Author: Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist StudiesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 67
Book Description
A Brief Introduction on the Culture and Education of Modern Chinese Buddhism
Author: Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist StudiesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 67
Book Description
The Cultural Practices of Modern Chinese Buddhism
Author: Francesca TaroccoPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415375037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
Buddhism in China during the late Qing and Republican period remained a powerful cultural and religious force. This innovative book comes from a rising star in this field, offering a new perspective on the influence of Buddhism on Chinese culture.
Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism
Author: Don A. PittmanPublisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082486526X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
The Venerable Master Taixu (1890–1947) is the most important and controversial Chinese Buddhist reformer of the twentieth century. Viewed as dangerously rash by conservative Buddhists, irrelevant by secular humanists, and spiritually misguided by Christian missionaries, Taixu was nevertheless committed to forging a socially engaged form of Buddhism and to organizing a Buddhist mission in the West. His bold and inventive "Buddhist revolution" continues to shape aspects of a revitalized Buddhism in East Asia and around the world. The present volume is the first major study in English to focus on the charismatic reformer and his teachings and provides a comprehensive and absorbing interpretation of Taixu’s aims and the divisive controversies that surrounded him. This nuanced work is richly documented with quotations from Taixu’s own writings and from various Chinese intellectuals and evangelists of the period. As the most politically involved of all the Buddhist leaders in the Republican period, Taixu sought to present Mahâyâna Buddhism as the core of a new Chinese culture and the only adequate foundation for a truly global civilization. Distancing himself from those masters who focused on otherworldly paradises and stressed dependence on celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas, he emphasized what could actually be accomplished in this world through the work of thousands of living bodhisattvas dedicated to building a pure land here and now. A realist who acknowledged the complexities of the human condition in an increasingly interdependent and violent world, Taixu was also a utopian who tried to imagine how Buddhists could begin to realize their ultimate ideals—ideals that in fact lay beyond the preservation of institutional Buddhism itself. Students of Buddhism, Chinese religion, contemporary Chinese history and culture, and Taiwan studies will welcome this study of a crucially important and intriguingly complex individual whose life encapsulates many of the forces and possibilities apparent within Chinese Buddhism in the contemporary world.
Chinese Buddhism and Traditional Culture
Author: Litian FangPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317519094
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Since the first century, when Buddhism entered China, the foreign religion has influenced and been influenced in turn by traditional Chinese culture, and eventually became an important part of it. That is one of the great historical themes not only for China but also for East Asia. This book explores the elements of Buddhism, including its classics, doctrines, system, and rituals, to reveal the basic connotation of Buddhism as a cultural entity. Regarding the development of Buddhism in China, it traces the spread in chronological order, from the introduction in Han Dynasties (202 BC–220 AD), to the prosperity in the Sixteen Kingdoms (ca. 304–439 AD), and then to the decline since the Five Dynasties (907–ca. 960 AD). It is noteworthy that the Buddhist schools in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589 AD) and the Buddhist sects in Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907 AD) contributed to the sinicization of Buddhism. This book also deals with the interesting question of the similarities and differences between Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism, to examine the specific characters of the former in terms of thought and culture. In the last chapter, the external influence of Chinese Buddhism in East Asia is studied. Scholars and students in Buddhism and Chinese culture studies, especially those in Buddhist countries, will benefit from the book. Also, it will appeal to readers interested in religion, Chinese culture, and ancient Chinese history.
Buddhism in Chinese History
Author: Arthur F. WrightChinese Buddhism
Author: Chün-fang YüPublisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824881583
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
What are the foundational scriptures and major schools for Chinese Buddhists? What divinities do they worship? What festivals do they celebrate? These are some of the basic questions addressed in this book, the first introduction to Chinese Buddhism written expressly for students and those interested in an accessible yet authoritative overview of the subject based on current scholarship. After presenting the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings and the Chinese religious traditions, the book focuses on topics essential for understanding Chinese Buddhism: major scriptures, worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, rituals and festivals, the monastic order, Buddhist schools such as Tiantai and Chan, Buddhism and gender, and current trends—notably humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan and the resurgence of Buddhism in post-Mao China. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. A convenient glossary of common terms, titles, and names is included.
Recovering Buddhism in Modern China
Author: Jan KielyPublisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Book Description
Modern Chinese history told from a Buddhist perspective restores the vibrant, creative role of religion in postimperial China. It shows how urban Buddhist elites jockeyed for cultural dominance in the early Republican era, how Buddhist intellectuals reckoned with science, and how Buddhist media contributed to modern print cultures. It recognizes the political importance of sacred Buddhist relics and the complex processes through which Buddhists both participated in and experienced religious suppression under Communist rule. Today, urban and rural communities alike engage with Buddhist practices to renegotiate class, gender, and kinship relations in post-Mao China. This volume vividly portrays these events and more, recasting Buddhism as a critical factor in China's twentieth-century development. Each chapter connects a moment in Buddhist history to a significant theme in Chinese history, creating new narratives of Buddhism's involvement in the emergence of urban modernity, the practice of international diplomacy, the mobilization for total war, and other transformations of state, society, and culture. Working across an extraordinary thematic range, this book reincorporates Buddhism into the formative processes and distinctive character of Chinese history.
Cultural Intersections in Later Chinese Buddhism
Author: Marsha WeidnerPublisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824862090
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
In a demonstration of the value of interdisciplinary, culture-based approaches, this collection of essays on "later" Chinese Buddhism takes us beyond the bedrock subjects of traditional Buddhist historiography--scriptures and commentaries, sectarian developments, lives of notable monks--to examine a wide range of extracanonical materials that illuminate cultural manifestations of Buddhism from the Song dynasty (960-1279) through the modern period. Straying from well-trodden paths, the authors often transgress the boundaries of their own disciplines: historians address architecture; art historians look to politics; a specialist in literature treats poetry that offers gendered insights into Buddhist lives. The broad-based cultural orientation of this volume is predicated on the recognition that art and religion are not closed systems requiring only minimal cross-indexing with other social or aesthetic phenomena but constituent elements in interlocking networks of practice and belief. Contributors: Terese Tse Bartholomew, Patricia Berger, T. Griffith Foulk, Beata Grant, Kenneth Hammond, Amy McNair, Daniel B. Stevenson, Marsha Weidner.
A Brief History of Chinese Buddhism and Buddhist Thought
Author: Xiuping HongPublisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900470034X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive but concise introduction to Chinese Buddhism and the study of Buddhism in China: their Indic roots, their Sinicization, the development and philosophies of the three central lineages, the natural exchange between Buddhist cultures and schools of thought, the foundations of Buddhist studies in China, and the chief schools and sects in Chinese Buddhism as well as their characteristics and ethos.
The Science of Chinese Buddhism
Author: Erik J. HammerstromPublisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539584
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Kexue, or science, captured the Chinese imagination in the early twentieth century, promising new knowledge about the world and a dynamic path to prosperity. Chinese Buddhists embraced scientific language and ideas to carve out a place for their religion within a rapidly modernizing society. Examining dozens of previously unstudied writings from the Chinese Buddhist press, this book maps Buddhists' efforts to rethink their traditions through science in the initial decades of the twentieth century. Buddhists believed science offered an exciting, alternative route to knowledge grounded in empirical thought, much like their own. They encouraged young scholars to study subatomic and relativistic physics while still maintaining Buddhism's vital illumination of human nature and its crucial support of an ethical system rooted in radical egalitarianism. Showcasing the rich and progressive steps Chinese religious scholars took in adapting to science's rising authority, this volume offers a key perspective on how a major Eastern power transitioned to modernity in the twentieth century and how its intellectuals anticipated many of the ideas debated by scholars of science and Buddhism today.