[KS] Digital Dictionary of Buddhism: Major Data Update

Tue Mar 11 08:36:57 EST 2003

From: Charles Muller
Subject: Digital Dictionary of Buddhism: Major Data Update

I have just finished a major update on the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
[DDB], having increased the number of entries from 15,000 to 26,000. Details
regarding matters related to this update are discussed below under the
following topic headings:

1. Content of the Update
2. Password/Access
3. Caveats on Searching
4. Credits and Acknowledgments
5. On the Queue
6. Download Specials

1. CONTENT OF THE UPDATE

   a. Input - The bulk of the materials added during the past year have been
  included in the process of the digitization of the _Dictionary of Chinese
  Buddhist Terms_ by Soothill and Hodous (now in the public domain, and
  therefore free of copyright issues), a project recently completed with the
  aid of a grant from the JSPS. We have not only included
  all entries from the Soothill/Hodous text, but thousands of other related
  terms found in digitized East Asian lexicons and Chinese canonical texts
  during the process of digitization of this considerable work.

  b. Present Treatment of Soothill Data - In line with standard TEI/XML
  practice, data nodes are tagged for attribution/responsibility, and using
  this mechanism, the Soothill/Hodous prose is clearly set aside by quotes. This
  material has also been enhanced through the addition of modern East Asian
  language readings, textual sources, and cross-references to related terms
  and other lexicographical resources. Obvious errors are identified with attached notes.

  c. Future of the Soothill Data Inside the DDB - In cases where
  pre-existent information existed regarding a term, the Soothill
  information is simply added below for the time being. Eventually such
  entries will be edited and consolidated, but for now, priority has been
  placed on simply making the material available digitally.

  d. Future of the Soothill Data Outside the DDB - The digitized data from
  the Soothill/Hodous dictionary will also be released separately in the
  near future. Being one of the few people, no doubt, who has actually read
  every line in this dictionary from end to end, I do have some comments on
  the nature of this dictionary that some may find interesting, which I
  intend to include as an introduction to the release of the digital
  version.

2. USER_ID-PASSWORD/ACCESS

  The data in the DDB can be accessed through a number of indexes, as well
  as through a search engine. When using the search engine, you will be
  presented with a password prompt. Please type in "guest" (without quotes)
  as the user ID with no password. This will enable you 10 searches in a 24
  hour period. You may also obtain an unlimited access to the DDB by making
  a small data contribution. For details on this, please go to the main page
  and click on the link that says "Password Access." Then read the
  explanation at http://www.acmuller.net/contribute.html

3. CAVEATS ON SEARCHING

When using the search engine, please keep in mind
the following points:

  a. Traditional Characters - Our policy for registering headwords has been
  to use the most traditional form of the Han characters. This is something
  that users of Japanese software should be aware of, as searches done with
  simplified postwar characters will often not turn up the term in
  question. Eventually the search engine will be modified to correct this
  problem.

  b. Diacritically Marked Characters - Diacritics required to represent
  romanized Sanskrit and other such scripts are encoded in Unicode. Thus, if
  you type in "samsara" or such a term that required diacritics using plain
  text, the search will come up empty. Eventually this problem will also be
  corrected, but for the meantime, please used the attached indices to find
  such terms.

  c. White Screen - Occasionally, when searching for a term, you will get a
  blank screen, with no error message. When this happens, click the
  "refresh" button on your browser, and your search should proceed normally.

4. CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (for this upgrade)

  I would first like to express my gratitude to the Japan Society for the
  Promotion of Science for funding the digitization of the Soothill/Hodous
  dictionary.

 The task of scanning/OCR was done in its entirety by Yasuko Suzuki, along
  with the bulk of the correction of Han characters. The finer editing of
  the English text, including diacritics input, was carried out by Juhn Ahn, Heather Blair,
  Amanda Goodman, James Mark Shields, Gina Cogan, and Thomas
  Dreitlein. Access to digitized versions of other Buddhist studies lexicons
  for cross-referencing and enhancement of information quality was provided
  by Christian Wittern and Tony Black. Continued technical maintenance of
  the security and search functions of the site has been provided by
  Michael Beddow. Significant corrections and enhancements of data were
  provided during the past year by Ulrich Kragh, Nobumi Iyanaga, Charles
  B. Jones, Marcus Bingenheimer, and Jost Gippert. My apologies to anyone I
  have left out here.

5.   ON THE QUEUE

  With the upcoming second half of our JSPS grant, we will be digitizing and
  assimilating another
  significant reference work for which the copyright has reverted to the
  control of its author: _The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalog_
  by Lancaster and Park. As with the Soothill text, we will make this
  available (with Prof. Lancaster's encouragement) as a separate digital
  publication, but will also use the opportunity of adding the data to the
  DDB as a way of including information from other sources on the texts that
  comprise the core of
  the Chinese Buddhist Canon that is represented in the _Goryeo daejang gyeong_.

  We have also recently received permission (thanks to the selfless
  negotiations by Marcus Bingenheimer) assimilate the digitized data from
  Kala Acharya's _Buddhanusmrti_ dictionary. This material will be used to
  supplement the definitions of Sanskrit terminology.

  We also have a couple of extremely large (book-length) glossary
  compilations promised, which have the potential of nearly doubling the
  number of terms covered in the DDB. We shall announce these once we have
  them on our hard drives.

6. DOWNLOADS

  To facilitate usage of the DDB, we are making some of the larger indices
  available for download, in which the hyperlinks are modified to allow
  local usage. After unzipping these indexes, you can have a
  direct link into the DDB from your desktop. These are:

  a. Chinese Readings Index - http://www.acmuller.net/ddb/read-zh-local.zip
  b. Korean Readings Index - http://www.acmuller.net/ddb/read-ko-local.zip
  c. Japanese Readings Index - http://www.acmuller.net/ddb/read-ja-local.zip
  d. Full CJK Index - http://www.acmuller.net/ddb/cjk-index-local.zip
  e. Sanskrit Terms Index - http://www.acmuller.net/ddb/term-sa-local.zip

This message will also be included on the DDB web site as release notes.

As always, your cooperation in the addition of new materials, or the
correction and enhancement of presently existing materials is warmly
welcomed. Working together, we have the potential of creating the kind of
resource that would have been inconceivable during the era of paper-printed
reference works.

Thank you,

Charles Muller

---------------------------
Charles Muller  <acmuller at gol.com>
Faculty of Humanities,  Toyo Gakuen University
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-English Dictionary [http://www.acmuller.net]
H-Buddhism List Editor [http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~buddhism/]
Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787