Japan's constitutional peace guarantee was, and still is, the main cause of Dr. Hubert Durt's admiration for this country. It was the magnet that drew him here.
"Moreover," he said, "in the late '50s, Buddhist studies, including the texts in Chinese, were possible only in Japan. China was closed, and India did not include Chinese Buddhist texts in its curricula."
Durt, born and educated in Belgium, became a French citizen in 1976. A devotee of Buddhism, he concentrated on classical and Buddhist studies, obtaining his doctorate from the University of Louvain.