Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia written by Charles Orzech and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011 with total page 1223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the result of an international collaboration of forty scholars, provides a comprehensive resource on Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in their Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contexts from the first few centuries of the common era to the present.
Download or read book Chinese Esoteric Buddhism written by Geoffrey C. Goble and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese Esoteric Buddhism is generally held to have been established as a distinct and institutionalized Buddhist school in eighth-century China by “the Three Great Masters of Kaiyuan”: Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra. Geoffrey C. Goble provides an innovative account of the tradition’s emergence that sheds new light on the structures and traditions that shaped its institutionalization. Goble focuses on Amoghavajra (704–774), contending that he was the central figure in Esoteric Buddhism’s rapid rise in Tang dynasty China, and the other two “patriarchs” are known primarily through Amoghavajra’s teachings and writings. He presents the scriptural, mythological, and practical aspects of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism in the eighth century and places them in the historical contexts within which Amoghavajra operated. By telling the story of Amoghavajra’s rise to prominence and of Esoteric Buddhism’s corresponding institutionalization in China, Goble makes the case that the evolution of this tradition was predicated on Indic scriptures and practical norms rather than being the product of conscious adaptation to a Chinese cultural environment. He demonstrates that Esoteric Buddhism was employed by Chinese rulers to defeat military and political rivals. Based on close readings of a broad range of textual sources previously untapped by English-language scholarship, this book overturns many assumptions about the origins of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism.
Download or read book Sayings of the Buddha written by Rupert Gethin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008-10-09 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition offers a new translation of a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings reflecting the full variety of material: biography of the Buddha, narrative, myth, short sayings, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life. It provides an excellent introduction to Buddhist scripture.
Download or read book Indian Esoteric Buddhism written by Ronald M. Davidson and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the rapid spread of Buddhism the historical origins of Buddhsit thought and practice remain obscure.This work describes the genesis of the Tantric movement and in some ways an example of the feudalization of Indian society. Drawing on primary documents from sanskrit, prakrit, tibetan, Bengali, and chinese author shows how changes in medieval Indian society, including economic and patronage crises, a decline in women`s participation and the formation of large monastic orders led to the rise of the esoteric tradition in India.
Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-01-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Esoteric Buddhism in late first millennium Tibet and China is nowhere in evidence so clearly as in materials from Dunhuang. In the original contributions presented here, Robert Mayer and Cathy Cantwell examine the consecrations of the wrathful divinity Vajrakīlaya, while Sam van Schaik considers approaches to the vows of tantric adepts. Philosophical interpretations of Mahāyoga inform Kammie Takahashi’s study of the ‘Questions of Vajrasattva’. The background for later Tibetan tantric mortuary rites are examined in chapters by Yoshiro Imaeda and Matthew Kapstein. In the closing chapter, Katherine Tsiang investigates early printing in relation to esoteric dhāraṇīs, and their role as amulets accompanying the deceased. The collection is an important advance in our understanding of the historical development of Buddhist tantra.
Download or read book Ma alas in the Making written by Michelle C. Wang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first scholarly monograph on Buddhist maṇḍalas in China, this book examines the Maṇḍala of Eight Great Bodhisattvas. This iconographic template, in which a central Buddha is flanked by eight attendants, flourished during the Tibetan (786–848) and post-Tibetan Guiyijun (848–1036) periods at Dunhuang. A rare motif that appears in only four cave shrines at the Mogao and Yulin sites, the maṇḍala bore associations with political authority and received patronage from local rulers. Attending to the historical and cultural contexts surrounding this iconography, this book demonstrates that transcultural communication over the Silk Routes during this period, and the religious dialogue between the Chinese and Tibetan communities, were defining characteristics of the visual language of Buddhist maṇḍalas at Dunhuang.
Download or read book The Weaving of Mantra written by Ryûichi Abé and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999-06-28 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great Buddhist priest Kûkai (774-835) is credited with the introduction and establishment of tantric -or esoteric -Buddhism in early ninth-century Japan. In Ryûichi Abé examines this important religious figure -neglected in modern academic literatu
Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia written by Andrea Acri and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2016-09-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume advocates a trans-regional, and maritime-focused, approach to studying the genesis, development and circulation of Esoteric (or Tantric) Buddhism across Maritime Asia from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries ce. The book lays emphasis on the mobile networks of human agents (‘Masters’), textual sources (‘Texts’) and images (‘Icons’) through which Esoteric Buddhist traditions spread. Capitalising on recent research and making use of both disciplinary and area-focused perspectives, this book highlights the role played by Esoteric Buddhist maritime networks in shaping intra-Asian connectivity. In doing so, it reveals the limits of a historiography that is premised on land-based transmission of Buddhism from a South Asian ‘homeland’, and advances an alternative historical narrative that overturns the popular perception regarding Southeast Asia as a ‘periphery’ that passively received overseas influences. Thus, a strong point is made for the appreciation of the region as both a crossroads and rightful terminus of Buddhist cults, and for the re-evaluation of the creative and transformative force of Southeast Asian agents in the transmission of Esoteric Buddhism across mediaeval Asia.
Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism written by Alfred Percy Sinnett and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This theory recognizes the evolution of the soul as a process that is quite continuous in itself, though carried out partly through the instrumentality of a great series of dissociated forms. Putting aside for the moment of profound metaphysics of the theory which trace the principle of life from the original first cause of the cosmos, we find the soul as an entity emerging from the animal kingdom, and passing into the earliest human forms, without being at that time ripe for the higher intellectual life with which the present state of humanity renders us familiar. But through successive incarnations in forms whose physical improvement, under the Darwinian law, is constantly fitting them to be its habitation at each return to objective life, it gradually gathers that enormous range of experience which is summed up in its higher development. In the intervals between its physical incarnations it prolongs and works out, and finally exhausts or transmutes into so much abstract development, the personal experiences of each life. This is the clue to the true explanation of that apparent difficulty which besets the cruder form of the theory of reincarnation which independent speculation has sometimes thrown out. Each man is unconscious of having led previous lives, therefore he contends that subsequent lives can afford him no compensation for this one. He overlooks the enormous importance of the intervening spiritual condition, in which he by no means forgets the personal adventures and emotions he has just passed through, and in the course of which he distills these into so much cosmic progress. In the following pages the elucidation of this profoundly interesting mystery is attempted, and it will be seen that the view of events now afforded us is not only a solution of the problems of life and death, but of many very perplexing experiences on the borderland between those conditions - or rather between physical and spiritual life - which have engaged attention and speculation so widely of recent years in most civilized countries.
Download or read book Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism written by Yael Bentor and published by Studies on East Asian Religion. This book was released on 2017 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together leading authorities in the fields of Chinese and Tibetan Studies alike, 'Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism' engages cutting-edge research on the fertile tradition of Esoteric Buddhism (also known as Tantric Buddhism). This state of the art volume unfolds the sweeping impact of esoteric Buddhism on Tibetan and Chinese cultures, and the movement's role in forging distinct political, ethnical, and religious identities across Asia at large. Deciphering the oftentimes bewildering richness of esoteric Buddhism, this broadly conceived work exposes the common ground it shares with other Buddhist schools, as well as its intersection with non-Buddhist faiths. As such, the book is a major contribution to the study of Asian religions and cultures.
Download or read book Zen Sourcebook written by Stephen Addiss and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction by Paula Arai. This is the first collection to offer selections from the foundational texts of the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen traditions in a single volume. Through representative selections from their poetry, letters, sermons, and visual arts, the most important Zen Masters provide students with an engaging, cohesive introduction to the first 1200 years of this rich -- and often misunderstood -- tradition. A general introduction and notes provide historical, biographical, and cultural context; a note on translation, and a glossary of terms are also included.
Download or read book A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics written by Fabio Rambelli and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-05-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese Shingon tradition. Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn results in sustained discussions on the status of language and representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of Buddhist semiotics as based primarily on original Japanese pre-modern sources. It is a crucial publication in the fields of semiotics and religious studies.
Download or read book Original Buddhist Sources written by Carl Olson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together essential materials on the origins and development of Buddhist traditions from India, Sri Lanka, Tibet, China, and Japan, this anthology provides the broadest selection of primary source Buddhist literature available to date. The volume is divided into two major parts: Theravada and Mahayana forms of Buddhism. The first section presents selections that explore major themes in Buddhist thought such as causality, Four Noble Truths, the doctrine of non-self, nibbana, meditation, and ethics, as well as literature about monastic life and regulations, women, and hagiography. The second part includes selections from so-called wisdom literature and texts that represent the three major schools of Mahayana Buddhism: Pure Land, Madhyamika, and Yogacara. Selections also include sources from some of the major Chinese Buddhist schools such as Hua-yen, T'ien T'ai, Pure Land, and Ch'an. Readings by thinkers such as Tantric Buddhist reformer Tsong Khapa, Pure Land leaders Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren, as well as Zen Buddhists Dogen and Hakuin provide a perspective on regional and national traditions. In addition to the general introduction, each major section is introduced by an essay that places the selections within the context of Buddhist history. This comprehensive reader stands on its own as an indispensable anthology of original textual sources for courses in Buddhism, while also serving as a companion volume to the text The Different Paths of Buddhism: A Narrative-Historical Introduction.
Download or read book Spells Images and Mandalas written by Koichi Shinohara and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Koichi Shinohara traces the evolution of Esoteric Buddhist rituals from the simple recitation of spells in the fifth century to complex systems involving image worship, mandala initiation, and visualization practices in the ninth century. He presents an important new reading of a seventh-century Chinese text called the Collected Dharani Sutras, which shows how earlier rituals for specific deities were synthesized into a general Esoteric initiation ceremony and how, for the first time, the notion of an Esoteric Buddhist pantheon emerged. In the Collected Dharani Sutras, rituals for specific deities were typically performed around images of the deities, yet Esoteric Buddhist rituals in earlier sources involved the recitation of spells rather than the use of images. The first part of this study explores how such simpler rituals came to be associated with the images of specific deities and ultimately gave rise to the general Esoteric initiation ceremony described in the crucial example of the All-Gathering mandala ritual in the Collected Dharani Sutras. The visualization practices so important to later Esoteric Buddhist rituals were absent from this ceremony, and their introduction would fundamentally change Esoteric Buddhist practice. This study examines the translations of dharani sutras made by Bodhiruci in the early eighth century and later Esoteric texts, such as Yixing's commentary on the Mahavairocana sutra and Amoghavajra's ritual manuals, to show how incorporation of visualization greatly enriched Esoteric rituals and helped develop elaborate iconographies for the deities. Over time, the ritual function of images became less certain, and the emphasis shifted toward visualization. This study clarifies the complex relationship between images and ritual, changing how we perceive Esoteric Buddhist art as well as ritual.
Download or read book Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism written by Christian K. Wedemeyer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were “marginal” or primitive and situating them instead—both ideologically and institutionally—within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives—that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism—he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential Guhyasamaja Tantra underscore the text’s overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight—issues shared by all Indic religions—and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these “radical” communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism.
Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism and Texts written by Jinhua Chen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-02-08 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores trans-cultural and cross-border transmission and transformation of Esoteric Buddhism in East Asia, focusing on its manuscript culture and the transborder transmission of Esoteric Buddhist texts. In East Asia, Esoteric Buddhism’s influences can be seen across all levels of society: not only in that it achieved a recognizable sectarian identity, but also because elements of esoteric teachings were absorbed by other religious schools, influencing their philosophical tenets and everyday practices. The influence was not confined to the religious sphere: scholars have been paying more and more attention to the significance of Tang Esoteric Buddhism in relation to material culture and the dissemination of Esoteric Buddhist technologies in South, Central, and East Asia. No matter how one looks at a maṇḍala—an integral feature of esoteric practice—or the uncannily expressive statues of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas or Yidam that come in all shapes and sizes, or the murals that depict the variegated, mysterious themes of the esoteric tradition, one can always recognise the profound connection between art and Esoteric Buddhism. Esoteric Iifluences also abound in East Asian literature across different genres, displaying its unique characters both in poetry and prose. Likewise, in architecture, one can readily make out the enigmatic, colorful and distinctive elements characteristic of the esoteric tradition. Monks initiated into the esoteric lineages not only brought Buddhist classics and practices to China but also advanced knowledge in astronomy, calendarial calculations and mathematical theories. The chapters in this volume focus on two major aspects of textual Esoteric Buddhism—its manuscript culture and transborder transmission. This book will be beneficial to advanced students and researchers interested in Religious Studies, History and Buddhist studies. It was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions.
Download or read book The Jewel Ornament of Liberation written by Gampopa and published by Shambhala. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 621 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterwork of Tibetan Buddhism—providing the complete foundation for study and practice—from beginning to Buddhahood. Includes teachings on Buddha-nature, finding the spiritual master, impermanence, karma, cultivation of bodhicitta, development of the six perfections, the ten bodhisattva bhumis, Buddhahood, and the activities of the Buddha.
