Li-Kouang Lin

Lin Li-kouang 林藜光 (1902, Xiamen (Amoy), Fujian Province, China – 29 Apr 1945, St Hilaire du Touvet, Isere, France) was a Buddhologist researcher who worked in France with the most distinguished Sanskritists, Sinologists and Indologists, including Paul Demiéville (1894−1979) when he was based in Xiamen, Alexander von Staël-Holstein (1877 – 1937), Louis Renou and Sylvain Lévi (1863−1935), who taught him Sanskrit and Pali at the College de France.

In 1933, Lin Li-kouang was invited to come to France and work as Chinese assistant to Paul Demiéville, professor at INALCO (School of Oriental Languages). He had already started to compile the Chinese-Sanskrit Index of Kāśyapaparivarta that comprised more than 10, 000 entries, a work that was never published. His wife, Li Wei, was a young poetess and calligrapher. 

Under the mentorship of Louis Renou (1896 – 1966), then the director of the fourth section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Lin Li-kouang finalized the edition of the 2,549 Dharma-samuccaya stanzas, accompanied by annotations, from a manuscript found by Lévi in Nepal in 1922. The Sanskrit text was published with the revised and corrected Tibetan translation and Chinese translations, as well as a French translation that Lin Li-kouang did himself.

According to Tianzhu Buddist Network, ​“the suffering of the war years, the overwork and his anguish towards the sad fate of his distant county and his relatives, took a toll on his health. On April 29, 1945, at dawn, he died silently and in absolute solitude at the sanatorium of St-Hilaire-du-Touvet (Isère) at the age of 43. The following year, his remains were transferred to the Père-Lachaise Cemetery where he is now resting for eternity.” 

According to his son, Lin Xi, Lin Li-kouang was an ardent supporter of the anti-Nazi Resistance, and prayed for the end of the Japanese occupation of China during World War II (See ​‘Hommage to Lin Li-kouang (1902−1945)’, Supplement to Études Chinoises vol 34 – 1, 2015).