In this paper, I will speak only briefly about the nature and activities of the London BPS under Pfoundes’ local leadership. Our article in DISKUS 16:3, 1-33 (Bocking, Cox, Yoshinaga 2014) summarises most of what we currently know about this forgotten mission and I do not wish to duplicate material already freely available. My main focus will be, somewhat paradoxically, on what we do not yet know or understand about Pfoundes and about the London BPS. In other words, I want to use this space to identify some research questions and topics around Pfoundes and the BPS which I hope may stimulate further thought and perhaps also further research into the first Japanese – and first ever - overseas Buddhist mission, and by extension stimulate thought about questions that can be asked around other research topics in the area of our common interest in ‘plural Buddhisms and plural colonialisms’.
In what follows I raise eight such issues, followed by some concluding remarks which relate the themes below to areas for further research identified by workshop participants at the first ‘Buddhist Crossroads’ conference held at University College Cork in September 2012. These in turn informed our Introduction to the special issue of Contemporary Buddhism (2013, 14:1, 1-16) entitled ‘A Buddhist crossroads: pioneer European Buddhists and globalizing Asian networks 1860–1960’.