The 2008 Seminar on Buddhist Studies in Foreign Languages opens at Shanghai's Yufo (Jade Buddha) Temple on the morning of July 9, 2008. Over 100 Buddhists from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and the mainland will attend the three-day seminar and 86 will make speeches.
The seminar will be an unprecedentedly multi-lingual Buddhist gathering. Participants will make speeches in 7 foreign languages: English, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Thai.
The primary objectives of the Seminar are to select talented Buddhists who are fluent in foreign languages and to prepare for the second World Buddhist Forum, with the aim of promoting better contact with the outside world. Its ultimate goal is to enable Chinese Buddhism to develop overseas links and contribute to the development of a harmonious Buddhist world.
About 20 Buddhist students from overseas were invited to attend the event. A seminar for the overseas students will be held on this evening.
The seminar was organized by the Buddhist Association of China, the China Religious Culture Communication Association with the help of the Shanghai Buddhist Association and the Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple.
In April 2006 the first ever World Buddhist Forum was held in Hangzhou and proved to be a great success.
China has a long history of translating Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese. The most renowned translator was Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang (618-907), who spent 17 years traveling overland between China and India, and translated a hundreds of Indian scriptures.