About the Author

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Richard K. Payne is the Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, USA, and a member of the Graduate Theological Union's Core Doctoral Faculty. He is author of Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan: Indic Roots of Mantra (Bloomsbury, 2018). Fabio Rambelli is Professor of Japanese Religions and ISF Endowed Chair in Shinto Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions (Bloomsbury, 2021), Defining Shugendo (Bloomsbury, 2020) Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan (Bloomsbury, 2019), The Sea and the Sacred in Japan (Bloomsbury, 2018), and author of A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics (Bloomsbury, 2013).