"The Hidden Link: Tracing Liao Buddhism in Shingon Ritual" Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 43 (2013 [published in 2015]) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Translating the Ta: Pagoda, Tumulus, and Ritualized Mahāyāna in Seventh-Century China
Tang Studies, 2018
This essay examines the relationship between pagodas and tombs in Medieval China through a close reading of the "Preface to the Sutra on the Merits of Constructing a ta, as Spoken by the Buddha" (Foshuo zaota gongde jingxu 佛說造塔功德經序), written by the Silla monk Woncheuk 圓測 (613-696), and an investigation into the cultural environment of the monk himself. Working in and around the cosmopolitan world of court-sponsored Buddhism in both Chang'an and Luoyang, Woncheuk was strongly influenced by Tathaḡatagarbha thought, and his interpretation of Yogacara Buddhism ultimately became very influential in Tibet and Korea. By placing the pagoda in the context of Woncheuk's thought, as well as recent research on amulets, architecture, and other thaumaturgical devices in the early medieval ritual praxis of South Asia and North China, I argue that Woncheuk's equation of ta to fen suggests the monuments had more than a memorial or symbolic function. Rather his "Preface" reflects a belief that the two types of architecture were operating on the same technological principles-they were both designed as tools to channel natural, even cosmic, energies through "mountains" and into powerful remains in order to aid in personal and societal salvation.
Buddhist Archaeology in Republican China: a New Relationship to the Past
Proceedings of the British Academy Volume 167, 2009 Lectures, 2011
The first large-scale statesponsored excavation directed by indigenous scholars began in December 1928 when Fu Sinian (1896-1950), the director of the new Institute of History and Philology, charged China's fi rst Anthropology Ph.D., Li Ji (1896-1979), to establish an offi ce near Anyang in Henan Province (Fig. 1). 1 In the late Qing dynasty, accidental fi nds of oracle bones and bronzes gave some indication of the region's extensive deposits in Bronze Age materials. Late nineteenth-century looting of bronze artefacts and tomb goods propelled a thriving Tianjin art market. 2 These amateur, unoffi cial excavations produced fi nds that entered the market without provenance. But as soon as government fi eldwork and excavations began systematically, the Anyang area did indeed prove to contain the remnants of the last Shang (c.1150-1050 BCE) capital and its royal cemetery. Quite
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 2020
Previous scholarship has generally focused on dhāraṇī practices of two types: those that enact the believed power of dhāraṇīs through recitation, and those that use inscribed or stamped dhāraṇīs as talismans. Through an examination of Yingxian Timber Pagoda (ca. 1056) from the Liao Dynasty, however, this paper reveals a third type of dhāraṇī practice in north China that broke from those of the Tang period in that it required no written or recited form of dhāraṇī; instead, it materialized the ritual process in physical form—from invocation of the Buddhas to ritual enactment of the wish-fulfilling jewel and mandala—by means of an architectural space. The five stories of the pagoda, and the Buddhist statues enshrined therein, as this paper shows, were designed not only to embody the chanting ritual of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī (Foding zunsheng tuoluoni佛頂尊勝陀羅尼) but also to visualize the philosophical contents of the dhāraṇī in material form. The pagoda’s architectural space was planned in such a way as to generate the efficacy of the dhāraṇī through the material agency of the pagoda and its statues with their intricate iconography. In the ritual imagination of medieval Buddhists, the pagoda was believed to be an architectural device that, once erected, would incessantly enact the dhāraṇī ritual with little to no human intervention. Yingxian Timber Pagoda aptly exhibits the ways in which Liao Buddhism complicated and innovated the dhāraṇī practices that had been inherited from previous dynasties, expanding the tradition of “material dhāraṇī” practice in the cultural landscape of East Asia.
The Translation of Buddhism in the Funeral Architecture of Medieval China
Religions, 2021
This article explores the Buddhist ritual and architectural conventions that were incorporated into the Chinese funeral architecture during the medieval period from the 3rd to the 13th centuries. A careful observation of some key types of sacred architectural forms from ancient East Asia, for instance, pagoda, lingtai, and hunping, reviews fundamental similarities in their form and structure. Applying translation theory rather than the influence and Sinicization model to analyze the impact of Buddhism on Chinese funeral architecture, this article offers a comparative study of the historical contexts from which certain architectural types and imageries were produced. It argues that there was an intertwined mutual translation of formal and ritual conventions between Buddhist and Chinese funeral architecture, which had played a significant role in the formations of both architectural traditions in Medieval China.
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.
Orientations 39, no. 8 (Nov/Dec 2008): 80-84.
I n the mid-6th cen tury, an apoc a lyp tic mood set tled over China. Due to the per se cu tion of Bud dhism there in the 5th cen tury and the news of the de struc tion of the great mon as teries of Gandhara (the Peshawar val ley in mod ern Pa ki stan) by the Shaivite war lord , as well as the inces sant war fare of the first part of the 6th cen tury in China, Chi nese Bud dhist in tel lec tu als cal cu lated that the world had en tered the fi nal pe riod of the pre dicted de cay of the Dharmathe teach ings of the his tor i cal Bud dha Shakyamuni (d. c. 400 BCE). Be lieved to have been most ef fi ca cious dur ing the period of the 'True Law', that is, the cen tu ries im me di ately follow ing Shakyamuni's parinir vana, or pass ing, the Dharma was thought to have weak ened in its soteriological power through the sub se quent pe riod of the 'Sem blance Law' and into the fi nal pe riod, called the 'End ing of the Law', which was be lieved to have be gun in the mid-5th cen tury and is con sidered to be on go ing even to day. One con se quence, ex pressed in the art of the North ern Qi dy nasty (550-77), was a pow er ful urge to pre serve and de fend the Dharma. Two guard ian im ages from this pe riod in The Nel son-Atkins Mu seum of Art tes tify to this im pulse: one is an atlantean fig ure of a winged demon ( ), the other a bust of a guard ian king .
Of Palaces and Pagodas: Palatial Symbolism in the Buddhist Architecture of Early Medieval China
Frontiers of History in China, 2015
This paper is an inquiry into possible motivations for representing timber-frame architecture in the Buddhist context. By comparing the architectural language of early Buddhist narrative panels and cave temples rendered in stone, I suggest that architectural representation was employed in both masonry and timber to create symbolically charged worship spaces. The replication and multiplication of palace forms on cave walls, in “pagodas” (futu 浮圖, fotu 佛圖, or ta 塔), and as the crowning element of free-standing pillars reflect a common desire to express and harness divine power, a desire that resulted in a wide variety of mountainous monuments in China. Finally, I provide evidence to suggest that the towering Buddhist monuments of early medieval China are linked morphologically and symbolically to the towering temples of South Asia through the use of both palace forms and sacred maṇḍalas as a means to express the divine power and expansive presence of the Buddha.