Jean-Noël Alexandre Robert (born 30 December 1949) is a French orientalist, specialist of the history of Buddhism in Japan and of its Chinese predecessors. His work particularly focus on Tendai and the philology of Sino-Japanese Buddhist texts. He is the author of the French translation of the Lotus Sutra, a seminal text of Mahayana Buddhism, from the original Chinese.
In 2011, he was appointed a professor at the fr|[[Collège de France]] to become the holder of the chair fr|Philologie de la civilisation japonaise.[1]
Robert graduated from the fr|[[Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales]] in 1970 and was a resident of the Franco-Japanese House of Tokyo in 1974–1975. From 1975 to 1990, he worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Since 1979, he has been the lecturer and director of studies at the fifth section of the fr|[[École pratique des hautes études]] (EPHE). A French: doctor ès lettres of social science (1987), he was appointed director of the fr|Institut des hautes études japonaises des Instituts d’Asie of the Collège de France in 2010. On 11 April 2011, he was appointed professor at the College of France where he became holder of the Chair of fr|Philologie de la civilisation japonaise.[2]
Robert is a member of numerous scientific societies and specialized committees: the fr|Société française des études japonaises de Paris, French: commissions des spécialistes of the fr|[[Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales]] at Paris Diderot University, French: commission scientifique of the fr|[[École pratique des hautes études]] (5th section), counsellor of the fr|[[Société Asiatique]], board of the fr|[[French School of the Far East]].
Robert is editor of French: Hôbôgirin, an encyclopaedia of Buddhism from the Chinese and Japanese sources, and member of the editorial and scientific committees of the English: Japan Review, the French: [[Journal asiatique]] and the journal. He was elected on 17 March 2006, member of the fr|[[Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres]] at the chair of André Caquot. He also writes in Latin, under the pseudonym Alexander Ricius.[3]