Fukui Fumimasa

In 1991, he was honored with the rank of chevalier in the French Ordre des Palmes académiques for his extraordinary scholastic merit. In 2014, he was honored with the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure. He was a member of the 17th and 18th Science Council of Japan. From 1996 to 2004, he was the eighth president of Waseda University's Young Buddhist Association. He retired at age 70.

Fukui Fumimasa (June 6, 1934 - May 4, 2017) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar-monk, Sinology scholar and Tendai monk; he was a monk in the highest grade. He was the chief monk at Yuishinin Temple, a temple within Nikkozan Rinnō-ji Temple located at Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture and was professor emeritus at Waseda University. His father was Fukui Kōjun, and his younger brother was Fukui Shigemasa. Both father and brother were Asian Studies scholars and Tendai Buddhist monks.

Fukui was born in Tokyo. He went to Waseda University Junior and Senior High School and specialized in Asian Philosophy at Waseda University's Literature Department. Fukui pursued advanced studies at Waseda and received both his Masters and Doctorate degrees there. He went abroad to study in France and was a student of Paul Demiéville (1894-1979), Maxime Kaltenmark (1910-2002) and Rolf Stein (1911-1999). Fukui later became a professor at Waseda University. Fukui specialized in the historical philology of the Heart Sutra and the theories on the formation of Daoism. During the Cultural Revolution in China, he assisted many French sinologists in gaining access to research institutions, monasteries and universities in Japan.