Ritsu Akahane
1972 – 2016
Dr. Ritsu Akahane was born in Nagano. He received his PhD from Kyoto University in 2003. Before going to Vienna, he was a research fellow at the 21st Century Center of Excellence Program at the Graduate School of Literature, Kyoto University, doing research on the two truths theory of the Madhyamaka School. Especially he studied Jñānagarbha’s Satyadvayavibhaṅgavṛtti and its Tibetan commentaries for his life’s work.
A respected and distinguished scholar, Dr. Akahane was a research fellow at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2011 to 2016. His focus was upon the development of Madhyamaka thought, especially the two truths theory in India, Tibet, and China. In a research project on Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa, he worked primarily on historical questions pertaining to the lost original Sanskrit text by comparing its Tibetan and Chinese translations and analyzing their divergences.
In Japan he established the Madhyamaka workshop for young scholars and students in 2013, in which participants, competing with each other, worked hard on various Mādhyamika texts with the help of Dr. Akahane. The workshop continues to be held once every year – the lamp he kindled is shining forth even without him.
Here, with kind permission of his family, we offer to the public the entire published papers of Dr. Akahane. He left us important academic papers as well as beautiful memories.
>>The entire published papers of the late Dr. Akahane
