studies on the Tibetan language was Chibettogo bungo bunpō チベット語文語文法 (The Grammar of Classical Tibetan; Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1998). This book is dedicated to R. A. Stein and Hajime Nakamura, both of whom had strongly encouraged him to complete it. Yamaguchi’s reading of all kinds of Tibetan texts provided the foundation for this book. Sample sentences were gathered from a great variety of works, including Dunhuang documents, inscriptions, history books, Buddhist writings, and indigenous Tibetan grammar commentaries, dating from the 8th to 18th centuries. A compact “outline” of Tibetan grammar, Gaisetsu Chibettogo bungo bunten 概説チベット語文語文典 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2002), was also published for the use of students. His elucidation of Tibetan grammar is to a certain degree different from that of Western scholars and draws on Japanese grammar, for the Tibetan and Japanese languages have some similarities in their use of verbs and sentence structure.

Yamaguchi published more than 100 articles in Japanese and about 20 in English or French, among which the most notable are: “Sanjūju, Shōnyūhō no seiritsu jiki o megutte” 『三十頌』『性入法』の成立時期をめぐって, Tōyō Gakuhō 東洋学報 57-1/2, 1976 (English version: “On the Composition of the Sum cu pa and the rTags kyiḥ jug pa,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 47, 1989); “Denkaruma 824nen seiritsu setsu” 『デンカルマ』八二四年成立説 (The Compilation of the lDan dkar ma in A.D. 824), Naritasan Bukkyō Kenkyūjo Kiyō 成田山仏教研究所紀要 (Journal of Naritasan Institute for Buddhist Studies) 9, 1985; “Chibetto reki chijunhō teisū no imi to rekishiteki jungetsu nenpyō” チベット暦置閏法定数の意味と歴史的閏月年表, Naritasan Bukkyō Kenkyūjo Kiyō 13, 1990 (English version: “The Significance of Intercalary Constants in the Tibetan Calendar and Historical Tables of Intercalary Months,” Tibetan Studies, PIATS Narita 1989, Part 2, 1992); Shoōtōshi meijikyō no chosha to seiritsunen” 『諸王統史明示鏡』の著者と成立年, Tōyō Gakuhō 3, 1978 (English version: “On the Author and the Date of the rGyal rabs rnams kyi byung tshul gsal ba’i me long,” International Conference on China Border Area Studies, Taipei, 1984); “The Conflict in Early Seventeenth-century Tibet and the Kokonor Mongols,” Naritasan Bukkyō Kenkyūjo Kiyō 16, 1993; “The Sovereign Power of the Fifth Dalai Lama: sPrul-sku gZims-khang gong-ma and the Removal of Governor Nor-bu,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 53, 1995; and “The Emergence of the Regent Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho and the Denouement of the Dalai Lamas’ First Administration,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 57, 1999. His later English papers were translated by his student Rolf Giebel, whom I also thank for improving the English of this obituary.

Yamaguchi also edited books, contributing articles of his own to them: Tonkō kogo bunken 敦煌胡語文献 (Dunhuang Documents Written in Non-Chinese Languages; Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1985) includes studies of documents in the Uyghur, Khotanese, Sogdian, and Tibetan languages by frontline Japanese scholars at the time, namely, Takao Moriyasu, Hiroshi Kumamoto, Asao Iwamatsu, Yutaka Yoshida, Noriaki Hakamaya, Shirō Matsumoto, Akira Saito, Toshio Hiramatsu, Soshū Nishioka, Katsumi Okimoto, Satoru Harada, Yoshirō Imaeda, and Zuihō Yamaguchi. To commemorate his 60th birthday, he supervised the compilation of the book Chibetto no Bukkyō to shakai チベットの仏教と社会 (Buddhism and Society in Tibet; Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1986), to which, in addition to some of those named above, his colleagues, students, and young Tibetologists contributed, including Taishun Ueyama, Ryūtoku Kimura, Shōrei Nakayama, Kimiaki Tanaka, Chizuko Yoshimizu, Kazunobu Matsuda, Shunzō Onoda, Yōichi Fukuda, Musashi Tachikawa, Kōdō Yotsuya, Tsuguhito Takeuchi, Yoshirō Imaeda, Rentarō Ikeda, Yasuhiko Nagano, Masahiro Shimoda, Junko Miyawaki, and Shinjō Kawasaki.

At the University of Tokyo, Yamaguchi had three classes: Tibetan grammar for beginners, an undergraduate seminar on Tibetan historical literature, and a seminar for graduate students. The textbook for Tibetan grammar had been handwritten by Yamaguchi himself, for his grammar was first published in 1998. At that time, the only dictionaries available were Jäschke’s and Chandra Das’s Tibetan-English dictionaries. There were many words that were not included in these dictionaries, and so Yamaguchi served us as if he were a living dictionary. In the undergraduate seminar, he read what he wanted to read. We read biographies of the 3rd to 5th Dalai Lamas continuously until his retirement in 1986. He had the students write their translations on the blackboard and cheerfully corrected them in his distinctive voice and intonation, saying, “That’s completely wrong.” Eventually students from the University of Tokyo disappeared from this class, and Junko Miyawaki and Yumiko Ishihama joined from outside. In his last year, I was the only student. With graduate students he read the Grub mtha’ of lCang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje. He pestered the students with questions because he said he was not a specialist in Buddhism. Everyone enjoyed the debates, and lCang skya became a special figure for the students. Noriaki Hakamaya, for instance, said that lCang skya appeared in his dreams. Students received a solid training in how to read Tibetan texts of various kinds.

In January 1986, Yamaguchi retired from the University of Tokyo and moved to Nagoya University. After three years there, he became professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo in 1989 and began commuting to the Naritasan Institute of Buddhist Studies, in which he had been involved as a visiting researcher. This same year, 1989, was the year when the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies Conference was held at Narita, and he was instrumental in bringing the Seminar to Narita.

August 1989, at the 5th IATS (Narita View Hotel); from right to left: H. Uebach, R. Emmerick, Zuihō Yamaguchi, Shoseki Tsurumi (abbot of Naritasan Shinshoji temple), and Chizuko Yoshimizu.

Yamaguchi worked at the Naritasan Institute until about 2016 as well as at the Toyo Bunko. His last appearance in public was May 22, 2016, at a talk event titled “Dr. Zuihō Yamaguchi talks about Tibet and himself,” which was organized by Kawachen Bookstore to celebrate his 90th birthday. He talked about some good memories of R. Stein and his own studies. After the talk, we joined him at a Tibetan restaurant in Tokyo, and I was relieved to see that his appetite was as good as ever, for he really enjoyed his food.

With Kelsang Tahuwa of Kawachen Bookstore, May 22, 2016.

In 1987–1988, Yamaguchi published the two-volume book Chibetto チベット (Tibet; University of Tokyo Press), aimed at general readers interested in Tibet, and it received the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. This book incorporated all his knowledge of Tibetan studies and became a classic that will be read and enjoyed for many years. I remember that he was always and anywhere reading some Tibetan text, not only in his office but even on the train. He greatly enjoyed and loved reading the Tibetan language. He visited Lhasa once when he was over the age of sixty. Although he suffered from altitude sickness, he enjoyed his stay, for as he repeatedly told me later, “A picture is worth a thousand words” (百聞は一見に如かず). This was the moment when what he had learned from texts came to life before his eyes.

His last book was Hyōsetsu Indo Bukkyō tetsugaku shi 評説インド仏教哲学史 (A Commentary on the History of Indian Buddhist Philosophy; Iwanami Shoten, 2010), in which he brought together his own interpretations of Buddhism. After turning sixty he became obsessed with Buddhist philosophy. His favorite Buddhist masters were Nāgārjuna, Śāntarakṣita, and Kamalaśīla. The Suttanipāta and the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras also provided him with essential sources of Buddhist thought. Although his interpretation of Buddhist philosophy has not attracted much attention, his deep consideration of the fact that our cognition is based on representations of external objects and verbal constructions detached from the flow of time is useful, especially for understanding Madhyamaka thought, and deserves to be listened to. He grew up in a Sōtō Zen temple and through Naritasan also became familiar with the Shingon Buddhism of Kūkai, and so it may have been only natural that he devoted his final years to Buddhist studies.

He told me that when he was young, he had once been impressed by an article he happened to pick up in the library of the Toyo Bunko. He said, “If someone someday comes across an article of mine and is impressed by it, I will chuckle from beyond the grave” (俺の論文もいつか誰かが見つけて、こんな論文があったのか、と感心してくれたら、そのときは草葉の陰で笑うんだ). I wonder if he is chuckling now. Or is it still too soon?