EAST stands for "Epistemology and Argumentation in South Asia and Tibet". This resource collects and presents bio-bibliographical information on philosophical traditions in South Asia and Tibet that concentrate their efforts on theories of knowledge and reasoning, covering a time-span from the fifth century CE until, essentially, the present day (although the current focus is on the period between the 5th and 13th centuries).
From 2011-2015, EAST was developed at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). Current development is undertaken at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Status and coverage
Having originated in research efforts on Buddhist logic and epistemology in South Asia, EAST currently contains data chiefly on the Dignāga-Dharmakīrtian tradition. Publication data is complete until 1993. More recent editions and translations in book form have been added. Recent articles are continuously being added. Users are welcome to register and contribute data. User-contributed data and data already approved by an editor are visibly separated.
At the current stage of expansion of EAST, we are focusing on the inclusion of Tibetan tshad ma material.
History
- October 2003-December 2006: Creation of first databases on the basis of Ernst Steinkellner/Michael Torsten Much: "Texte der erkenntnistheoretisch-logischen Schule des Buddhismus" (Göttingen 1995: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Systematische Übersicht über die buddhistische Sanskrit-Literatur II), with publication data up to 1994; continuous improvement of their structure and content, supported by the Austrian Science Funds FWF within various research projects directed respectively by Ernst Steinkellner and Birgit Kellner. Some database components were developed within the project "Development of an Intelligent Cognitive System for Sanskrit based on Indian Logic" (EU-India Economic Cross-Cultural Programme April 2004-December 2006, coordinated by Gerd Unruh, Fachhochschule Furtwangen in Germany; the Vienna subproject was hosted at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies of the University of Vienna under the direction of Karin Preisendanz.
- April 2012-30 September 2013: Development of EAST prototype. Restructuring of data by conversion of bibliographical entries into MODS format (Manuel Batsching, Pei-Lin Chiou), corrections, translation of explanatory text from German into English by Birgit Kellner.
- 1 October 2013-30 April 2017: Development of EAST website, implementation of facilities for user-contributed content (Patrick McAllister), data updates (Pei-Lin Chiou, Toshikazu Watanabe), as part of the project "SARIT: Enriching Digital Text Collections in Indology" within the DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Programme, conducted at the University of Heidelberg.
- From April 2017: continued development at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Pei-Lin Chiou, Birgit Kellner, Patrick McAllister, Toshikazu Watanabe).
- In 2018 Toshikazu Watanabe left the team and became an associate team member subsequent to his appointment as Assistant Professor at Kokugakuin University (Tokyo).
- In 2022, Calahan Morse starts contributing to EAST, and becomes a member of the editorial team in October 2023.