Many illustrious visitors come to Columbia University every year from around the world.
        But it is unprecedented for us to have the honor of hosting today the first visit to the United States of the Abbesses and nuns from the Imperial Buddhist Convents of Japan.
        These eminent Abbesses and nuns represent the centuries-old traditions of spiritual dedication and accomplishment of Japanese religious women over the ages.
        They are also the vital custodians today of one of Japan's richest cultural treasures: those very few convents still extant today that were founded and led for centuries by women of royal birth and the highest of cultural achievements.
        We are honored to welcome you.
        St. Paul's Chapel here at Columbia was originally built in the Christian architectural tradition, as we can clearly see around us. But in recent times it has become a sanctuary where all our students, faculty, and staff, of every faith -- Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus -- can come to reflect quietly on the spiritual dimensions of human life. This Chapel has been sanctified by all the best spiritual aspirations of women and men of every faith. And we are deeply honored that this unprecedented 700th anniversary memorial service for a Zen Abbess is being held in this sacred space here today.
        It is certainly an extraordinary moment for us to have here before our eyes the thirteenth-century spiritual founder of many of the convents represented here today: Abbess Mugai Nyodai  is here not only in spirit, but as if it were her very self, manifested in this extraordinary thirteenth-century portrait statue on the altar in front of us, made by someone who obviously knew her well.
        As you know, it was Professor Barbara Ruch here on our faculty at Columbia University whose encounter with Abbess Mugai Nyodai a decade or more ago led to the extraordinary events of this weekend.
        When Barbara founded the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture here at Columbia twelve years ago, her efforts to bring our academic world into closer contact with the broader American intellectual community brought much international attention to Columbia. It is equally impressive, though perhaps less well known, that at the same time the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, of which she is founder and director, has been having a major international impact over the past 30 years in so many different areas of the pre-modern Japanese humanities.
        Although the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies was founded at the University of Pennsylvania 30 years ago, we are proud to have hosted the Institute here at Columbia now for the past 14 years, and I hope that it will remain an active part of our research community for many years to come. No matter what we academics tend to claim, human faith cannot be studied from books alone. We especially hope that the service this morning and the Institute's events, today, and throughout the weekend will strengthen the bonds now established between our scholars and students and the nuns, monks and religious institutions of Japan, and that these bonds will greatly deepen our understanding and appreciation of one of the world's great religions.
        I am honored, too, today to be joined by Ambassador Otsuka as we commemorate both the thirty-year history of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, and the extraordinary life of Abbess Mugai Nyodai, who has inspired its most recent endeavors.

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