[INDOLOGY] Prof. Charles Willemen is no more

[Christophe Vielle]

It may be added that Charles Willemen was born on the 17th of October 1941, obtained his Ph.D. in 1975 at the University of Ghent, where he taught classical Chinese and Buddhism for several years (Bart Dessein and Ann Heirman were his students) and retired in 2007. His main books:
•   1974. Dharmapada: a concordance to Udanavarga, Dhammapada, and the Chinese Dharmapada literature. Publications de l'Institut belge des hautes études bouddhiques. Série études et textes 3. Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études bouddhiques.
•   1975. Udanavarga: Chinese-Sanskrit Glossary. Tokyo: Hokuseido, X, 101 p.
•   1975. Abhidharmhrdaya: The Essence of metaphysics. Bruxelles, translated and annotated by Charles Willemen, 366 pages, 26 pages (Chinese Text), Chinese-Sanskrit glossary, English-Sanskrit glossary. Publications de l'Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Bouddhiques, Serie études et textes 4.Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études bouddhiques.
•   1978. Transl. and Annot. The Chinese Udanavarga: A Collection of Important Odes of the Law (Fa chi yao sung ching). Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 19. Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 19.
•   1983. The Chinese Hevajratantra: the scriptural text of the ritual of the Great King of the teaching, the Adamantine one with great compassion and knowledge of the void. Orientalia Gandensia 8. Leuven: Peeters, 208 p.
•   1994. Transl. The storehouse of sundry valuables. Tsa-pao-tsang-ching. Compiled by T'an-yao. Transl. into Chinese by Kikkaya and Liu Hsiao-piao. BDK English Tripitaka 10/1. Berkeley (Calif.): Numata center for Buddhist tranlation and research, XIX, 275 p.
•   1998. With Bart Dessein & Collet Cox. Sarvāstivāda Buddhist Scholasticism. Handbuch der Orientalistik. 2. Abt.: Indien 11. Leiden: Brill, XVII, 341 p.

Le 5 juin 2024 à 17:07, Shrikant Bahulkar via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> a écrit :

I am very sad to inform you that Prof. Dr Charles Willemen, an eminent Buddhologist, passed away two days ago. He was 82. Prof Lalji Shravak, BHU, Varanasi, received an email informing him of this.
Prof. Willemen made an outstanding contribution to Buddhist Studies. He started his career in Buddhist Studies with an M.A. in East-Asian Studies (Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit) in 1968-69. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1971 in East-Asian Studies on The Chinese Udānavarga. He was privileged to work with eminent Buddhist scholars, such as Prof. H. Nakamura, Tokyo.
He used to visit the K. J. Somaiya Centre for Buddhist Studies, Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai and deliver lectures on Buddhism. I was fortunate to attend his lectures some years ago at the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies, Savitribai Phule University, Pune. I was amazed to see the depth of his knowledge and independent thinking.
I requested that he contribute his article to the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (ABORI), Pune when I was the chief editor of that journal. He kindly submitted his article on “Xuangzang about Avalokiteśvara, Jibin, and Madhyāntika.” It was an important contribution. (ABORI, Vol. XCIV, (2013) 2017, p. 111–123).
Some time ago, I tried to get information about him. I was informed that he lived in Belgium and had not travelled since the pandemic. I got no more information. I emailed him on June 23, 2022, but I did not get a reply.
The news of his sudden demise has saddened all of us. We have lost a great scholar and a very kind person. I cannot forget our informal chats and his witty comments.
May his soul rest in peace.

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Christophe Vielle<https://uclouvain.be/en/directories/christophe.vielle>
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