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)
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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.
Philosophy East and West, 2006
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 134.100.17.1 on Thu, 04 Jun 2015 10:00:59 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions What does "theory" mean in relation to men's studies in the Chinese cultural context? Does it suggest that to theorize is to bring truth and political engagement to the study of the male gender? And also, what motivates Louie to bring the notion of Chinese masculinity up to the level of "theory"? What is the significance of generalizing or systematizing Chinese men at this moment while many poststructuralist-inflected academic studies have been striving to analyze Western culture non-systematically or in an anti-totalistic manner? Clearly, Louie's "theory" of Chinese masculinity is constructed under the hegemonic gaze of the Western model, even though "theory" does not have to be something that is produced only by and in the West.
The China Journal, 2017
This is the first volume to focus exclusively on Jain pat : as, large-format paintings. These include square cloth renderings of yantras typically carried by monks; depictions of scenes from the lives of the Jinas, especially P ar svan atha; vijñaptipatras, long scrolls sent to monks to invite them to a city for the rainy season; diagrams of the cosmos and parts thereof; and images of pilgrimage sites kept in homes and local temples. Unique objects include a scroll illustrating image-poem verse forms (citra-k avya bandhas) and an astrological chart concerning the slaying of a child (si sum ara-cakra). Most of the images collected here are housed in the L. D. Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad. Forty-one objects are presented in 131 stunningly clear images; nearly all text on the objects is legible. Two scrolls are rendered as foldouts. Several detail images are in actual size. The authors offer sparse analysis throughout and make few arguments. While rightly pointing out that these paintings are understudied, they frequently do not take recent work into consideration in their analyses, claiming that less has been written about some objects than is actually the case. Their most substantial contribution is to expand U. P. Shah's twofold typology of pat : as (tantric and non-tantric) into five categories, though even this could be expanded further. The authors' stated interest is to introduce these paintings to researchers, rather than to analyze pat : as as a category-they omit embroidered pat : as. These objects give us a vivid picture of the lived medieval and early modern Svet ambara Jain tradition in western India, demonstrating their importance as resources for understanding the Jain tradition. The authors share valuable insights into how several pat : a forms continue to be used today. Historically significant portions of text on select pat : as are transcribed in Devanagari or Gujarati script, with a few errors, and are imprecisely paraphrased rather than translated. Several points of fact about Jainism are confused. For these reasons, the volume will be primarily useful to researchers with the ability to read from the images directly and who have enough knowledge of Jainism to handle nonstandard interpretations. This volume is recommended for university libraries with a South Asian art collection.