Review of: Bryan D. Lowe, Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Sutra as a Notebook? Printing and Repurposing Scriptures in Medieval Japan
Ars orientalis;, 2023
This study considers how printed scriptures were repurposed in medieval Japan through manuscript interventions. My starting point is the so-called Chū Hokekyō (Annotated Lotus Sutra), a copy of the Lotus Sutra probably printed in the Nara area and owned by the monk Nichiren (1222-1282). On this sutric text Nichiren wrote "notes," filling the negative space between the lines of the scripture, the upper and lower margins of the printed area, and the verso. Such interventions generate a palimpsestic object, overlapping two types of text, the printed and the manuscript, and creating complex dynamics of interaction and multiple use. Is there a relation between what is inserted and the point of the scripture at which it is inserted? What information is supplemented by the "notes," and to whom is this directed? Nichiren's Lotus Sutra also urges us to interrogate the status and function of Buddhist printing in medieval Japan. Were sutras printed to be used as learning tools (reading matter and reference material), or does Nichiren's specimen document a practice of repurposing scriptures originally printed for other reasons? How many scriptures were printed and how many were annotated? What was the nature of such paratextual accretions? This article explores these questions by reconstructing the life of the Annotated Lotus Sutra as an object that was produced with specific techniques and continued its life after Nichiren's death. In order to contextualize this object, the article retrieves the printing history of the scripture owned by Nichiren, the Lotus Sutra, and the diverse practices of repurposing that affected this genre of printed scriptures in the medieval period. Among the many exceptionally well-preserved holographic writings by the monk Nichiren 日蓮 (1222-1282) is a work known as Chū Hokekyō 註法華經 (Annotated Lotus Sutra). It consists of a printed copy of the Lotus Sutra and its accompanying scriptures, probably published in the Nara area in the early Kamakura period (1185-1333). On it Nichiren wrote "notes" consisting of quotations from other texts, filling the upper and lower margins of the printed area, the space between the lines of the scripture, the negative space before the beginning and at the end of a chapter, and the verso of the scrolls (figs. 1-4). Nichiren's handwritten interventions transformed the printed scrolls into a palimpsestic text where the solemn, regular sequence of sutra lines mixes and interweaves with the scattered lines of many other sacred texts, there transposed by the distinctive, spirited cursive hand of its reader. 1 At first look, the result of such accretions is an unexpected, unconventional object that may surprise QUICK CITATION
Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2014
The article investigates the modes of use of early Buddhist manuscripts in a monastic environment. Based mainly on the evidence of archaeological and manuscript data from North-West India (Gandhāra) it discusses the circumstances under which manuscripts were produced, used and deposited by early Buddhist communities. In this regard, the article critically evaluates the hypothesis of a "ritual burial" of manuscripts in the stūpas of "Greater Gandhāra". A special paragraph is devoted to the unique birch-bark manuscript of a portion of the Prātimokṣasūtra from the Bajaur Collection of Kharoṣṭhī manuscripts. The two sides of the birch-bark contain two different versions of the initial part of the naiḥsārgika pātayantika chapter of the Prātimokṣasūtra. A comparison with known canonical texts shows that these two versions can be associated with two different Prātimokṣasūtra traditions. They are, however, not identical with any of the known versions which are usually attributed to specific Buddhist schools (nikāyas). It therefore seems justified to characterise them as proto-canonical or/ and local/regional versions of this fundamental text. The analysis of the language and the contents of the two versions allows cautious conclusions about certain aspects of the role of writing and of manuscripts in the emergence of authoritative canonical texts within Buddhist textual traditions.
The Jewel in the Hand: On Some Old Japanese Manuscripts of a Buddhist Scripture
The Jewel in the Hand is one of the Indian Buddhist Scholar Bhāviveka’s (ca. 490-570) principal works that is only available in the Chinese translation of Xuanzang玄奘 (600/602-664). There it is titled the Dasheng zhangzhen lun 大乘掌珍論. The important position of this text in the intellectual history of Madhyamaka philosophy has been widely known; its French translation was published by de La Vallée Poussin in 1933, and a Sanskrit “reconstruction” by N. Aiyaswami Sastri was published in 1949. However, in contrast to Bhāviveka’s other main works such as the Madhyamakahṛdaya and its autocommentary the Tarkajvālā, and the Prajñāpradīpa, not many studies on this Chinese translation of the Jewel in the Hand in two scrolls have been published to date. Thanks to the Old Buddhist Manuscripts in Japanese Collections of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, the Online Culture Heritage and the Database of National Cultural Properties organized by the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs, and the Nezu Museum, this paper is able to introduce and to analyze the main textual features of five Old Japanese Manuscripts of the Jewel in the Hand that have been preserved respectively in the Tokyo National Museum, the Nezu Museum, the Kongō-ji, the Kōshō-ji and the Nanatsu-dera, with their full or partial color copies at my disposal. Furthermore, I briefly discuss the similarities and differences among the manuscripts and xylographs of the editions of the Chinese canon that are available to me, that is, the Fangshan Stone Tripitaka and the Korean Tripitaka, etc., as well as the critical editions made by premodern Japanese and Chinese scholars. Taking the Jewel in the Hand as an example, I seek to gain a further and, it is hoped, a better understanding of the ancient Chinese Buddhist manuscripts that are preserved in Japan – these are known as the Old Japanese Manuscripts - that were transcribed during the late Nara Period to the late Heian Period. Due to obvious limitations, I will not discuss in this essay Bhāviveka’s arguments with certain Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas that would otherwise give us a further insight into the many aspects of sixth century Indian intellectual history.
Studies in Chinese Religions, 2021
Myriad sources ranging from Kuroda Toshio’s (1926–1993) groundbreaking methodological research about the exoteric-esoteric Buddhist institutional system (kenmitsutaisei 顕密体制) that governed the practice of Buddhism at the seven ‘great’ temples during the Heian – Nanbokuchō period (794–1392) to the remarkable Tengu zōshi emaki 天狗草紙絵巻 (Illustrated Scrolls of Tengu on Rough Paper) demonstrate how widespread and well-known the idea of the dual cultivation ofexoteric and esoteric Buddhist practice was in medieval Japan. We know from the sacred teachings documents (shōgyō聖教) from the libraries of three temples – Amanosan Kongōji (in Osaka), Shinpukuji (Nagoya), and Shōmyōji (Yokohama) – that catalogs were produced locally to classify meticulously copied ritual manuals, commentaries to exoteric and exoteric sūtras and commentaries, and other documents. In this article I introduce Kongōji as a prime example of how exoteric Buddhist texts were ritually employed there, followed by Zenne 禅恵 (alt. Zen’e 1284–1364) and his catalogs, and then present an overview of the sacred documents he marked as exoteric. I also explain why exoteric or ‘mainstream’ Buddhism must not be excluded from the study of the history of medieval Japanese Buddhism.
Marking Death: Stamped Buddhas and Reused Letters in 13th-Century Japan
Ars Orientalis, 2023
Despite its inherently ephemeral character, paper played significant roles in Buddhist rituals and private practices in premodern Japan. Through a focused examination of a thirteenth-century letter by the monk Jōgyō (1186-1231) that was stamped with Amida Buddha figures after his death and sealed within an Amida statue, this project draws out the sacral importance of paper and handwriting alongside reuse and recycling in Japanese Buddhist material culture. Examining the crux of these transformational moments tells us how mourners navigated loss, reveals the productive tension between preservation and destruction, and exposes the paradoxical importance of intentional invisibility in artistic culture. By reframing and layering Jōgyō's letter with the repeating rows of stamped Buddhas, this memorial practice creates a palimpsest. Paper, in its materiality, was therefore a key site of memory and commemoration. The tangibility and tactility of paper mattered. And by fragmenting, rearranging, and reusing letters left behind, brushwork became embodied writing, marked and filtered through the simple recurring figures. In these ways, purposefully visual palimpsests offer an intimate view of the mourning process and of prayers for salvation.
Unraveling Buddhist Monastic Manuscripts: Texts, Scripts, and Cultural Exchanges
Inya Institute Fall 2023 Newsletter, 2023
This piece is my brief account of the field trip to Mae Hong Son in Northern Thailand. Organized by the Inya Institute, this research trip was centered on exploring the Buddhist manuscripts in the Monastery. I offer preliminary observations on the geographical distribution of ethnic groups within the province. I explore the connections between Buddhist texts, script writings, and the inherent materiality of these manuscripts to particular groups. I also touch upon the historical relocation of the Tai Yai individuals from Myanmar to Thailand in this border region.
Editors' Introduction: Vernacular Buddhism and Medieval Japanese Literature
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2009
, hosted a small interdisciplinary conference titled "Illustrating the Dharma: Popular Buddhism in Medieval Japanese Fiction." The conference featured ten presentations and one keynote speech devoted to exploring aspects of "popular" (as opposed to monastic, elite, or orthodox doctrinal) Buddhism in the illustrated fiction of the Kamakura, Muromachi, and early Edo periods-roughly the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries. Participants considered a variety of hand-illustrated and woodblockprinted texts from an array of methodological perspectives-literary, historical, Buddhological, and art historical-concentrating in particular on issues of religious doctrine, practice, and representation in the literary genres of setsuwa 説話 (tales), otogizōshi お伽草子 (Muromachi-period fiction), ko-jōruri 古浄瑠 璃 (early puppet theater), jisha engi 寺社縁起 (temple and shrine histories), and kōwakamai 幸若舞 (ballad-dramas). The present thematic issue of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies is an indirect result of that 2008 conference. Five of the seven essays included here were first presented at the Boulder event, which also inspired our underlying (and, it was intended, unifying) approach: to consider premodern Japanese religious culture through the lens of literature, rather than more traditional Buddhist scriptural, historical, biographical, and exegetical sources. Our two corollary desiderata have been, from the start, to explore the roles of Buddhist