The homepage of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism is a testament to Zen simplicity. In other words, it is a no-frills, clutter free, strictly utilitarian portal. However, it leads its users to an outstanding reference resource.
The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (DDB) started out in 1995 as the Dictionary of East Asian Buddhist Terms but expanded its coverage in 2001 to include other geographic and cultural areas. Therefore, the name was changed to incorporate the new and increasing volume of materials. Having been around for nearly 19 years, the DDB has definitely stood the test of time, and reference librarians can breathe a sigh of relief knowing the database contains only scholarly information. The DDB is the brainchild of Charles Muller, Professor Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo, Japan. In addition to Muller, there are currently > 90 contributors to the DDB, including: Higeki Moro, assistant professor of Buddhist Studies at Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan; Jason Josephson, assistant professor of Religion at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, and Dan Arnold, assistant professor of Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, USA. All contributors to the DDB must have completed at least a graduate degree equivalent to the MA level at a fully accredited institution where they have received instruction in the reading of classical Buddhist texts.
There are three levels of access to the DDB. Limited use allows any user to access the DDB 10 times in a 24-hour period free of charge by entering “guest” as their username and with no requirement for a password. Unlimited use is for contributors to the DDB who can obtain an unlimited use password. More information on contributing can be found at the How to Contribute link under the Front Matter section. Paid subscriptions are also available, offering unlimited access to the database for those not wanting to contribute to the content priced US$60 for individuals and US$600 for institutions. According to the website, the DDB is currently subscribed to by 45 colleges and universities worldwide, including Harvard, Yale, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Helsinki.
The DDB homepage lists five main sections: Topical Indexes, Front Matter, External Resources: Lexical, External Resources: Textual Databases and Collections, and External Resources: Searchable Article and Bibliographical Databases. While reference librarians will find some of the External Resources useful, most will want to access the database for the wealth of information contained in the dictionary database. As of 28 February 2014, there were 61,979 entries in the database.
The streamlined design of the DDB homepage helps to insure quick and easy loading on just about any device. For this review, the DDB was tested on two machines: a Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows 8 and using the Firefox web browser (15.6″ widescreen/1366 × 768 resolution) with a wireless connection (69.01 Mbps download speed), and an iPad 4 running iOS 7.0.4 (9.7 inch 2048 × 1536 [264 ppi] retina display) with a wireless connection (0.65 Mbps download speed).
The DDB can be searched via the simple XML search engine located at the top left-hand side of the homepage or by using the Topical Indexes, which are divided in to nine categories: Radical, Total Strokes, Terms (English, Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan), Texts (Taishō Canon, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Tibetan and English Titles), Persons (India, China, Korea, Japan and Tibet), Temples (India, China, Korea and Japan), Schools (Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Tibetan and English Names), Places (India, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia and Mythical) and Names (gods, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, demons, etc.). For example, a search using the term bodhisattva via the XML search engine results in hundreds of short entry body matches that will allow you to narrow your search (with links to view the full entries). Whereas a search for Indradatta (a bodhisattva) results in one entry body match. One could also search under Topical Indexes, then Names, then Bodhisattvas and find Indradatta listed alphabetically.
Searching was fast, easy and efficient on both devices without any problems to report.
In summary, the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism is a superb reference resource for librarians working with Buddhism, Buddhist philosophy, Asian philosophy and/or philosophy of religions faculty and students ranging from middle school to those working on doctoral degrees.
