Promotion of Buddhist studies centering on the Lotus Sutra

Since 1997, in cooperation with various institutions from around the world that preserve precious Lotus Sutra manuscripts, as well as prominent experts and scholars, the Institute of Oriental Philosophy (IOP) and the Soka Gakkai have been involved in publishing the Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series, including facsimile editions and romanized texts, which help promote Buddhist studies, in particular further studies of early Mahayana Buddhism centering on the Lotus Sutra. From 1997 to 2004, 16 items have been published as the manuscript series.
 　　 Part of the background leading up to this series was the fact that the president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and founder of the IOP, Daisaku Ikeda, was presented with several previous reproductions and microfilms of Lotus Sutra manuscripts by various institutions and individuls.
  　　Regarding the critical editions of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra, among the pioneering works that have been published to date are the Kern-Nanjo edition (1908-1912), the Wogihara-Tsuchida edition (1934-1935), and the Dutt edition (1953). From the contemporary standard of the discipline, critical editions that are more precise and reliable are required to enable future research efforts. One of the purposes of the series publications is to provide basic data for editing such new critical editions.