“Venerable Master Hsing Yun Digital Humanities” Platform Officially Launched

 

In 2026, which marks the 60th anniversary of Fo Guang Shan’s founding and the centenary of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s birth, Fo Guang University and the Fo Guang Shan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education held a launch event for the “Venerable Master Hsing Yun Digital Humanities” platform at the university’s Huai En Stadium on the 23rd of this month. The event shared the results of the platform’s development to date with the public.
The launch was witnessed by Most Venerable Hsin Bau, Head Abbot of Fo Guang Shan; Chao Han-Chieh, President of Fo Guang University; and representatives from many sectors. During the ceremony, several valuable donations were made. The National Central Library donated digital files of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s calligraphy, manuscripts, and other works held in its collection. Chiu Pei-lin, Deputy Mayor of Keelung City, donated several photographs of her father, former Minister of the Interior Chiu Chuang-huan, with the Venerable Master. Renowned film director Chao Ta-shen also donated photographs of his parents with the Venerable Master. About 500 distinguished guests from education, arts and culture, libraries and information science, museums, publishing and media, and religious communities attended.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun, Founding Master of Fo Guang Shan and Founder of Fo Guang University, devoted his life to promoting Humanistic Buddhism. He witnessed nearly a century of Buddhist history and social change and formed wide-ranging affinities with the cultural, educational, religious, and political sectors. His travels took him across Taiwan, mainland China, and all five continents. He had a profound influence on contemporary Buddhism and on social and cultural development, and he left behind a wealth of historical materials and artifacts.
To establish a mechanism for archiving and managing the Venerable Master’s tangible cultural assets for academic research, the Fo Guang Shan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education and Fo Guang University officially established the Venerable Master Hsing Yun Digital Humanities Research and Development Center in March 2024. Together they are building the “Venerable Master Hsing Yun Digital Humanities” platform. Professor Tseng Shu-Hsien, former Director-General of the National Central Library, serves as Director of the Center and leads the project.
The platform is built on three core components: “Venerable Master Hsing Yun Digital Archives,” Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Dharma Propagation Map,” and “Seeking the Dharma.” It brings together valuable archival resources on Venerable Master Hsing Yun accumulated over many years, including documents, manuscripts, images, and artifacts. The result is an integrated intelligent platform for preservation, research, learning, and outreach.
As of September 2026, the platform holds 19 datasets plus 2 special datasets, totaling 523,054 frames/files across all material types. Its five core historical databases are rich in quantity and diverse in type:
  • 148,019 volumes of books and documents
  • 114,707 letters and correspondence
  • 73,112 photographs and images
  • 58,828 itinerary and log entries
  • 17,931 audiovisual records
These are important materials for research in contemporary educational, cultural, social, international, and religious history.
To promote use of the platform by academic institutions in Taiwan and abroad, Fo Guang University signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Central Library. The National Central Library will help Fo Guang University promote the platform to overseas academic institutions and libraries, and the two will jointly organize digital humanities academic exchange activities.
Alongside the launch, a forum titled “Buddhist Textual Archives and Intelligent Research in the AI Era” was held. Scholars and experts presented on four themes: Buddhist Texts and Cultural Preservation, Digital Archives and Knowledge Organization, Digital Humanities and Buddhist Studies, and AI and Intelligent Cultural Platforms. The forum aimed to promote academic exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Looking ahead, Fo Guang University and Fo Guang Shan will continue digitizing historical materials, integrating the university’s academic resources, deepening interdisciplinary exploration of AI and scholarship, and pursuing a wide range of digital humanities collaborations with the academic community. The Fo Guang Shan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education also welcomes public donations of documents and artifacts related to Venerable Master Hsing Yun, such as manuscripts, letters, photographs, calligraphy, audiovisual recordings, and paintings. The Foundation hopes these will help more people understand the Venerable Master’s efforts and contributions, and make the materials available for academic research and other lawful uses.
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