Sasaki Kentoku 佐々木憲德 (Japanese)
A modern Japanese Buddhist scholar of the Tendai school, lifespan 1880–1962, professor at Ōtani University 大谷大学 in Kyōto. Native of Ehime prefecture. Specialist in Tang-Buddhist historical-philological recovery, with particular interest in the textual archaeology of the Tang miracle-tale tradition and the Tang Pure-Land literature. The major work for which he is recognised in the Buddhist canonical tradition is the 《冥報記輯書》 Míngbào jì jíshū KR6r0168 (X1648, 7 juǎn), his textual reconstruction of the Tang miracle-tale anthology Míngbào jì of Táng Lín 唐臨 (Tang official, fl. 650–660) — a work that survived as a complete transmitted text in Japan but had been largely lost in the Chinese tradition, with only fragments preserved in Tàipíng guǎngjì, Fǎyuàn zhūlín, and other Sòng-period encyclopedias. Sasaki’s reconstruction collated the surviving Japanese-transmitted text with the citation evidence in the Chinese lèishū tradition to produce a fuller text.
His other major scholarly publications include studies of Tendai-Tiāntái doctrinal history and a monograph on Pure-Land devotional ritual; in the Buddhist canonical tradition he is principally remembered for the Míngbào jì jíshū reconstruction.