Also Known as the Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism
To further support the advancement of Buddhist studies in the western world, BDK established the Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism in 2009. The prize contest is coordinated by the Center for Buddhist Studies (CBS) at the University of California, Berkeley and the winning entry for best academic Buddhist title of the year is selected by an independent committee. The Toshi Prize, as it is sometimes called, consists of a cash award, a public lecture by the winning author and a panel discussion on the topic of the winning entry, held in Berkeley each year after the winning entry is announced.
Nominations
Please note that nominations are open each year and typically close in April. For further information, please view UC Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies website here.
Recent Winners
- 2022 – John Strong, The Buddha’s Tooth
- 2021 – Chris Jones, The Buddhist Self
- 2020 – Roger R. Jackson, Mind Seeing Mind: Mahāmudrā and the Geluk Tradition
- 2019 – Paul Swanson, Clear Sernity, Quiet Insight
- 2018 – Roy Tzoharfor, A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor
- 2017 – Jacqueline I. Stone, Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan
- 2016 – Janet Gyatso, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet
- 2015 – Lothar Ledderose and Sun Hua, Buddhist Stone Sutras in China, Sichuan Province, Volume 1
More information about these and other titles can be found at UC Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies website
(Last updated March, 2023)