Translation Project for an encyclopedia of Shinto, the Shinto Jiten

NEH Collaborative Grant Application
1999-2000 competition

NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION

I.  Substance and Context of the Project     

This binational project between two major universities in Japan and the United States will translate into English and prepare for electronic formatting (in English and Japanese) a 1994 encylopedic dictionary published in Japan titled Shinto Jiten. The linkage between the finished volume and an accompanying database has the potential to transform international understanding of and scholarship related to Japanese religious traditions in general and the understudied traditions of Shinto in particular.      

At 830 pages, the Shinto Jiten is an academically-based and edited compendium of specialized terms, general and local histories, ritual practices, and religious symbols related to the diverse practices of Shinto.  As a religious tradition, Shinto predates the early sixth century arrival of Buddhism in Japan.  However,  it continues to influence religious, political,  and cultural perspectives in such varied areas as the mythological origins of Japan and concepts of the nation, Japanese cultural identity (a Shintoesque version of which was on display at the Nagano Winter Olympics), the urge an individual feels to obtain spiritual benefits for his or her life, or acknowledging life transitions with Shinto rituals.   We will elaborate on these topics in the discussion that follows.     

Briefly stated, this project has three progressive goals.  First, we will translate the Shinto Jiten into contemporary English, that it might serve as the definitive reference work for Shinto-related research as well as related research on Japanese culture and society .   Next, we will publish and distribute the dictionary both in print versions and on CD-ROM.  Finally, and in conjunction with the preceding steps, we will  establish the text as a searchable on-line database (accessible through library subscription services) which will be located at the Institute for East  Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  A  "mirror site" will operate through the Institute for Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo.  All of these goals will be discussed at length in the following narrative.     

A. Reference dictionary     

Reference dictionaries are one of the most important and fundamental tools of research, whether used for academic,  business, or general interest purposes.  They compile vast amounts of information within a single volume or series on multiple yet related topics.  While of great utility, these dictionaries (like most books in the reference section)  are restricted to usage within the library, largely because they must be available at all times to anyone seeking information on a particular topic or subject area.     

In 1994, a new reference dictionary in Japanese on Japanese Shinto was published in Tokyo by Kobundo Press.   Supervised and edited by Professor Inoue Nobutaka of Kokugakuin University, the dictionary is the product of five senior scholars at Japan's leading university for Shinto-related studies.  The work updates and extends understanding of one of the world's oldest and most continuous religious traditions, which we now call simply "Shinto."  At 830 pages, with four columns to the page and supplemented by numerous illustrations and photographs, this single volume is, in the words of a reviewer,  "the most important single contribution to the academic study and understanding of Shinto that has appeared in the last fifty years."  The volume is especially significant because it reflects, for perhaps the first time since the end of the war, a committed scholarship that is by and large liberated from ideological subtexts extolling and promoting the virtues of the imperial family,  nationalism, or an ethic of communalism.     

Because of the Shinto Jiten's extended definitions and discussions, it is more akin to an encyclopedia than Western-style dictionary.  The work is divided into nine sections that encompass the following topics (for more detail under each topic, please the translated "table of contents" in APPENDIX A): 

    
1. general introduction (soron / ëçò_)
2. deities (kami/ê_)
3. institutions, organization, and administration (seido/êßìx, kikan / ã@ä÷, gyosei / çsê‚)
4. Shinto shrines (jinja / ê_é-)  
5. festivals (matsuri / ÇÐǬÇË)  
6. forms of religious behavior (shinko keitai / êMã¬å`ë')
7. basic concepts and perspectives  (kihon kannen to kyogaku / äÓñ{ä¦îOÇ�ã„äw)
8. schools, sects, and personalities (ryuha / ó¨îhÅAkyodan / ã„íc, jinbutsu / êlï®)
9. literary sources (Shinto bunken / ê_ì¼ï�å£, with twenty-one pages each on the topics "Shinto Classics" and "Basic Reference Works"), and a detailed chronology and index.

B.  Justifying the Project:  The Importance of Shinto within Japanese Society;  The Need for the Translated Dictionary                 

The academic study of one of the world's oldest religious traditions, which we today call "Shinto," has until recently been limited to an occasional book, article, or chapter in a general book on religions.   We believe that this roughly 1,500 year-old tradition deserves a sustained academic investigation equal to other religious practices in other parts of the world.   For too long, Shinto has been viewed as subject matter limited to the narrowly defined interests of scholars of history, religious studies, ritual, and archaic myth.  For many Japanese scholars in particular,  it has been under a kind of taboo because of its association with Japanese military expansionism of the last war.      

In fact, and as should be obvious from long-running debate over its political role as "State Shinto" before and during World War II, Shinto is much more than merely an ethnic religious tradition.   Shinto represents a worldview and perspective so deeply rooted within Japan that its elements are frequently inseparable from the larger social, cultural, and political fabrics of everyday life.  For distinguished cultural historians such as Ishida Ichiro,  Shinto is considered to be "the primary vital source of Japanese cultural values."  As an orientation to the world that recognizes the potential for natural phenomena to become deities,  that deifies ancestors and leaders of exceptional merit,  and that has influenced through its rituals everything from rice planting to the construction of buildings to the maintenance of hearth fires for cooking, its historical influence upon the development of Japanese society is enormous.      

Shinto's contributions to Japanese society and culture also include a powerful political tradition as well.  Shinto's concern with controlling powerful "others" that are beneficial to society as well as exorcising those that are harmful has given it great utility as a valuable and profoundly strategic resource for ruling elites.   Most obviously, it has promoted and nurtured a fifteen-century continuity that has kept the Emperor as the supreme Shinto priest even while, since the postwar period, he no longer wields direct political power. Numerous shrines (such as Izumo, Iwashimizu Hachimangu, Suwa, and Kasuga)  played key roles in the administration of feudal domains, sacralizing and legitimating the political rulers of the time.   In fact, for much of Japanese political history, the symbiotic nature of state and those religious functions connected with the veneration of Shinto deities was encompassed by a single concept: "saisei-itchi," or the union of ritual and rule.             

The evolution of Shinto has also been intertwined with various ways of making a living, especially rice agriculture, forestry, and fishing---all with specialized deities and, not surprisingly, all instrumental to the stability of a realm.  While evolving through the historical record,  Shinto's mid-nineteenth century reinvention as a tool of the modernizing state has a legacy that is in evidence even today.  Controversial debates continue over the legal status of shrines like Yasukuni (where the spirits of the military dead are enshrined) and the imperial Grand Shrines of Ise, the tutelary shrines for the world's longest continuous lineage of monarchs.   Though the Japanese post-war constitution is clear that no collusion can exist between religion and the state,  the status of Shinto has been ambiguous. Several Supreme Court decisions, have deemed it to be "beyond mere religion" and "a matter of social protocol."     

It is no exaggeration to say that much of the socio-cultural identity of the Japanese people is broadly shaped by Shinto, ranging from its obvious impact on national holidays, community festivals, and familial rites of passage, to less obvious areas such as national self-sufficiency in foodstuffs (especially the role of rice agriculture) and the influence of Shinto views of nature on Japanese behavior in the global environment.   To draw a cross-cultural parallel, imagine trying to understand contemporary India without an understanding of Hinduism, or Italy without Catholicism.  Though people in each country and culture draw from and implement aspects of these traditions in varying degrees, we continually find Hinduism and Catholicism's symbolic logic, their sacralizing and legitimating rhetoric and rituals, and their subtle integration into the worldviews of everyday men and women.  Part of the habitus of each society, these traditions are resources to be utilized by individuals in general as well as politicians and other social architects.  Just as churches and chapels are part of the Italian landscape and Hindu temples and shrines noticeable institutions within Indian urban and rural areas, so too do the shrines and priests of Shinto serve as resilient points of reference for neighborhoods, businesses, and politicians.  In short, all three of these traditions provide ongoing orientations to the world and cosmos in general, despite how these orientations may be negotiated because of individual circumstances or socio-political realities.     

The importance of a renewed appreciation of Shinto's broader significance is just beginning to gain saliency in the context of recent discussions of postmodernism, the global rise of religio-political fundamentalisms, increasing debates regarding a coming "clash of civilizations," and the use of ethnic symbols in the process of what has been called "willful nostalgia."  In short, aside from the obvious study of Shinto as one of the world's most continuous religious traditions in the narrowest sense, Shinto and broadly Shinto-oriented perspectives continue to have relevance within a much wider range of Japanese behavior, extending from everyday personal interaction to national behavior in the global economic and political spheres.      

Despite the need for critical studies of Shinto's role in Japanese society and behavior, however, no major dictionary or encyclopedia of Shinto yet exists in the English language.  Bocking's Dictionary of Shinto (1996) is a welcome step in the right direction, but, at 251 pages,  it is a subjective and, as the author admits, limited compendium of what one British scholar considers relevant.   The English translation of the Shinto Jiten, a work overseen by five distinguished scholars from one of Japan's top institutions for the study of Shinto, will bridge the gap in scholarship and become the most comprehensive single-volume reference work on Shinto.   It will place a wealth of information covering several fields of inquiry (religious studies, history, cultural studies, anthropology) at the fingertips of academics and students worldwide who endeavor to study Shinto and its many roles within Japanese history and society.             

2. History and Duration     

A. Preliminary Accomplishments, Funding, Networks     

Thanks to the early commitment of Kokugakuin University to this project, progress has already been made.  Since 1996, Mr. Norman Havens, the university's principal translator, has begun translating the 830-page text and constructing style sheets.  To date, he has more than one hundred pages of translated text (APPENDIX B).  In addition, Kokugakuin has agreed to provide release time and half salary for Mr. Havens as he continues his translations and edits and supervises the translations of others on the "team." Serving as supervisor and editor of U.S.-based translators is Dr. John Nelson, a specialist in the anthropology of religions and Shinto, with two books on contemporary shrines to his credit.  (Please see "Project Staff" for more information.)   Discussions and workshops related to the project began in 1996 and have taken place in Berkeley, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Kyoto.      

One of the goals of this project is to supercede the traditional limitations of a reference encyclopedia whose use is restricted to a library.  Thus, the translation and dissemination of the Shinto Jiten is a project that will be both a specific and independent publication but also, thanks to the world wide web,  widely available through database subscription services.      

The translation of the Shinto Jiten is affiliated with the U.C. Berkeley Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI).  Started in 1996 by Dr. Lewis Lancaster of U.C. Berkeley,  (who also serves as project consultant) ECAI is developing a series of "cultural atlas databases" encompassing networks of scholars and students with wide-ranging interests.  The foundation of these atlases are archival, scholarly, and general texts,  and represent disciplinary and interdisciplinary research interests.  Because of the flexible nature of electronic data, these texts can now be linked to and made interactive with relevant photos, cartographic maps,  quick-time videos, and of course connected to other sites far and wide.   To manage this wealth of information, a searchable index is engineered into the database.      

One of the beauties about the kind of database the Shinto Jiten will create, following the protocol established by members of the electronic cultural atlas initiative (of which project member Nelson has been involved since its inception), is its "user friendly" design.  Scholars and students will be able to tailor information to their particular project or research needs, whether these be to collect data, to preserve their own databases, or to monitor developments in the region or fields of study related to the region.   Additionally,  this kind of database enables us to find or compare, with breath-taking speed, all appearances of any term or concept in that or any other linked database.      

The Shinto Jiten project will be a discrete entity unto itself, like a large and distinctive branch of a giant tree.   Yet it will be connected to and interact with other "branches" of ECAI's "Cultural Atlas of Japan," a project currently underway at the Australian National University.  These will include (but not be restricted to) the following:  the cultural geography of Japan, the archaeology of ancient Japan,  ancient classical texts such as the Kojiki or Nihongi, Japanese landscape gardens, the anthropology of contemporary Japanese society,  academic studies of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, and so forth.    The various modules will be designed and engineered to be interactive in ways so that the user can easily manage any number of complementary interrelationships.   These in turn will be interactive with other cultural atlases focusing on other parts of the world.     

Using the latest internet and database technology developed at U.C. Berkleley and ANU,  scholars will be able to move freely from atlas to atlas, revolutionizing the amount of scholarship available without having to perform preliminary searches in a library.  Despite the connections and affiliations mentioned above,  the current project for the Shinto Jiten database will at all times retain its uniqueness, autonomy, and full integrity.  The American Academy of Religion Publications Committee has agreed to give the project its formal seal of approval and will give assistance in approaching certain foundations for funding of portions.  (APPENDIX C FOR AAR LETTER, Univ. of California Press letter)     

By designing the Shinto Jiten project in this way from the beginning (a process that dates to 1996), we believe the translated volume will enjoy wider and more encompassing use by scholars and students of Japanese religions in particular and world religions in general.  As emphasized earlier, while the contents of this encyclopedic dictionary deal with the concepts and practices of the religious tradition called "Shinto," they reference much wider elements of traditional and contemporary Japanese socio-cultural behavior.  For example, entries on "living deities," "house deities" and "ancestor veneration" all deal with the issue of the hierarchical structure of Japanese society; an extended article on the separation of religion and state details the characteristic relationship of concepts of religious and secular power; articles on ritual festivals and ceremony point out the close connection between Shinto rites and various forms of livelihood and everyday "commonsense" concepts of taboo, life cycles and initiations.     

In this sense, where specific topics are contextualized by and within larger social and cultural frameworks, a student researching the Japanese imperial system, important festivals, or the controversies associated with Japan's accountability for the war will inevitably encounter, through Internet search engines, both the Electronic Cultural Atlases and the Shinto Jiten.   Likewise, many outreach programs will benefit from the Shinto Jiten's online access.  Designed to encourage and assist students from a broad spectrum of academic institutions, the database will provide access to information their home institutions do not have.     

In sum, the translated dictionary and its accompanying CD-ROM and database will serve not only to fulfill its primary goal as a multi-faceted reference encyclopedia but also provide relevant information and research links about religious, historical, and socio-cultural foundations still of relevance to the culture and society of contemporary Japan.    Crucially, that expansion will not be merely from the Shinto Jiten outward; because of the many links throughout the Internet to the various Electronic Cultural Atlas projects as well as virtual libraries and powerful search engines, the dictionary database (as well as the databases containing the dictionary) will be in constant use because of the electronic "roads" leading to it. 

B. Resources from Principal Institutions     

The project will be conducted at two sites but administered by the originating institution, the Institute of East Asian Studies at U.C. Berkeley.   The principal investigator and project director in the U.S. is Professor Emeritus Delmer Brown (U.C. Berkeley) and the project supervisor is Dr. John Nelson (University of Texas, Austin).     

U.C. Berkeley remains one of the premier research institutions in the world, especially related to East Asia and Japan.  Its library houses one of the top three collections of books outside Japan and numerous faculty are devoted to teaching about Japan and East Asia.  In the area of electronic publication and database design for the field of Asian Studies, Berkeley has shown consistent leadership, exemplified by its participation in projects such as the Tibetan-English dictionary, the Chinese-English Buddhist dictionary, and the placement of the Chinese dynastic histories (as well as ancient Korean classics) on database.      

U.C. Berkeley is commiting a number of key resources to the Shinto Jiten project.  First, the Institute of East Asian Studies is providing staff time for the administration of grant and gift monies through the office of Dr. Joan Kask.   IEAS is also providing an internet connection for the database and web site, while the newly opened Humanites Computing Center is providing two computers, technical expertise, and an administrative assistant for the management of personnel affiliated with the project.        

The "mirror" site for the project is Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, Japan.   Founded in 1882, Kokugakuin University is one of the oldest universities in Japan and is the primary institution for the training of Shinto priests and scholars.   Today, its undergraduate programs include literature, political science, economics, and teacher training, while its graduate degrees focus on Japanese history, literature, and Shinto studies.  Located within Kokugakuin University is the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics (IJCC), where the textual editing and the Japanese-language side of the project will be carried out.  Professor Inoue Nobutaka (IJCC, Kokugakuin University) is the principal investigator and project director,  and Mr. Norman Havens (Permanent Lecturer, IJCC) the project supervisor.  As mentioned earlier, Kokugakuin University is providing leave time and half salary for the Japan supervisor, Mr. Havens.   Once the project moves into the phase where Japanese characters are entered into the English text, several part-time staff will be hired in Tokyo.  Kokugakuin university office staff will administer and supervise these employees, and of course make computers available to them through its computer lab facilities.         

3. Project Staff

• Principal investigator Professor Delmer Brown (UC Berkeley History, emeritus) is the founder of the Center for Shinto Studies.  He is Professor Emeritus of History at the Univesity of California in Berkeley and Adjunct Professor of Shinto at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley. He is co-translator of "Studies in Shinto Thought" by Muraoka Tsunetsu, and of the "Gukansho" by Jien.   He has authored two chapters and the Introduction of the 1994 The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 1 and is now working on a book-length study of "Amaterasu in the History of Japan", as well as teaching a seminar on Shinto at Starr King Theological Center, part of the Pacific School of Religion at U.C. Berkeley.
• Principal investigator Inoue Nobutaka is a Professor at the Institute of Japanese Culture and Classics at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo.  His most recent publications include An Interpretation of the New Religions (Shin-shukyo no kaidoku) and The Formation of Sectarian Shinto (Kyoha Shinto no keisei).
• Norman Havens is Permanent Lecturer at the Institute of Japanese Culture and Classics at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo.   A specialist on pilgrimage and the Ise-mairi phenomenon of the 17th and 18th centuries, he has translated a wide variety of texts into English.  As the principal translator for the Institute of Japanese Culture and Classics, he has to his credit works on Japanese festivals, new religions, and pilgrimage (forthcoming).
• John Nelson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.  He has done extensive ethnographic fieldwork at Shinto shrines in Japan and is the author of the 1996 book A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine (Univ. of Washington Press).  He has produced a documentary film titled "Japan's Rituals of Remembrance: 50 Years after the Pacific War," and has a book on Kyoto's Kamowake Ikazuchi shrine forthcoming from the University of Hawai'i Press in 1999. 
• Professor Lewis Lancaster, project consultant,  is Professor of East Asian Languages, University of California at Berkeley, head of Electronic Publications for the American Academy of Religion, Chair of the Electronic Resources Development Work Group for Association of Asian Studies, and member of the Board of Directors for Pleroma Institute which is currently working on an interdisciplinary database titled "The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative."

4. Methodology     

Because of the scope and complexity of this translation project, we utilize a team rather than individual approach. Work on both sides of the Pacific is monitored and edited by the respective team supervisors (Nelson in the U.S. and Havens in Japan).   Since information can be easily shared and transferred via e-mail, the principal investigators are in constant contact with the team supervisors, who likewise monitor closely the translators' progress.     

Based upon estimates from previous database and translation projects conducted by our consultant, Dr. Lewis Lancaster (project leader for the compiling of the Korean Buddhist Canon as well as for the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative database) we anticipate the funded project will require two years.  The first phase will be to complete the translation (begun by Havens in 1996) of the Shinto Jiten's remaining pages.   The second and concurrent phase will be the editing and detailed proofing required for indexing, character glossaries of Japanese and Chinese-derived words and names, and extensive cross-referencing.   Additionally, the construction of the Shinto Jiten database website and its many links to other sites within the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative and around the world will begin immediately.  Methodologies for each of these three areas will now be discussed.

A.  The Theory and Work of Translation and Supervision: Strategies Employed     

The principal investigators and translation supervisors do not subscribe to any particular school of translation theory.  Our goal is essentially straightforward and simple:  to translate a text from contemporary Japanese into contemporary, clear, and accurate English. In cases where clarity and accuracy appear to be in conflict, accuracy with the original text will take precedence.  However, we intend to supplement the original text when necessary with translator's footnotes.  Since the original text is without footnotes, there should be no confusion as to what constitutes additional explanations, clarifications, or asides of interest to the general reader.   When specific terms requiring technical translations appear, such as the names of Shinto deities, we will preface our handling of these terms with a systematic rationale for rendering their oftentimes lengthy and inconsistent readings into English.    From start to finish, we will endeavor to create a translation that will be useful for the layman, accurate for the specialist, and interesting for all.     

Experience of the principal investigators and supervisors has demonstrated that approximately two hours are required for a translator working from a Japanese text to produce one finished page in English.  We estimate that the dictionary will require some 4,000 typed pages of translated text (one page is counted as a double-spaced page of 23-25 lines, with about 60 characters per line).  This will require about 8,000 hours.      

Although time is a factor in translating text, we will compensate our translators for finished pages rather than hourly wages.  Since a finished page requires about two hours work, we feel that a rate of $25 per finished page is fair compensation (although considerably below rates charged by professional and technical translators).     

The number of translators we can involve in the project depends entirely upon the funding secured at the outset.   We plan to form an initial team of five translators, each of whom will produce ten pages in a typical week of twenty hours of translating work.   At an individual rate of ten pages a week and forty per month, multiplied by five translators, the monthly target is 200 pages.  Since there will be around 700 pages of Japanese text (requiring 4,000 pages of English) remaining to be translated at the onset of the project, the entire translation would, under ideal circumstances, require approximately twenty months of steady work.  If additional funding is secured so that we can increase the number of translators to eight or ten, we can reduce substantially this time to around fifteen months.     

 Our criteria for selecting translators is guided by several factors. First, the original text is in contemporary Japanese and is written for the general reader.  Where technical terms are used, they are clearly noted.  For this reason, and in the interests of keeping funding requests low for a project of this magnitude, we intend to employ native or near native English-speaking advanced Ph.D. candidates in the fields of Japanese history, literature, religious studies, or linguistics.  Without exception, we will require that each translator have completed advanced language study in Japan at a recognized center (such as International Christian University, Sophia University, the Stanford Center,  or the Michigan Center).   The principal investigators feel strongly that to rely only on faculty specialists for translation of such basic and contemporary materials would subject the project to delays and increased costs for the granting institutions.  Accuracy and quality control will be insured through the supervisors, who serve as editors and chief translators having the final say.       

The principal investigators also believe that by providing financial support for our translators, the project will also advance an intellectual investment in promising young scholars.  Advanced Ph.D. candidates or post-doctoral Ph.D's are usually eager for interesting work that contributes to their disciplinary field and language development, while at the same time provides a modest stipend.  Because of the close supervision (not to mention the hierarchical relationship) between team translators and the supervisors,  quality work will be completed with a minimum of "badgering," thus allowing the project to be completed in a timely manner within the grant period.     

The most natural course will be to hire translators in the United States.  Here will we find the concentration of native English speakers with the advanced graduate education necessary to allow them to translate the Japanese text into contemporary English. This also represents the most advantageous course economically, due to differences in pay scales and cost of living vis-à-vis Japan.

B. The Work of Editing     

Following completion of the initial translation, additional time will be necessary for editing and rewriting of the draft translations, and the composition of "end-matter," such as indices, kanji character glossaries, and various tables.  This work will be concentrated at Kokugakuin University in Japan for the following reasons: first, Kokugakuin is the home to the original Shinto Jiten's editorial staff and many of its contributors, and it possesses a closely-integrated permanent and adjunct faculty of native Japanese and foreign scholars in specialties ranging from folklore to religious studies,  history,  sociology, and electronic publishing.   Access to these specialists will be essential in negotiating the final edited version of the dictionary and readying it for electronic publishing.  Second, one of the most intensive and time-consuming of the editing tasks will be the addition of Sino-Japanese kanji characters and the construction of kanji indexes and appendices, including a kanji character-stroke look-up glossary. This kind of work is obviously best suited to native Japanese speakers, thus forming another reason for focusing the editorial and end-matter work in Japan. 

C. Text and Database Formats/ Control Procedures     

Ideally, translators would all utilize the same computer platform running the same Japanese-capable operating systems and word-processing software.  Because of the team approach we employ, however, this ideal will not likely be possible.  Therefore our strategy is to handle files and documents in 100% ASCII format so as to enable different operating systems to read the same files.  Draft translation files will thus be readable by the editorial staff in Japan, regardless of whether a translator creates the files using a PC or Macintosh.  This will allow for greater ease in editing and review across platforms, as well as in maintaining the files in a format acceptable to publishers. A style sheet will indicate non-ASCII character and printing effects (diacritics, italics, boldface, etc.).     

In order to make this system work effectively, we have constructed a translation and computer input style sheet to distribute to translators, and will ensure that it is followed. Items and issues of the style sheet include the following topics: indication of diacritics (primarily macrons over vowels),  capitalization, hyphenation, indication of the location for kanji character placement in the text, spelling of "dakuon" words, how to indicate cross-referenced terms, how to render proper names of texts such as the Nihon shoki, how to keep a list of words to be included in an eventual kanji glossary/index, and how to handle the issue of variant readings and kanji of names.   Should additional issues arise, they will be discussed by the team supervisors and implemented into the style sheet as the work of translation progresses.      

It is important to note again that no NEH or other funds will be used for computers, software, printers,  or Internet-related hardware.  The electronically-formatted text will be made available to key text archives such as those at U.C. Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Michigan.

5. Work Plan     

We expect the translation, editing, preparation of camera-ready copy, and ongoing database construction of the Shinto Jiten to take approximately two years.  The following is a synopsis of the plan for the grant period.   Further details may be found in the Budget description:     

1999     September-February:  The as yet untranslated 800 pages of the Shinto Jiten will be distributed among five translators, selected according to the criteria mentioned above.   As work is completed, it will be sent via e-mail attachments to Dr. Nelson, the U.S. team supervisor, who will review the draft for compliance with the style sheet and ASCII formatting requirements.  At the same time, both Nelson and Dr. Brown will make an initial check for the accuracy and readability of the translation.  Once this screening is completed, the draft translation will be sent to Norman Havens at Kokugakuin University for final proofing.      

2000     March-August: Work continues as described above.     

2000     September-February: Once the draft translations and their proofing are completed, work will begin in Tokyo on adding Sino-Japanese kanji characters, the construction of kanji indexes and appendices, including a kanji character-stroke look-up glossary,  and various tables.  These tasks will be supervised by Inoue and Havens at Kokugakuin, with continual updates to the database housed at Berkeley and maintained by Nelson.     

2001     March-August:  After a final consultation with all project members, the manuscript will be made camera-ready for submission to the University of California Press in Berkeley, which has expressed interest in publishing the volume in both paper and CD-ROM versions (APPENDIX D for UC Press letter) .  Because of Havens' experience with a number of Kokugakuin University publications, he will do the final formatting with the aid of an assistant.   CD-ROM production will take place with technical and administrative assistance from the Electronic Cultural Atlas staff.   We plan to deliver to respective publishers the camera-ready manuscript first, then the CD-ROM version.

6. Final Results and Dissemination     

In many ways, the Shinto Jiten translation is a fitting and even symbolic project for the first years of the 21st century.  The ways in which Shinto has responded to and generally surmounted the challenges of shifting formations of power and ideology is reflected in the translation project by having to anticipate similar shifts in technology and institutional support as decisions were made for disseminating the translated volume and database.      

While a substantial (and traditional) publication will result and take its place on the shelves of reference sections in libraries and scholars around the world, it will also appear in a CD-ROM format.  Material on the CD-ROM will be taken from the database archives, so that it encompasses all the terms of the published volume but creates a more interactive text, complete with additional photos, video clips, sounds, interactive maps, and related materials.   Yet even this version, though laudable for its dense layering of information, remains static.   In order to keep the work relevant and updated, we plan to continue development through its database component.  Here, in addition to the online text (available through library subscription services)  a vast array of links to other databases within the Electronic Cultural Atlas project, scholarly resources,  affiliated faculty and research institutions (to mention only a few of the possibilities).     

The database will be housed at the Humanities Computing Center in Dwinnelle Hall at U.C. Berkeley, where it will be linked to the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative and benefit from available administrative and technical assistance.   We believe this project to be an exemplary model for future projects in redirecting information into both printed, CD-ROM, and electronic formats. 

APPENDICES
    

A. table of contents
    B. jiten example & finished translation
    C. letter of support from AAR
    D. letter of interest from UC Press