Download or read book Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan written by Lori R. Meeks and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hokkeji, an ancient Nara temple that once stood at the apex of a state convent network established by Queen-Consort Komyo (701–760), possesses a history that in some ways is bigger than itself. Its development is emblematic of larger patterns in the history of female monasticism in Japan. In Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan, Lori Meeks explores the revival of Japan’s most famous convent, an institution that had endured some four hundred years of decline following its establishment. With the help of the Ritsu (Vinaya)-revivalist priest Eison (1201–1290), privately professed women who had taken up residence at Hokkeji succeeded in reestablishing a nuns’ ordination lineage in Japan. Meeks considers a broad range of issues surrounding women’s engagement with Buddhism during a time when their status within the tradition was undergoing significant change. The thirteenth century brought women greater opportunities for ordination and institutional leadership, but it also saw the spread of increasingly androcentric Buddhist doctrine. Hokkeji explores these contradictions. In addition to addressing the socio-cultural, economic, and ritual life of the convent, Hokkeji examines how women interpreted, used, and "talked past" canonical Buddhist doctrines, which posited women’s bodies as unfit for buddhahood and the salvation of women to be unattainable without the mediation of male priests. Texts associated with Hokkeji, Meeks argues, suggest that nuns there pursued a spiritual life untroubled by the so-called soteriological obstacles of womanhood. With little concern for the alleged karmic defilements of their gender, the female community at Hokkeji practiced Buddhism in ways resembling male priests: they performed regular liturgies, offered memorial and other priestly services to local lay believers, and promoted their temple as a center for devotional practice. What distinguished Hokkeji nuns from their male counterparts was that many of their daily practices focused on the veneration of a female deity, their founder Queen-Consort Komyo, whom they regarded as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon. Hokkeji rejects the commonly accepted notion that women simply internalized orthodox Buddhist discourses meant to discourage female practice and offers new perspectives on the religious lives of women in premodern Japan. Its attention to the relationship between doctrine and socio-cultural practice produces a fuller view of Buddhism as it was practiced on the ground, outside the rarefied world of Buddhist scholasticism.
Download or read book Buddhist Nuns written by Mohan Wijeyaratna and published by Buddhist Publication Society. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Community of Buddhist Nuns is one of the oldest women’s organizations in human history. In this book Dr. Wijayaratna explains how this community was started by the Buddha in the 5th century BCE, and how it developed gradually. To show the motivation and the way of life of these ordained women, the author uses the oldest texts of the Pali canon. Several chapters of this book discuss the position of Buddhist nuns in the field of the three famous monastic themes: poverty, chastity and obedience. This book describes in detail the structure of the organization of their Community, their day-to-day practices, and the virtues and mental discipline through which they strove to attain the sublime goal, Nibbana.
Download or read book Sisters in Solitude written by Karma Lekshe Tsomo and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the first English translation of the Tibetan and Chinese texts on monastic discipline for Buddhist nuns and presents a comparative study of the two texts. An important contribution for studies of women's history, feminist philosophy, women's studies, women in religion, and feminist ethics.
Download or read book Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia written by Garima Kaushik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the socio-cultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category—thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse—this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic members, etc. within Buddhism. The volume also investigates the individual experiences of the members, and their equations and relationships at different levels—with the Samgha at large, with their own respective Bhikşu or Bhikşunī Sangha, with the laity, and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data in order to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished. Bringing together archaeological, epigraphic, art historical, literary as well as ethnographic data, this volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Buddhism, gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, and South Asian studies.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Monasticism A L written by William M. Johnston and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2000 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 1138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Monasticism written by William M. Johnston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 2000 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan written by Lori R. Meeks and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hokkeji, an ancient Nara temple that once stood at the apex of a state convent network established by Queen-Consort Komyo (701–760), possesses a history that in some ways is bigger than itself. Its development is emblematic of larger patterns in the history of female monasticism in Japan. In Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan, Lori Meeks explores the revival of Japan’s most famous convent, an institution that had endured some four hundred years of decline following its establishment. With the help of the Ritsu (Vinaya)-revivalist priest Eison (1201–1290), privately professed women who had taken up residence at Hokkeji succeeded in reestablishing a nuns’ ordination lineage in Japan. Meeks considers a broad range of issues surrounding women’s engagement with Buddhism during a time when their status within the tradition was undergoing significant change. The thirteenth century brought women greater opportunities for ordination and institutional leadership, but it also saw the spread of increasingly androcentric Buddhist doctrine. Hokkeji explores these contradictions. In addition to addressing the socio-cultural, economic, and ritual life of the convent, Hokkeji examines how women interpreted, used, and "talked past" canonical Buddhist doctrines, which posited women’s bodies as unfit for buddhahood and the salvation of women to be unattainable without the mediation of male priests. Texts associated with Hokkeji, Meeks argues, suggest that nuns there pursued a spiritual life untroubled by the so-called soteriological obstacles of womanhood. With little concern for the alleged karmic defilements of their gender, the female community at Hokkeji practiced Buddhism in ways resembling male priests: they performed regular liturgies, offered memorial and other priestly services to local lay believers, and promoted their temple as a center for devotional practice. What distinguished Hokkeji nuns from their male counterparts was that many of their daily practices focused on the veneration of a female deity, their founder Queen-Consort Komyo, whom they regarded as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon. Hokkeji rejects the commonly accepted notion that women simply internalized orthodox Buddhist discourses meant to discourage female practice and offers new perspectives on the religious lives of women in premodern Japan. Its attention to the relationship between doctrine and socio-cultural practice produces a fuller view of Buddhism as it was practiced on the ground, outside the rarefied world of Buddhist scholasticism.
Download or read book Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion Volume 5 2014 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contrast with the growing belief in society that traditional religious institutions are losing credibility, there has been renewed interest in monasteries going beyond what is strictly defined as religious. There are, for example, increasingly numerous requests for cooking and gardening courses as well as guided tours in monasteries, the appeal of monastic products and media interest in the subject. In parallel with a strong crisis in its recruitment, monasticism in the Western world is experiencing a period of innovation and experiments accompanied by unexpected popularity, as is evidenced by numerous films and publications. We hope that this book will deepen the understanding of the specificity of monastic life in the in the contemporary world, in a religious area, and from a sociological point of view.
Download or read book Buddhist Monastic Life written by Môhan Wijayaratna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-11-30 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1991 book provides a brief yet detailed account of the ideal way of life prescribed for Buddhist monks and nuns in the Pali texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism. The author describes the way in which the Buddha's disciples institutionalized his teachings about such things as food, dress, money, chastity, solitude and discipleship. This tradition represents an ideal of religious life that has been followed in South and Southeast Asia for over two thousand years. In previous writing on the early period of Buddhist monasticism, scholars have usually tried to give an historical account of the evolution of the monastic order, and so have seen the extant Vinaya texts as coming from distinct historical periods. This book takes a different approach by presenting a synchronic account, which allows the author to show that sources are in fact predominantly consistent and coherent.
Download or read book Monasticism written by Stephen J. Davis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the phenomenon of monasteries from antiquity to present day as cloister places of refuge where fundamental aspects of life are regimented and spirituality is practiced.
Download or read book Sisters in Solitude written by Karma Lekshe Tsomo and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1996-11-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is an investigation of the moral precepts and codes of everyday conduct by which ordained women regulated their lives. It takes as its basis the Bhikṣuṇī Prātimokṣa Sūtras of the Dharmagupta school, preserved in Chinese translation, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda school, preserved in Tibetan translation. For over two thousand years, Buddhist nuns have quietly embodied specific moral and spiritual values on their path to enlightenment. Contemplative communities offered women both an alternative lifestyle and an avenue for education. Numbering as many as one million at certain periods of history, they have exerted powerful, if often unacknowledged, influence on Asian societies. Sisters in Solitude documents the earliest recorded system of ethics formulated especially for women and presents the first English translations of the original texts. An essential sourcebook for studies on women's religious history and feminist ethics, it details the monastic guidelines that link Buddhist nuns of the different traditions. The texts it contains unite women of many cultures.
Download or read book Subject Headings Used in the Dictionary Catalogs of the Library of Congress from 1897 Through December 1955 written by Library of Congress. Subject Cataloging Division and published by Washington : Library of Congress, Processing Department, Subject Cataloging Division. This book was released on 1957 with total page 1366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Renunciation and Empowerment of Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar Burma written by Hiroko Kawanami and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Myanmar-Burma has one of the largest concentrations of Buddhist nuns and monks in the world today. In Renunciation and Empowerment of Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar-Burma, Kawanami traces the nun's scholarly lineage in modern Myanmar history and examines their contemporary religious position in Myanmar's social and political contexts. Although their religious status may appear ambiguous from a textual viewpoint, it is argued that their large presence is a clear indication as to the important functions Buddhist nuns perform in the monastic community. Sagaing Hill where the main research was conducted, occupies an important educational centre for Myanmar nuns in consolidating their scholarly lineage and spreading the network of dhamma teachers. The book examines transactions that take place in their everyday lives and reveals the essence of their religious lives that make Buddhist nuns an essential bridge between sangha and society. Book jacket.
Download or read book A E written by Library of Congress. Office for Subject Cataloging Policy and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 1548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen written by Eun-su Cho and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovering hidden histories, this book focuses on Korean Buddhist nuns and laywomen from the fourth century to the present. Today, South Korea's Buddhist nuns have a thriving monastic community under their own control, and they are well known as meditation teachers and social service providers. However, little is known of the women who preceded them. Using primary sources to reveal that which has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored, this work reveals various figures, milieux, and activities of female adherents, clerical and lay. Contributors consider examples from the early days of Buddhism in Korea during the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods (first millennium CE); the Koryŏ period (982–1392), when Buddhism flourished as the state religion; the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), when Buddhism was actively suppressed by the Neo-Confucian Court; and the contemporary resurgence of female monasticism that began in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Making Fields of Merit written by Monica Lindberg Falk and published by NIAS Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This anthropological study addresses religion and gender relations through the lens of the lives, actions and role in Thai society of an order of Buddhist nuns (mae chii). It presents a unique ethnography of these Thai Buddhist nuns, examines what it implies to be a female ascetic in contemporary Thailand and analyses how the ordained state for women fits into the wider gender patterns found in Thai society. The study also deals with the nuns' agency in creating religious space and authority for women. In addition, it raises questions about how the position of Thai Buddhist nuns outside the Buddhist sanhga affects their religious legitimacy and describes recent moves to restore a Theravada order of female monks." -- BACK COVER.
