Kenryō Kanamatsu (, 1915-1986) was a translator, author, and lifelong devotee of

Jōdo Shinshū , also known as Shin Buddhism or True Pure Land Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Shin Buddhism is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan. History Shinran (founder) S ...

, sometimes called "Shin Buddhism". His seminal work, ''Naturalness'', (written in 1949), was an introduction of Jōdo Shinshū to the Western world.

Biography

Born in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

in 1915, Kanamatsu received his B.A. in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Ōtani University is a private Buddhism, Buddhist university in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. Ōtani University is a coeducation institution with an emphasis on Buddhist studies. A two-year private junior college is associated with the university. The university is asso ...

. A

Fulbright scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, he received his doctorate and became a Professor at

. A translator as well as an author, Kanamatsu translated the works of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

into Japanese. In 1971 he published a book on the theology and cosmology of Plato.

References

Bibliography

External links

List of works at Worldcat
1915 births 1986 deaths 20th-century Buddhists 20th-century Japanese translators Buddhist philosophy Buddhist writers Japanese Buddhists Japanese scholars of Buddhism People related to Jōdo Shinshū Pure Land Buddhists Shin Buddhists Translators to Japanese {{Japan-reli-bio-stub