Download or read book Absolute Delusion Perfect Buddhahood written by Jamie Hubbard and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The San-chieh (Three Levels) was a popular and influential Chinese Buddhist movement during the Sui and T'ang periods, counting powerful statesmen, imperial princes, and even an empress, Empress Wu, among its patrons. In spite, or perhaps because, of its proximity to power, the San-chieh movement ran afoul of the authorities, and its teaching and texts were officially proscribed numerous times over a several-hundred-year history. This study of the San-chieh movement uses manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang to examine the doctrine and institutional practices of this movement in the larger context of Mahayana doctrine and practice.
Download or read book Fathering Your Father written by Alan Cole and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fathering Your Father is indubitably an important, timely work. In this incisive re-reading of the sources for the early history of Chinese Chan Buddhism, Cole conveys a new understanding of material familiar to scholars that might well make students engage with these sources more imaginatively. Hitherto scholars have pored over the five or six key sources; now we are invited to read them as successive literary inventions. In short, this study has no competition and is bound to provoke debate."—T. H. Barrett, Professor of East Asian History, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and author of The Woman Who Discovered Printing
Download or read book Discerning Buddhas written by Kevin Buckelew and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Song-period China (960–1279 CE), masters in the Chan (Japanese Zen) school of Buddhism were presented as sources of religious authority on par with the Buddha, an almost unthinkably lofty status before the rise of Chan. This claim carried great rhetorical power, facilitating Chan’s appeal to Buddhist monastics and powerful patrons alike. But it also raised a challenging question for Chan Buddhists, who insisted that buddhahood properly transcends all worldly marks: By what signs could one recognize a Chan master as a buddha? Discerning Buddhas argues that Chan Buddhists wove together tropes of sovereignty, hospitality, and martial heroism drawn from both Buddhist tradition and China’s cultural heritage to develop a distinctive vision of what it meant for a Chan master to be a buddha in Song-period China. Kevin Buckelew analyzes the ways Chan Buddhists deployed such tropes in ritual, literature, and visual culture in order to stage the comparison of Chan mastery with buddhahood. He examines how they used the concept of buddhahood to work through questions about the ideal Chan master’s authority, agency, and masculinity, in the process rendering buddhahood in terms highly legible to elite Chinese society. Chan Buddhists, Buckelew shows, developed their own “signature” of buddhahood, according to which enlightened Chan masters who truly deserved comparison to the Buddha were supposed to be distinguished from everyone else. By exploring the resulting Chan culture of discernment, which raised fundamental questions about Buddhist authority at a pivotal inflection point in Chinese history, this book offers fresh insight into the place of Buddhism in Chinese society.
Download or read book Buddhism Diplomacy and Trade written by Tansen Sen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-09-11 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relations between China and India underwent a dramatic transformation from Buddhist-dominated to commerce-centered exchanges in the seventh to fifteenth centuries. The unfolding of this transformation, its causes, and wider ramifications are examined in this masterful analysis of the changing patterns of the interaction between the two most important cultural spheres in Asia. Tansen Sen offers a new perspective on Sino-Indian relations during the Tang dynasty (618–907), arguing that the period is notable not only for religious and diplomatic exchanges but also for the process through which China emerged as a center of Buddhist learning, practice, and pilgrimage. Before the seventh century, the Chinese clergy—given the spatial gap between the sacred Buddhist world of India and the peripheral China—suffered from a “borderland complex.” A close look at the evolving practice of relic veneration in China (at Famen Monastery in particular), the exposition of Mount Wutai as an abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, and the propagation of the idea of Maitreya’s descent in China, however, reveals that by the eighth century China had overcome its complex and successfully established a Buddhist realm within its borders. The emergence of China as a center of Buddhism had profound implications on religious interactions between the two countries and is cited by Sen as one of the main causes for the weakening of China’s spiritual attraction toward India. At the same time, the growth of indigenous Chinese Buddhist schools and teachings retrenched the need for doctrinal input from India. A detailed examination of the failure of Buddhist translations produced during the Song dynasty (960–1279), demonstrates that these developments were responsible for the unraveling of religious bonds between the two countries and the termination of the Buddhist phase of Sino-Indian relations. Sen proposes that changes in religious interactions were paralleled by changes in commercial exchanges. For most of the first millennium, trading activities between India and China were closely connected with and sustained through the transmission of Buddhist doctrines. The eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, witnessed dramatic changes in the patterns and structure of mercantile activity between the two countries. Secular bulk and luxury goods replaced Buddhist ritual items, maritime channels replaced the overland Silk Road as the most profitable conduits of commercial exchange, and many of the merchants involved were followers of Islam rather than Buddhism. Moreover, policies to encourage foreign trade instituted by the Chinese government and the Indian kingdoms contributed to the intensification of commercial activity between the two countries and transformed the China-India trading circuit into a key segment of cross-continental commerce.
Download or read book Donors of Longmen written by Amy McNair and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2006-11-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donors of Longmen is the first work in a Western language to re-create the history of the Longmen Grottoes, one of China’s great stone sculpture treasure houses. Longmen, a UNESCO World Heritage site located near the old capital of Luoyang in modern Henan Province, consists of thousands of ancient cave chapels and shrines containing Buddhist icons of all sizes that were carved into the towering limestone cliffs from the fifth to the eighth centuries. Beyond its superb sculpture, Longmen also preserves thousands of engraved dedicatory inscriptions by its donors, who included emperors and empresses, aristocrats, court eunuchs, artisans, monks, nuns, lay societies, female palace officials, male civil and military officials, and ordinary lay believers. Based on wide reading of both Asian and Western-language scholarship and careful analysis of the architecture, epigraphy, and iconography of the site, Amy McNair provides a rich and detailed examination of the dynamics of faith, politics, and money at Longmen, beginning with the inception of the site at Guyang Grotto in 493 and concluding with the last major dated project, the forty-eight Amitabhas added to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine in 730. Through her sensitive and well-informed exploration of Longmen’s huge repository of remarkable early sculpture, McNair gives voice to a wide array of medieval believers, many of them traditionally excluded from history. Hers will be the definitive work on Longmen for years to come.
Download or read book Mahayana Buddhism written by Paul Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-07-11 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originating in India, Mahayana Buddhism spread across Asia, becoming the prevalent form of Buddhism in Tibet and East Asia. Over the last twenty-five years Western interest in Mahayana has increased considerably, reflected both in the quantity of scholarly material produced and in the attraction of Westerners towards Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. Paul Williams’ Mahayana Buddhism is widely regarded as the standard introduction to the field, used internationally for teaching and research and has been translated into several European and Asian languages. This new edition has been fully revised throughout in the light of the wealth of new studies and focuses on the religion’s diversity and richness. It includes much more material on China and Japan, with appropriate reference to Nepal, and for students who wish to carry their study further there is a much-expanded bibliography and extensive footnotes and cross-referencing. Everyone studying this important tradition will find Williams’ book the ideal companion to their studies.
Download or read book Visions of Mahayana Buddhism written by Nagapriya and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a unique overview of this inspiring tradition, Nagapriya introduces its themes and spectrum of practices, literature and movements. Charting the evolution and expression of the Mahayana as a whole, he tracks its movement across South and East Asia, uncovering its history, culture and doctrines and blending this extensive knowledge with a strong element of lived practice. Ideal for both teaching and personal use, this far-reaching guide provides a solid foundation for any study in Buddhism and a valuable voice on Asian history.
Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism written by Mario Poceski and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism combines outstanding contributions covering Buddhism as it developed and is practiced in this region. These newly-commissioned essays provide fresh scholarly perspectives on a wide range of concepts, texts, and practices. Offers a comprehensive and balanced survey of Buddhism within East and Central Asia, from the time of the Buddha through to the present day Provides fresh perspectives on a wide range of concepts, texts, traditions, doctrines, practices, and institutions – on topics spanning gender roles, tantric rituals, and the spread of Zen into Europe Brings together cutting-edge research by an interdisciplinary and international contributor team, including historians, literature scholars, and historians, as well as those from religious studies Presents a panoramic view of the extraordinary richness and variety of local Buddhist expressions and practices within Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Tibetan, cultures
Download or read book The Power of Patriarchs written by Elizabeth A. Morrison and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the Northern Song Chan monk Qisong and his writings on Chan lineage, this book offers new arguments about Buddhist patriarchs, challenges assumptions about Chan masters, and provides insight into the interactions of Buddhists and the imperial court.
Download or read book China Review International written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Archives of Asian Art written by and published by . This book was released on 1967* with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Middle Way written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Buddhism written by Robert E. Buswell and published by MacMillan Reference Library. This book was released on 2004 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Online version of the 2-volume Encyclopedia of Buddhism, published by Macmillan.
Download or read book Hua yen Buddhism written by Dirck Vorenkamp and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transmitting the Lamp of Learning in Classical Chan Buddhism written by George Albert Keyworth (III) and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Current Perspectives in Buddhism Buddhism basic tenets and practices written by Madhusudan Sakya and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Japanese Philosophy written by James W. Heisig and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2011-07-31 with total page 1362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, readers of English can now access in a single volume the richness and diversity of Japanese philosophy as it has developed throughout history. Leading scholars in the field have translated selections from the writings of more than a hundred philosophical thinkers from all eras and schools of thought, many of them available in English for the first time. The Sourcebook editors have set out to represent the entire Japanese philosophical tradition—not only the broad spectrum of academic philosophy dating from the introduction of Western philosophy in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but also the philosophical ideas of major Japanese traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto. The philosophical significance of each tradition is laid out in an extensive overview, and each selection is accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of its author and helpful information on placing the work in its proper context. The bulk of the supporting material, which comprises nearly a quarter of the volume, is given to original interpretive essays on topics not explicitly covered in other chapters: cultural identity, samurai thought, women philosophers, aesthetics, bioethics. An introductory chapter provides a historical overview of Japanese philosophy and a discussion of the Japanese debate over defining the idea of philosophy, both of which help explain the rationale behind the design of the Sourcebook. An exhaustive glossary of technical terminology, a chronology of authors, and a thematic index are appended. Specialists will find information related to original sources and sinographs for Japanese names and terms in a comprehensive bibliography and general index. Handsomely presented and clearly organized for ease of use, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook will be a cornerstone in Japanese studies for decades to come. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in traditional or contemporary Japanese culture and the way it has shaped and been shaped by its great thinkers over the centuries.
