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Acknowledgements
To complete a work of this nature requires the accumulation of many debts, which I can only begin to account for here. Given that the origins of this work date back to a postdoctoral research project commenced some thirty years ago, the people who contributed in meaningful ways to the project are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that I remember all of you well, even if my acknowledgement remains unwritten. Having said this, some contributions are too dear to go unmentioned. The Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded the initial project, and contributed additional research funding along the way. It is unlikely that I would have reached this stage without their ongoing support. The publication of this book was aided by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, for which I am most grateful. Ishii Shūdō, professor emeritus of Komazawa University in Tokyo, kindly led me through some of the intricacies of the Seng shilüe in an inimitable Japanese fashion, even as I struggled to catch the nuance of his Japanese explanations of the Chinese text. Ishii-sensei remains a beacon of excellence, introducing me (and virtually everyone else) to the exciting world of Song dynasty Buddhism. To him and his deceased wife, Emi, I am grateful for the many kindnesses shown over decades of friendship. Koichi Shinohara and Phyllis Granoff,