Jean-Noël Robert



Jean-Noël Alexandre Robert (born 30 December 1949) is a French orientalist, specialist of the history of Buddhism in Japan and of its Chinese predecessors. His work particularly focus on Tendai and the philology of Sino-Japanese Buddhist texts. He is the author of the French translation of the Lotus Sutra, a seminal text of Mahayana Buddhism, from the original Chinese.

In 2011, he was appointed a professor at the to become the holder of the chair.

Biography
Robert graduated from the in 1970 and was a resident of the Franco-Japanese House of Tokyo in 1974–1975. From 1975 to 1990, he worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Since 1979, he has been the lecturer and director of studies at the fifth section of the (EPHE). A doctor ès lettres of social science (1987), he was appointed director of the of the Collège de France in 2010. On 11 April 2011, he was appointed professor at the College of France where he became holder of the Chair of.

Robert is a member of numerous scientific societies and specialized committees: the, commissions des spécialistes of the at Paris Diderot University, commission scientifique of the  (5th section), counsellor of the , board of the.

Robert is  editor of Hôbôgirin, an encyclopaedia of Buddhism from the Chinese and Japanese sources, and member of the editorial and scientific committees of the Japan Review, the Journal asiatique and the  journal. He was elected on 17 March 2006, member of the at the chair of André Caquot. He also writes in Latin, under the pseudonym Alexander Ricius.

Honours

 * Knight of the Legion of Honour (France)
 * Officier of the Ordre national du Mérite (France)
 * Commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques (France)
 * Gold and Silver Star of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)

Awards

 * 2023 : Medal of the Collège de France
 * 2021 : Medal of the International Prize in Japanese Studies (Japon)

Publications

 * 1986: Lectures élémentaires en style sino-japonais (kanbun)
 * 1990: Doctrines de l’école japonaise Tendai au début du IXe : Gishin et le Hokke-shû gi shû (doctorate thesis)
 * 1995: Contempler le sanctuaire du cœur : le bouddhisme vu par un bouddhologue français, published in Japanese in 1997
 * 2001: Kanbun for the XXIst Century : The Future of Dead Languages (in Japanese)
 * 2003: Sûtra du Lotus, suivi du Livre des sens innombrables et du Livre de la contemplation de Sage-Universel (translation)
 * 2007: Quatre courts traités sur la Terrasse Céleste, Fayard, series "", ISBN 9782213634227
 * 2008: Petite histoire du bouddhisme, ISBN 9782290002254
 * 2008: La Centurie du Lotus : poèmes de Jien (1155-1225) sur le Sûtra du Lotus
 * 2012: La hiéroglossie japonaise
 * 2023: Des langues et des dieux au Japon