A Biographical Dictionary of the Japanese student-Monks of the Seventh and Early Eighth Centuries. Their Travels to China and their Role in the … (original) (raw)
In: Curvelo, Alexandra and Cattaneo, Angelo, (eds.), Interactions Between Rivals: The Christian Mission and Buddhist Sects in Japan (c.1549-c.1647). Berlin: Peter Lang, pp. 67-107. (Passagem, Volume 17), 2022
China has a fascinating history that shows a development of social, political and religious significance that was expressed in various ways that are still relevant and significant to modern day people in China and throughout the world. In this essay I am particularly interested in the images of Buddha in China and later on Japan and how some of these images came to be and what they reflected about their time. The process of discovery in examining these images has pedagogical substance and can be delivered as a rich learning experience about power, culture and beliefs in Pre-Modern Asia.
Precepts and Performances: Overseas Monks and the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Japan
Precepts and Performances: Overseas Monks and the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Japan (dissertation), 2021
In 733, Japan’s ninth diplomatic mission to Tang China conveyed two Japanese Buddhist monks committed to finding a Chinese master of Buddhist precepts. The prevailing explanation for the precepts master solicitation states that Japan lacked sufficient numbers of fully ordained monks to conduct ordinations using vinaya codes of conduct. While this campaign successfully resulted in precept masters going to Japan in 736 and again in 754, there were no notable changes to monastic ordinations until after the final monk arrived. It is commonly presumed that only the latter precepts master possessed sufficient charisma, training, and followers necessary to establish a vinaya tradition. However, this explanation presumes that the later reforms matched the original expedition’s intent. Moreover, this position ignores the other monks’ activities in Japan’s political, cultural, and religious affairs between 736 754. It is also not supported by period texts. In this work, I utilize textual and physical evidence to demonstrate that these overseas monks’ activities and significance were largely unrelated to monastic precepts and ordinations. Instead, they rose to prominence due to their knowledge of Buddhist texts and rituals, familiarity with neighboring countries’ Buddhist legitimation and protection systems, fluency in overseas forms of cultural capital, and embodied otherness. Their influence can be seen in their involvement in the Ministry for Monastic Affairs, promulgation of the Avataṃsaka Sutra, and the creation and worship of the Great Buddha of Nara. Through highlighting these understudied and highly diverse monks, I demonstrate that Japan’s overseas population was intrinsically involved with the country’s transformation into a transregionally-connected, Buddhist country. Moreover, I argue that the overseas monks affiliated with Daianji Temple (大安寺) provided the Japanese court with direct ties to foreign countries that not only expanded Japanese international awareness, but also helped establish the country’s understanding of its position within a broader Buddhist world.
ASSIGNMENT 2 Philippe R Mauguy 23.04.2017 Chinese Buddhism in the pre-modern period
The present essay is focused on assessing the impact of Buddhism on the culture and society of Medieval China. The first part will address the impact of Buddhist religious ideas on the culture and society of medieval China. The second part will focus on the Buddhist sacred power impact on the culture and society of medieval China. The historical framework of the present essay will situate Medieval China in the period from 220 CE to 960 CE.
Buddhism and Medicine in Japan: A Topical Survey 500-1600 Ce of a Complex Relationship
2019
If religion and medicine are deemed to be two discretes ocial domains then "Buddhism" mayber egarded as ar eligion, formedi nI ndia by Siddhartha Gautama ("the Buddha"), that is defined by the engagement of various social actors with aset of ideas and practices.Buddhism as areligion proposes apath to end sufferingand expresses aconcern with sicknessassuffering in avariety of ways, while the Buddha is regarded as the Supreme Physician. Buddhism has diversified considerablyinterms of its doctrinal, ritual, institutional, social and material expressions. The diverse traditions of Buddhism in Asia all go backtoacommon root in northern India.²¹ They grew from areligious order of the disciples of am aster, Siddhartha Gautama, who probablyl ived around 448-368 BCE and was revered as the Buddha Śākyamuni. Like many other ascetics of the fifth to fourth century BCE, SiddharthaG autamac hose a lifestyle of homelessness and sexual abstinence. The reason for the wide rangeo ft eachings,e xercises and rituals within Buddhism can be traced to his encouragementstocontinuallyr eflect on his ideas and teachings and formulate them anewo rd ifferently. Them onastic rules of the order,h owever,w eres upposed to remain unchanged and regulate community life within the order itself and with the surrounding laypeople who provided the religious with food and all other objects regarded as necessary for their livelihood, includingm edicines. While the traditionallyi tinerant lifestyle of Buddhist monastics was largely abandoned, the liveso fB uddhist monks and nuns were, and are still, shaped by the rituals of an itinerant lifestyle. It is assumed thatsedentary monastic communities,especiallyfor the elderly or infirm, existed alreadyi na ncient timesi nI ndia. Theh istory of Buddhism has been molded by the establishment of magnificent religious structures and monastery grounds,f unded for the most part by laypeople from the elite. At the same time, the tradition of solitary seclusion in the wilderness has always playedar ole, for example when monasteries in urban settlements werer azed in timeso fw ar or persecution and whent he religious order was in danger of being eradicated. Earlycollections of the monastic rules and codes (vinaya)havestayedlegally binding since the fourth century BCE and even form the foundation for ordination in the present-day orders of the branch of Buddhism called the "Great Ve- The followingp assagesh aveb een in part adapted from Triplett (2016).
2010-Leider-Southeast-Asian-Buddhist-Monks.pdf
« Southeast Asian Buddhist Monks in the Peregrinação: Tracing the “Rolins” of Fernão Mendes Pinto in the Eastern Bay of Bengal », Jorge M. dos Santos Alves (ed.), Fernão Mendes Pinto and the Peregrinação. Studies, Restored Text, Notes and Indexes, Lisbonne, Fundação Oriente et Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, vol. 1, p. 145-162.