Forms of relationship to relatives or local communities in Japan are changing drastically. Japanese come to experience more encounter with various peoples from foreign countries. To study the change of religious and communal consciousness of the people who come to Japan with various cultural or ethnic background, and that of the people who have been there: it will be Fellow Kenta Kasai's part at the Center.

Center for Information on Religion has offered a database of religious articles in newspapers and magazines for more than 2 decades, to Religion Information Research Center (RIRC, in short) which is a division of International Institute for the Study of Religion. The database enables us, for example, to know the details of "an religious incident about ten years ago" or to track the vicissitude of a particular traditional ritual for 20 years.
We also have e-mail weekly bulletin of the noteworthy weekly news (available in Japan): "CIR Correspondence." in English. If you are interested and hope to subscribe, contact us letter@circam.com.

This is very huge database of the religious articles which trace back to 1980s. In comparison with the most database services which are accessible through internet, more than simple e-text, we have archive of the actual articles. You can search them with its type (ex. Editorials) by original indexes. Now it is available for RIRC members with a modest annual charge.
[ RIRC website ]

After Buddha had left this world, innumerable people have made great efforts to hand down and save his teaching for 2500 years. The Buddhism which we can approach at present is the fruit of their efforts.
As a result of changing its form according to the time and region, various kinds of Buddhism have occurred so that it became difficult to standardize them. We have no common explanation for the question of 'what is the essence of Buddhism?'
To make a solution to this problem, we intend to reexamine what had happened at Buddha's last moment and reaffirm Buddha's main point by studying the and other sources.
Research Fellow Naomi SATO takes its charge.