Dr Sungchul Kim is a professor of the Department of Buddhist Studies at Dongguk University, Gyeongju, Korea. He is also the Dean of the College of Buddhist Studies and Culture, the Chief of the Institute for Buddhist Culture & Social Affairs and the President of the Korean Association for Buddhist Studies. He graduated from the Dental College of Seoul National University in 1982. He studied Buddhism at Dongguk University and earned a Ph.D. in Indian philosophy in 1997. His dissertation was entitled “The Origin of Madhyamaka Logic of Nāgārjuna”. He is known as the most prestigious authority in Korea on the Mādhyamika School of Mahayāna Buddhism.
He translated the original texts related to the Mādhyamika School: Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way (Madhyamaka-Śāstra), Refutation of Objections (Vigrahavyāvartanī), Twelve Gate Treatise (Dvādaśanikāya Śāstra), and Āryadeva’s The Hundred Treatise (Śata śāstra). In addition, he wrote several books on Madhyamaka philosophy: Madhyamaka-Kārīkā, Liberation from Logic, Liberation by Logic. and The Madhyamaka Thought et cetra.
From his studies on Indian Buddhism, Dr Kim extensively expanded the scope of research into Buddhist logic, Tibetan Buddhism, and Chinese Buddhism. Recently, he has been trying to combine Buddhism with contemporary disciplines such as Evolutionary Biology, Neuroscience, Ethics, and Sociology.
He has also published more than 10 books and translations as well as over 80 papers. Including the book The Fundamental Research on Wonhyo's Criticism on Reasoning (判比量論), Three of his books have been selected by the ‘Program Supporting the Selection and Distribution of Outstanding books’ of ‘The National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea’. In addition, the book Seungrang (僧朗) - Analytical Exploration of His Life and Thought was selected by the 'National Research Foundation of Korea' for ten years running for excellence.
He received the 6th Kasan Academic Award (1996), the 19th Bul-I Academic Award (2004), the 1st Award for the top thesis in the year 2007 by ‘the Association for Enhancement of Manhae’s Thought.’(2007), and the 6th Cheongsong Academic Award (2012).