It may be added that Charles Willemen was born on the 17th of October 1941, 
obtained his Ph.D. in 1975 at the University of Ghent, where he taught 
classical Chinese and Buddhism for several years (Bart Dessein and Ann Heirman 
were his students) and retired in 2007. His main books:
•   1974. Dharmapada: a concordance to Udanavarga, Dhammapada, and the Chinese 
Dharmapada literature. Publications de l'Institut belge des hautes études 
bouddhiques. Série études et textes 3. Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes 
études bouddhiques.
•   1975. Udanavarga: Chinese-Sanskrit Glossary. Tokyo: Hokuseido, X, 101 p.
•   1975. Abhidharmhrdaya: The Essence of metaphysics. Bruxelles, translated 
and annotated by Charles Willemen, 366 pages, 26 pages (Chinese Text), 
Chinese-Sanskrit glossary, English-Sanskrit glossary. Publications de 
l'Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Bouddhiques, Serie études et textes 
4.Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études bouddhiques.
•   1978. Transl. and Annot. The Chinese Udanavarga: A Collection of Important 
Odes of the Law (Fa chi yao sung ching). Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 19. 
Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 19.
•   1983. The Chinese Hevajratantra: the scriptural text of the ritual of the 
Great King of the teaching, the Adamantine one with great compassion and 
knowledge of the void. Orientalia Gandensia 8. Leuven: Peeters, 208 p.
•   1994. Transl. The storehouse of sundry valuables. Tsa-pao-tsang-ching. 
Compiled by T'an-yao. Transl. into Chinese by Kikkaya and Liu Hsiao-piao. BDK 
English Tripitaka 10/1. Berkeley (Calif.): Numata center for Buddhist 
tranlation and research, XIX, 275 p.
•   1998. With Bart Dessein & Collet Cox. Sarvāstivāda Buddhist Scholasticism. 
Handbuch der Orientalistik. 2. Abt.: Indien 11. Leiden: Brill, XVII, 341 p.

Le 5 juin 2024 à 17:07, Shrikant Bahulkar via INDOLOGY 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> a écrit :

I am very sad to inform you that Prof. Dr Charles Willemen, an eminent 
Buddhologist, passed away two days ago. He was 82. Prof Lalji Shravak, BHU, 
Varanasi, received an email informing him of this.
Prof. Willemen made an outstanding contribution to Buddhist Studies. He started 
his career in Buddhist Studies with an M.A. in East-Asian Studies (Chinese, 
Japanese, Sanskrit) in 1968-69. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1971 in 
East-Asian Studies on The Chinese Udānavarga. He was privileged to work with 
eminent Buddhist scholars, such as Prof. H. Nakamura, Tokyo.
He used to visit the K. J. Somaiya Centre for Buddhist Studies, Somaiya 
Vidyavihar University, Mumbai and deliver lectures on Buddhism. I was fortunate 
to attend his lectures some years ago at the Department of Pali and Buddhist 
Studies, Savitribai Phule University, Pune. I was amazed to see the depth of 
his knowledge and independent thinking.
I requested that he contribute his article to the Annals of the Bhandarkar 
Oriental Research Institute (ABORI), Pune when I was the chief editor of that 
journal. He kindly submitted his article on “Xuangzang about Avalokiteśvara, 
Jibin, and Madhyāntika.” It was an important contribution. (ABORI, Vol. XCIV, 
(2013) 2017, p. 111–123).
Some time ago, I tried to get information about him. I was informed that he 
lived in Belgium and had not travelled since the pandemic. I got no more 
information. I emailed him on June 23, 2022, but I did not get a reply.
The news of his sudden demise has saddened all of us. We have lost a great 
scholar and a very kind person. I cannot forget our informal chats and his 
witty comments.
May his soul rest in peace.

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