Jiang Wu, director of the UA’s Center for Buddhist Studies, has received the inaugural Tianzhu Book Prize for Excellence in Chan Studies.

The award recognizes Wu’s book Leaving for the Rising Sun: Chinese Zen Master Yinyuan and the Authenticity Crisis in Early Modern East Asia, published in 2015 by Oxford University Press.

The book is the first written in English about the founder of the Japanese Obaku School. In announcing the award, the Tianzhu Global Network for the Study of Buddhist Cultures praised Wu’s “groundbreaking effort to study a complex religious phenomena cutting cross both China and Japan in later centuries.”

Wu received the award and delivered a lecture in August at the University of British Columbia during the closing ceremony for the UBC Intensive Program on Buddhism.

“I’m pleased to accept this award,” Wu said. “This recognizes the excellence in research and scholarship at the UA’s Center for Buddhist Studies and we aspire to more.”