Fukui Kōjun福井康顺

Style & Daoist names

Fukui Kōjun

Period

Modern

Dates

1898 — 1991

Role

Daoist ScholarsProfessor, Waseda University

Birthplace

Japan

Life

Fukui Kōjun, a Japanese scholar of Daoism, was a professor at Waseda University and the founding president (1950) of the Japanese Society for Daoist Studies, and was a leading figure in postwar Japanese Daoist research. His Fundamental Studies of Daoism (Dōkyō no kisoteki kenkyū, 1952) examines the composition and textual origins of early Daoist texts such as the Laozi, Liezi, Taiping jing (Scripture of Great Peace), and Baopuzi, and is a foundational work of Japanese Daoist studies. He edited the three-volume Daoism (1983, co-edited with Yamazaki Hiroshi, Kimura Eiichi, and Sakai Tadao; also published in Chinese translation as a three-volume Daoism), which brought together the achievements of Japanese scholars and remains an important reference work. He was also a scholar of Buddhism and wrote works on the history of Chinese Buddhism, and, together with Yoshioka Yoshitoyo and Kubo Noritada, was a key figure in the institutional establishment of Daoist studies in postwar Japan.

Contributions & Influence

• Wrote Fundamental Studies of Daoism, laying the foundation for Japanese Daoist textual studies
• Founded the Japanese Society for Daoist Studies and served as its first president
• Edited the three-volume Daoism

Works

• Dōkyō no Kisoteki Kenkyū (Fundamental Studies of Daoism)
• Daoism (three volumes, co-editor)
• Studies in the History of Oriental Thought