Review of Ji Zhe's Religion, modernité et temporalité (English version) (original) (raw)

Time and Change in Chinese Buddhism: From Sengzhao to Chan Buddhism

Philosophy Compass, 2023

The philosophy of time and change in Chinese Buddhism originated in a short treatise written by an early Chinese monk, Sengzhao (c. 384-414 CE). In this treatise, “On the Immutability of Things (wubuqianlun),” Sengzhao proposed a revolutionary theory of time and change that opposed the traditional Chinese notion of change established by Confucianism and Daoism. His thesis of the immutability of things also seemingly defies a fundamental Buddhist teaching about the impermanence of things. More than a thousand years after Sengzhao, a monk in the Ming dynasty, Kongyin Zhencheng (1546–1617) published the “Logical Investigation of the Thesis of No-Motion of Things (Wubuqian zhengliang lun) to refute Sengzhao’s theory of the immutability of things. Because of Sengzhao’s esteemed status as one of the early founders of Chinese Buddhism, Zhencheng’s critique of Sengzhao caused an uproar among his contemporaries. The ensuing exchange constituted one of the major debates in the history of Chinese Buddhism (Lin 2018; Liu et al 2020; Fang 1998; Zhu 2012) and was considered a significant event in the “rise of Buddhist scholasticism” (Liu et al 2020: 7). This entry will carefully analyze Sengzhao’s treatise on time and the immutability of things, highlighting the philosophical disagreements between him and Zhencheng. It will also place Sengzhao in his philosophical lineage to examine how he derived insights from Kumarajiva and Nāgārjuna, and how he might have influenced Chan Buddhism’s conception of time. This entry will present the uniqueness of Sengzhao’s conception of time that marks his departure from the Chinese tradition.

Time and Change in Chinese Buddhist Philosophy- From Sengzhao to Chan Buddhism (preprint)

The philosophy of time and change in Chinese Buddhism originated in a short treatise written by an early Chinese monk, Sengzhao (c. 384-414 CE). In this treatise, “On the Immutability of Things (wubuqianlun),” Sengzhao proposed a revolutionary theory of time and change that opposed the traditional Chinese notion of change established by Confucianism and Daoism. His thesis of the immutability of things also seemingly defies a fundamental Buddhist teaching about the impermanence of things. More than a thousand years after Sengzhao, a monk in the Ming dynasty, Kongyin Zhencheng (1546–1617) published the “Logical Investigation of the Thesis of No-Motion of Things (Wubuqian zhengliang lun) to refute Sengzhao’s theory of the immutability of things. Because of Sengzhao’s esteemed status as one of the early founders of Chinese Buddhism, Zhencheng’s critique of Sengzhao caused an uproar among his contemporaries . The ensuing exchange constituted one of the major debates in the history of Chinese Buddhism (Lin 2018; Liu et al 2020; Fang 1998; Zhu 2012) and was considered a significant event in the “rise of Buddhist scholasticism” (Liu et al 2020: 7). This entry will carefully analyze Sengzhao’s treatise on time and the immutability of things, highlighting the philosophical disagreements between him and Zhencheng. It will also place Sengzhao in his philosophical lineage to examine how he derived insights from Kumarajiva and Nāgārjuna, and how he might have influenced Chan Buddhism’s conception of time. This entry will present the uniqueness of Sengzhao’s conception of time that marks his departure from the Chinese tradition.

Buddhism and Buddhist Studies. From History to Contemporaneity. Introduction

International Review of Social Research , 2019

This special issue of the International Review of Social Research addressed scholars from a wide range of disciplines connected to Buddhist academic research and Buddhism. The articles we selected cover an extended spectrum of research topics, including Buddhist history and histories, Buddhism in India and Asia, Buddhism and archaeology, Buddhist rituals and practices, Buddhism cultural origins and cultural transformations, Buddhism, identity and social change, Buddhist heritage, Buddhist sites and tourism. We welcomed articles on classical textual analysis, Buddhist doctrine, archaeology, as well as analyzing contemporary Buddhist communities. The volume’s guest editors are interested in enhancing the advances and research results in the field of Buddhist studies and Buddhism, worldwide. Acknowledging the interdisciplinary and international nature, inherent to the contemporary Buddhist studies, we intended to facilitate the exchanges of ideas between different disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, ethnology, history, archeology, art history, religious studies, literary, textual and philological studies etc. We considered also the observations of José Ignacio Cabezón, for an emphasis on cultural contextualization (see Nash et. al., 1966), as well as on cross-cultural analysis or feminist studies (see also Gross, 1993, Klein, 1995), or to a critique of colonialism, neocolonialism (Cabezón, 1995: 264).

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.

Buddhist China at the Century's Turn

The China Quarterly, 2003

Based on fieldwork and studies of historical and contemporary materials, this article investigates several issues key to Buddhist life in the present-day PRC, focusing on Han Buddhists, especially the monastic tradition. It argues that many current practices take their shape from the innovations that transformed Chinese Buddhist life in the late Qing and Republican periods. While profound political, economic and social changes have occurred in the past few decades, some of the most pressing issues are extensions of questions raised at that time. The most significant question of the earlier period – what is the Buddhist monastic vocation, and what training and leadership are required to safeguard that ideal? – remains central to present-day activities and conceptions. To consider how to answer this question, or indeed how it is posed within present circumstances, three interconnected matters are investigated: current training methods, the economics of monasteries and the issue of lea...

Religious Studies’ Mishandling of Origin and Change: Time, Tradition, and Form of life in Buddhism

Cultural Critique 98 (Winter), pp. 22-71, 2018

The article seeks to understand how a "form of life" works in a discursive-embodied tradition like Buddhism animated by questions of authority and power, and why the temporality of such a tradition cannot be easily grasped by the modern "critiques" of the problem of time; such critiques are narratives of religion's history-time in terms of origin and change representing​ the past and the present. The affective dispositions and sensibilities that constitute a form of life offer a renewed sense of how temporality--more specifically the temporality of the "form"-- is encountered in the coherence of a religious tradition vis-a-vis the modern practice of time.