Heinrich Dumoulin

Heinrich Dumoulin ( born May 31, 1905 in Wevelinghoven at Grevenbroich, North Rhine -Westphalia, † July 21, 1995 ) was a German Catholic theologian and scholar of comparative religion with Zen Buddhism as a research priority.

At age 19 he began a novitiate with the Jesuits, came after the Order in 1933 and received priestly ordination. In 1935 he was sent to Japan, where she discovered his interest in Zen Buddhism, to which he dedicated his life as a researcher.

His published in 1985 two -volume history of Zen Buddhism is a standard work and has received worldwide widespread attention in the professional world. Although recent research has partly to other interpretations and results, the work is still often cited to this day and is now regarded as the primary text for the reception of Zen Buddhism in the West.

Heinrich Dumoulin was a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, he was also the first Director of the Nanzan Institute (now Nanzan University ) By 1975 until 1976.