“Envisioning a Monastery: A Seventeenth-Century Buddhist Fund-Raising Appeal Album,” T’oung Pao 97 (2011): 104-159. (original) (raw)
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This paper analyzes the roles architectural renovation played in the revival of Longchang Monastery of Mount Baohua (Jiangsu), a major Chinese monastery of the Vinaya School and an ordination center in Late Imperial China. Based on temple gazetteers, monastic memoirs, and modern documentation of monastic architecture and life by Prip-Møller, the author reveals the formation of a spatial system that centered at the threefold ordination rituals. It took the entire seventeenth century for the system to take form under the supervision of a Chan monk-architect Miaofeng and three successive Vinaya abbots, Sanmei, Jianyue, and Ding’an. The spatial practices, comprising a series of reconstructions, reorientations, redesigns, re-demarcations, and refurbishments, have not only reconciled fractures and defects in the monastic architecture but also built a history for the rising institute. This article examines the construction of and the narratives around three centers of the Monastery, namely, the Open-Air Platform Unit where Miaofeng erected a copper hall, the Main Courtyard where Sanmei reoriented the monastic layout to follow the Vinaya tradition, the Ordination Platform Unit where Jianyue rebuilt a stone ordination platform, and again the Open-Air Platform Unit that Ding’an had refurbished and reunited with the later centers. The forces that have driven this seemingly non-progressive history, as the author argues, are not only the consistent efforts to counteract the natural course of material decay, but also the ambition of making a living history without beginning or end.
Religions, 2023
This article delves into the literature sources and historical origins of the initial section of the Qisha Canon, a renowned block-printed Chinese Buddhist canon carved in the greater Hangzhou region during the Song and Yuan dynasties. The existing first twelve volumes, preserved in Japan, exhibit distinct features characterized by notable stylistic script, textual content, and layout. These features indicate their direct lineage from handwritten Buddhist canons of the Northern Song Dynasty rather than from previously printed versions. The utilization of handwritten sources as the foundation for engraving, despite the availability of established printed editions, demonstrates an underappreciated complex relationship between manuscripts and printed canons of the period. Throughout the engraving process of the twelve volumes, the majority of contributors were found to be local commoners, with minimal participation from Buddhist followers. The fluidity of the fundraising locations underscores the inherent instability of such projects. Initially commencing in Liaoqin’s hometown in Huzhou, the project was subsequently transferred to the imperial city of Lin’an prefecture (modern Hangzhou), which shared a border with Huzhou. Ultimately, it found its new location in Pingjiang Prefecture (modern Suzhou). Moreover, this research presents a comprehensive analysis of 195 colophons, delving into the prices, locations, and backgrounds of the characters mentioned. This meticulous examination offers a vivid depiction of the religious and social landscape of the period and provides valuable insights into the recording conventions employed in these colophons.
H-Buddhism, 2022
Commissioned by Jessica Zu (USC Dornsife, School of Religion) Gregory Adam Scott's Building the Buddhist Revival is a remarkable study documenting the material, religious, and social reconstruction of Buddhist monasteries in China from the end of the Taiping war in 1866 to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. It is based on a large typology of historical sources, including local and temple gazetteers, stele transcriptions, and Buddhist periodicals-a diversity itself attesting to the major historical changes that occurred in the one hundred years considered in the study-and it also makes use of digital tools to collect historical data. Focusing on a selection of religious sites
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Considering visual culture alongside written source material, this article uncovers the socioeconomic aspect of Korean Buddhist monastic life, which has been a marginalized field of research. Arguing against the idea of an “other-worldly” Buddhism, the article specifically discusses the ways in which Buddhist monasteries conducted fundraising activities in late Koryŏ period (918–1392 CE) Korea. Via fundraising strategies, which targeted wealthy aristocrats as well as the commoner population, Buddhist monks managed the production and maintenance of Buddhist material culture, such as the construction of shrines, the casting of precious sculptures, and the carving of thousands of woodblocks used for the printing of sacred Buddhist scriptures. While the scholarship on Koryŏ Buddhism has traditionally focused on meditation, doctrine, state sponsored rituals, and temples’ relationships with the royal court, this study expands the field by showing that economic activities were salient features of Koryŏ Buddhism “on the ground.” By initiating and overseeing fundraising activities, Buddhist manager-monks not only gained merit, but also maintained the presence and physical appearance of Buddhist temples, which constitute the framework of Buddhist ritual and practice.
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Although Mogao Cave 17 near Dunhuang is renowned as a vast repository of manuscripts and paintings, it also contained a greater volume of printed materials than is commonly represented; and while enigmatic, these surviving artefacts provide windows onto print reception from close to the beginning of the era of mass printing in East Asia. Among the documents recovered from the library cave are thirty-odd illustrated Buddhist prints commissioned in 947 ce by the ruler of Dunhuang, Cao Yuanzhong, which were over fifty years old at the time the cave was sealed. Now scattered across a global network of museums, libraries, and private collections, the prints were transmitted as a consequence of their creative reuse as Buddhist votive objects: the prints, which began their lives as sponsored displays of power, prestige, and merit-generation, passed into new contexts as personalized (often anonymous) devotional objects, displayed and sometimes physically reconfigured using traditional techniques, including mounting, cropping, backing, colouring, and collaging. By considering the alterations made to the Cao corpus of paper prints alongside similar surviving woodblock illustrated prints and portable paintings from Dunhuang, this essay reflects on the forms and significance of the creative uses of the prints of 947 and helps to clarify the relationship between an emerging print culture, traditional technologies, and local Buddhist devotional practices in the tenth century.