Author: Huaiyu ChenPublisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820486246
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Original Scholarly Monograph
The Revival of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval China
Author: Huaiyu ChenPublisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820486246
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Original Scholarly Monograph
In the Land of Tigers and Snakes
Author: Huaiyu ChenPublisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231554648
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 177
Book Description
Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment. Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.
The Rivival of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval China
Author: Huaiyu ChenThe Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism
Author: Stephen F. TeiserPublisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824827762
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
An examination of medieval Chinese Buddhist thanatonic practices. Bridging area studies and the history of religions, Teiser explores the concerns, practices and beliefs of 9th- and 10th-century Chinese Buddhists.
The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China
Author: Professor YifaPublisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824863801
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China contains the first complete translation of China’s earliest and most influential monastic code. The twelfth-century text Chanyuan qinggui (Rules of Purity for the Chan Monastery) provides a wealth of detail on all aspects of life in public Buddhist monasteries during the Sung (960–1279). Part One consists of Yifa’s overview of the development of monastic regulations in Chinese Buddhist history, a biography of the text’s author, and an analysis of the social and cultural context of premodern Chinese Buddhist monasticism. Of particular importance are the interconnections made between Chan traditions and the dual heritages of Chinese culture and Indian Buddhist Vinaya. Although much of the text’s source material is traced directly to the Vinayas and the works of the Vinaya advocate Daoan (312–385) and the Lü master Daoxuan (596–667), the Chanyuan qinggui includes elements foreign to the original Vinaya texts—elements incorporated from Chinese governmental policies and traditional Chinese etiquette. Following the translator’s overview is a complete translation of the text, extensively annotated.
Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China
Author: Zhenjun ZhangPublisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004277846
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book demonstrates the historical changes in early medieval China as seen in the tales of the supernatural—thematic transformation from traditional demonic retribution to Karmic retribution, from indigenous Chinese netherworld to Buddhist concepts of hell, and from the traditional Chinese savior to a new savior, Buddha. It also examines Buddhist imagery and the flourish of new motifs in the fantastic dreamworld and their relationship with Buddhism. This study relates the Youming lu to the development of popular Chinese Buddhist beliefs, attempting to single out ideas that differ from the beliefs found in Buddhist scriptures as well as miraculous tales written especially to promote Buddhism.
Poet-Monks
Author: Thomas J. MazanecPublisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501773852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Poet-Monks focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang-dynasty China to propose an alternative historical arc of medieval Chinese poetry. Combining large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of important literary texts, Thomas J. Mazanec describes how Buddhist poet-monks, who first appeared in the latter half of Tang-dynasty China, asserted a bold new vision of poetry that proclaimed the union of classical verse with Buddhist practices of repetition, incantation, and meditation. Mazanec traces the historical development of the poet-monk as a distinct actor in the Chinese literary world, arguing for the importance of religious practice in medieval literature. As they witnessed the collapse of the world around them, these monks wove together the frayed threads of their traditions to establish an elite-style Chinese Buddhist poetry. Poet-Monks shows that during the transformative period of the Tang-Song transition, Buddhist monks were at the forefront of poetic innovation.
The Renewal of Buddhism in China
Author: Chün-fang YüPublisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023155267X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
First published in 1981, The Renewal of Buddhism in China broke new ground in the study of Chinese Buddhism. An interdisciplinary study of a Buddhist master and reformer in late Ming China, it challenged the conventional view that Buddhism had reached its height under the Tang dynasty (618–907) and steadily declined afterward. Chün-fang Yü details how in sixteenth-century China, Buddhism entered a period of revitalization due in large part to a cohort of innovative monks who sought to transcend sectarian rivalries and doctrinal specialization. She examines the life, work, and teaching of one of the most important of these monks, Zhuhong (1535–1615), a charismatic teacher of lay Buddhists and a successful reformer of monastic Buddhism. Zhuhong’s contributions demonstrate that the late Ming was one of the most creative periods in Chinese intellectual and religious history. Weaving together diverse sources—scriptures, dynastic history, Buddhist chronicles, monks’ biographies, letters, ritual manuals, legal codes, and literature—Yü grounds Buddhism in the reality of Ming society, highlighting distinctive lay Buddhist practices to provide a vivid portrait of lived religion. Since the book was published four decades ago, many have written on the diversity of Buddhist beliefs and practices in the centuries before and after Zhuhong’s time, yet The Renewal of Buddhism in China remains a crucial touchstone for all scholarship on post-Tang Buddhism. This fortieth anniversary edition features updated transliteration, a foreword by Daniel B. Stevenson, and an updated introduction by the author speaking to the ongoing relevance of this classic work.
Buddhism and the Supernatural Tale in Early Medieval China
Author: Zhenjun ZhangIllusory Abiding
Author: Natasha HellerPublisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175437
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
A groundbreaking monograph on Yuan dynasty Buddhism, Illusory Abiding offers a cultural history of Buddhism through a case study of the eminent Chan master Zhongfeng Mingben. Natasha Heller demonstrates that Mingben, and other monks of his stature, developed a range of cultural competencies through which they navigated social and intellectual relationships. They mastered repertoires internal to their tradition—for example, guidelines for monastic life—as well as those that allowed them to interact with broader elite audiences, such as the ability to compose verses on plum blossoms. These cultural exchanges took place within local, religious, and social networks—and at the same time, they comprised some of the very forces that formed these networks in the first place. This monograph contributes to a more robust account of Chinese Buddhism in late imperial China, and demonstrates the importance of situating monks as actors within broader sociocultural fields of practice and exchange.