CrossAsia DH Lunchtalks – Born-digital Dictionary of Early Chinese Buddhist Translations

Dear users,

On June 23rd at 12:30 pm (CEST), we are pleased to host the sixth session of the CrossAsia DH Lunchtalks 2026. This session will be led by Dr. Rafal Felbur (Heidelberg University), titled “Born-digital Dictionary of Early Chinese Buddhist Translations.” In this talk, Dr. Felbur will introduce a project aimed at creating a born-digital historical research dictionary of the language used in the earliest Chinese translations of Buddhist texts. The abstract is as follows:

Over the course of first millennium, thousands of Buddhist texts were translated from Indic languages into Chinese. Through this process, Chinese intellectual and religious life encountered entirely new worlds of thought and practice. In scale and significance, this translation movement constituted the largest transfer of culture between two major civilisations in the premodern world.

The earliest phase of this enterprise (148–401 CE), spanning roughly 250 years, was particularly dynamic, creative, and formative. Comparable in many respects to the development of Christianity in the Roman Empire before Constantine, this period witnessed the production of hundreds of translated works amounting to approximately four million Chinese characters—equivalent to some 20,000 pages in modern English translation.

This presentation introduces a project (currently in the planning stage) to create the first comprehensive, state-of-the-art online historical research dictionary devoted to the distinctive idiom that emerged in the earliest Chinese translations of Buddhist literature.

About the speaker:

Dr. Rafal Felbur is Akademischer Assistent to the Chair of Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University. He works on the intellectual, cultural, and social dynamics of the encounter between India and China in the first millennium CE.

The lecture will be held in English. If you have any questions, please contact us at ostasienabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de.

The lecture will be streamed via Webex*. You can take part in the lecture using your browser without having to install a special software. Please click on the respective button “To the lecture” below, follow the link “join via browser,” and enter your name.

You can find the full programm of CrossAsia DH Lunchtalks 2026 here. Further talks will also be announced on our blog as well as on Mastodon and BlueSky.

Yours,

CrossAsia Team

*By participating, you grant the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and its subordinate institutions free of charge all rights of usage of pictures and videos taken of you during this lecture presentation. This declaration of consent is valid in terms of time and space without restrictions and for usage in all media, including analogue and digital usage. It includes image processing and the usage of photos in composite illustrations. German law will apply.