Expertise

Buddhist Studies, Asian History, Digital Humanities

Biography

Marcus Bingenheimer 馬德偉 was born in Germany. He obtained an MA (Sinology, Japanology, Education) and Dr.phil (History of Religions) from Würzburg University, and an MA (Communication Studies) from Nagoya University. Bingenheimer taught Buddhism and Digital Humanities in Taiwan, and held visiting positions and fellowships at universities in Korea, Japan, Thailand, France, and Singapore. Since 2001 he has supervised various projects concerning the digitization of Buddhist culture. His main research interests are the history and historiography of Buddhism, early sūtra literature, and how to apply computational approaches to research in the Humanities.

Website

Selected Publications

Books

• 2018: Marcus Bingenheimer 馬德偉, Chang Po-Yung 張伯雍 (eds.): Four Early Chan Texts from Dunhuang – A TEI-based Edition 早期禪宗文獻四部 —— 以TEI標記重訂敦煌寫卷：楞伽師資記，傳法寶紀，修心要論，觀心論. Taipei: Shin Wen Feng 新文豐.
• 2016: Island of Guanyin - Mount Putuo and its Gazetteers.London & New York: Oxford UP.
• 2011: Studies in Āgama Literature - With special reference to the Shorter Chinese Saṃyuktāgama. Taipei: Shin Wen Feng 新文豐.
• 2004: Der Mönchsgelehrte Yinshun (*1906) und seine Bedeutung für den Chinesisch-Taiwanischen Buddhismus im 20. Jahrhundert. [The Scholar Monk Yinshun 印順 – His Relevance for the Development of Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhism.] Heidelberg: Edition Forum (Würzburger Sinologische Schriften).
• 2001: A Biographical Dictionary of the Japanese Student-Monks of the Seventh and Early Eighth Centuries. Their Travels to China and their Role in the Transmission of Buddhism. München: Iudicium

Selected Articles

• 2025 (a): Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Justin BRODY, Ryan NICHOLS: “Experiments in Distant Reading: Using Topic Modeling on Chinese Buddhist Texts from 500-800 CE” Digital Humanities Quarterly 19.1.
• 2025 (b): - Sebastian NEHRDICH, Avery CHEN, Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Lu HUANG, Rouying TANG, Xiang WEI, Leijie ZHU, Kurt KEUTZER: “MITRA-zh-eval: Using a Buddhist Chinese Language Evaluation Dataset to Assess Machine Translation and Evaluation Metrics” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Natural Language Processing for Digital Humanities (NLP4DH 2025), pp.129-137.
• 2024 (a): Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Paul MCBAIN: “In the Footsteps of Wolfgang Franke – Revisiting and Surveying Chinese Temples in Bangkok” Journal of the Siam Society Vol.112-1: 49–70. Survey data on Zenodo and at https://nanyang-data.info/.
• 2024 (b): “Strangers in Paradise - Foreign Visitors on Mount Putuo in the Late Qing” In: Jinhua Chen and Dewei Zhang (ed.) Religions and Local Society in Historical, Comparative, and Theoretical Perspectives: A Festschrift in Honour of Timothy Brook, Singapore: World Scholastic Publishers, pp.97-128.
• 2023 (a): “Miyun Yuanwu 密雲圓悟(1567–1642) and His Impact on 17th‑Century Buddhism.” Religions 14, 248. pp.1-17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020248.
• 2023 (b): “A late Mahāyāna text on Being without Self – With special reference to the Chinese versions of the Nairātma-paripṛcchā (T. 846, T. 1643).” Buddhist Studies Review Vol. 40-1: 3-26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.21811.
• 2023 (c): Sebastian NEHRDICH, Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Justin BRODY, Kurt KEUTZER: “MITRA-zh: An efficient, open machine translation solution for Buddhist Chinese.” Proceedings of the Joint 3rd NLP4DH and 8th IWCLUL, pp. 266–277. [PDF].
• 2023 (d): “Special Issue 'Historical Network Analysis in the Study of Chinese Religion' —Introduction.” Religions 14, 248. pp.1-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14121543
• 2022 (a): “Traversing the ‘Pilgrimage Square’ of Northern China in the 19th Century.” In: Jiang Wu (ed.), The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, pp.73-92. New York: Routlegde. DOI: 10.4324/9781003214847-6.
• 2022 (b): “Changing Pilgrimage Routes in the Late Qing – Comparing the itinerary networks in Knowing the Paths of Pilgrimage 參學知津 (c.1827) and Record of Travels to Famous Mountains 名山遊訪記 (c.1918).” In: Vincent Goossaert and Tsuchiya Masaaki (eds.) Lieux saints et pèlerinages: la tradition taoïste vivante / Holy sites and pilgrimages: The Daoist Living Tradition, pp. 393-408. Turnhout: Brepols. 
• 2022 (c): “Monastic biography in the Ming and Qing: The case of Shi Zhenqing 釋真清 (1537-1593)” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 中華佛學學報 Vol. 35, pp. 59-107. PDF.
• 2021 (a): “Digital Tools for Buddhist Studies” In: Christopher D. Cantwell and Kristian Petersen (eds.), Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies, pp.1-31. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter. ISBN: 978-3110571608. DOI: 10.1515/9783110573022-002
• 2021 (b): “The Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism” Journal of Historical Network Research Vol. 5: 233-247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25517/jhnr.v5i1.119.
• 2020 (a): “A Study and Translation of the Yakṣa-saṃyukta in the Shorter Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama.” In: Dhammadinnā (ed.), Research on the Saṃyukta-āgama. Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation, pp.763-841.
• 2020 (b): “On the Use of Historical Social Network Analysis in the Study of Chinese Buddhism: The Case of Dao’an, Huiyuan, and Kumārajīva” Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities Vol.5-2 (2020): 84-131. (Special Issue on “Buddhism and Technology”). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17928/jjadh.5.2_84.
• 2020 (c): Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Ting SHEN: “The portrayal of women in the poetry of Jing’an Eight-Fingers” Studies in Chinese Religions Vol.6-2 (2020): 1-22. DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2020.1763680.
• 2020 (d): “Digitization of Buddhism (Digital Humanities and Buddhist Studies)” Oxford Bibliographies Online In Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism. Ed. Richard Payne. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393521-0265.
• 2020 (e): “Introduction” Special Issue on “Buddhism and Technology” Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities Vol.5-2 (2020): 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17928/jjadh.5.2_1.
• 2019 (a): “Yinshun” in J.Silk (ed.) Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Vol.2, pp.795-800.
• 2019 (b): Oliver STREITER, Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Hanna Ya-qing ZHAN, Mandy Manwai TO, Syuan-fei SHIH: “First Steps towards Reviving Franke’s ‘Chinese Epigraphy in Southeast Asia’: Motivations, Approaches and Data Structures” in O. Streiter, M. To, J. Morris (eds.) Proceedings DRGPA (Documenting and Researching Graveyards in Pacific Asia) 2019, pp. 91-118.
• 2018 (a): “Who was ‘Central’ for Chinese Buddhist History? - A Social Network Approach.” International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture. Vol.28-2 (Dec. 2018): 45-67. Open Access Journal Issues. DOI: 10.16893/IJBTC.2018.12.28.2.45.
• 2017 (a): “Pilgrimage in China.” in: Albera, Dionigi, John Eade (eds.) New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies: Global Perspectives. (Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism), pp. 18-35.
• 2017 (b): Marcus BINGENHEIMER, Jen-Jou HUNG, Cheng-en HSIEH: “Stylometric Analysis of Chinese Buddhist texts - Do different Chinese translations of the Gaṇḍavyūha reflect stylistic features that are typical for their age?” Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital HumanitiesVol. 2 (2017): 1-30. DOI: 10.17928/jjadh.2.1_1.
• 2016 (a) “‘Knowing the Paths of Pilgrimage’ - The Network of Pilgrimage Routes in 19th century China according to the Canxue zhijin 參學知津.” Review of Religion and Chinese Society Vol. 3-2 (Issue on Geospatial Studies on Chinese Religions): 189-222.
• 2016 (b): “The General and the Bodhisattva – Commander Hou Jigao Travels to Mount Putuo.” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies Vol.29 (2016): 129–161. 

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Buddhism
• Introduction to East Asia: China
• Introduction to East Asia: Japan
• Introduction to Mainland Southeast Asia
• Foundations of Chinese Buddhism
• Foundations of Chinese Religions
• Monks, Masters and Magicians – Chinese Religions in Chinese Literature
• Digital Humanities: Tools and Techniques