Download or read book Shinra My jin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian Mediterranean written by Sujung Kim and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious work offers a transnational account of the deity Shinra Myōjin, the “god of Silla” worshipped in medieval Japanese Buddhism from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries. Sujung Kim challenges the long-held understanding of Shinra Myōjin as a protective deity of the Tendai Jimon school, showing how its worship emerged and developed in the complex networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”—a “quality” rather than a physical space defined by Kim as the primary conduit for cross-cultural influence in a region that includes the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the East China Sea, and neighboring coastal areas. While focusing on the transcultural worship of the deity, Kim engages the different maritime arrangements in which Shinra Myōjin circulated: first, the network of Korean immigrants, Chinese merchants, and Japanese Buddhist monks in China’s Shandong peninsula and Japan’s Ōmi Province; and second, that of gods found in the East Asian Mediterranean. Both of these networks became nodal points of exchange of both goods and gods. Kim’s examination of temple chronicles, literary writings, and iconography reveals Shinra Myōjin’s evolution from a seafaring god to a multifaceted one whose roles included the god of pestilence and of poetry, the insurer of painless childbirth, and the protector of performing arts. Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean” is not only the first monograph in any language on the Tendai Jimon school in Japanese Buddhism, but also the first book-length study in English to examine Korean connections in medieval Japanese religion. Unlike other recent studies on individual Buddhist deities, it foregrounds the need to approach them within a broader East Asian context. By shifting the paradigm from a land-centered vision to a sea-centered one, the work underlines the importance of a transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to the study of Buddhist deities.
Download or read book Buddhism in Central Asia II written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-07-11 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad aims to create a new framework to enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia. Buddhism was one major factor in this exchange: for the first time the multi-layered relationships between the trans-regional Buddhist traditions (Chinese, Indian, Tibetan) and those based on local Buddhist cultures (Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut) will be explored in a systematic way. The second volume Buddhism in Central Asia II—Practice and Rituals, Visual and Materials Transfer based on the mid-project conference held on September 16th–18th, 2019, at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) focuses on two of the six thematic topics addressed by the project, namely on "practices and rituals", exploring material culture in religious context such as mandalas and talismans, as well as “visual and material transfer”, including shared iconographies and the spread of ‘Khotanese’ themes.
Download or read book The Red Thread written by Bernard Faure and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-26 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice. Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos. Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan. This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.
Download or read book The Sea and the Sacred in Japan written by Fabio Rambelli and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sea and the Sacred in Japan is the first book to focus on the role of the sea in Japanese religions. While many leading Shinto deities tend to be understood today as unrelated to the sea, and mountains are considered the privileged sites of sacredness, this book provides new ways to understand Japanese religious culture and history. Scholars from North America, Japan and Europe explore the sea and the sacred in relation to history, culture, politics, geography, worldviews and cosmology, space and borders, and ritual practices and doctrines. Examples include Japanese indigenous conceptualizations of the sea from the Middle Ages to the 20th century; ancient sea myths and rituals; sea deities and sea cults; the role of the sea in Buddhist cosmology; and the international dimension of Japanese Buddhism and its maritime imaginary.
Download or read book The Chautauquan written by Theodore L. Flood and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Japanese Mythology in Film written by Yoshiko Okuyama and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cyborg detective hunts for a malfunctioning sex doll that turns itself into a killing machine. A Heian-era Taoist slays evil spirits with magic spells from yin-yang philosophy. A young mortician carefully prepares bodies for their journey to the afterlife. A teenage girl drinks a cup of life-giving sake, not knowing its irreversible transformative power. These are scenes from the visually enticing, spiritually eclectic media of Japanese movies and anime. The narratives of courageous heroes and heroines and the myths and legends of deities and their abodes are not just recurring motifs of the cinematic fantasy world. They are pop culture’s representations of sacred subtexts in Japan. Japanese Mythology in Film takes a semiotic approach to uncovering such religious and folkloric tropes and subtexts embedded in popular Japanese movies and anime. Part I introduces film semiotics with plain definitions of terminology. Through familiar cinematic examples, it emphasizes the myth-making nature of modern-day film and argues that semiotics can be used as a theoretical tool for reading film. Part II presents case studies of eight popular Japanese films as models of semiotic analysis. While discussing each film’s use of common mythological motifs such as death and rebirth, its case study also unveils more covert cultural signifiers and folktale motifs, including jizo (a savior of sentient beings) and kori (bewitching foxes and raccoon dogs), hidden in the Japanese filmic text.
Download or read book The Fushikaden written by Zeami and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Shinto Shrines written by Joseph Cali and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2012-11-30 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Japan’s two great religious traditions, Shinto is far less known and understood in the West. Although there are a number of books that explain the religion and its philosophy, this work is the first in English to focus on sites where Shinto has been practiced since the dawn of Japanese history. In an extensive introductory section, authors Joseph Cali and John Dougill delve into the fascinating aspects of Shinto, clarifying its relationship with Buddhism as well as its customs, symbolism, and pilgrimage routes. This is followed by a fully illustrated guide to 57 major Shinto shrines throughout Japan, many of which have been designated World Heritage Sites or National Treasures. In each comprehensive entry, the authors highlight important spiritual and physical features of the individual shrines (architecture, design, and art), associated festivals, and enshrined gods. They note the prayers offered and, for travelers, the best times to visit. With over 125 color photographs and 50 detailed illustrations of archetypical Shinto objects and shrines, this volume will enthrall not only those interested in religion but also armchair travelers and visitors to Japan alike. Whether you are planning to visit the actual sites or take a virtual journey, this guide is the perfect companion. Visit Joseph Cali’s Shinto Shrines of Japan: The Blog Guide: http://shintoshrinesofjapanblogguide.blogspot.jp/. Visit John Dougill’s Green Shinto, “dedicated to the promotion of an open, international and environmental Shinto”: http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/.
Download or read book California Pastoral 1769 1848 written by Hubert Howe Bancroft and published by San Francisco : The History Company. This book was released on 1888 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mikado s Empire written by William Elliot Griffis and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Man y sh and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan written by Torquil Duthie and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan, Torquil Duthie examines the literary representation of the late seventh-century Yamato court as a realm of "all under heaven.” Through close readings of the early volumes of the poetic anthology Man’yōshū (c. eighth century) and the last volumes of the official history Nihon shoki (c. 720), Duthie shows how competing political interests and different styles of representation produced not a unified ideology, but rather a “bundle” of disparate imperial imaginaries collected around the figure of the imperial sovereign. Central to this process was the creation of a tradition of vernacular poetry in which Yamato courtiers could participate and recognize themselves as the cultured officials of the new imperial realm.
Download or read book Uncovering Heian Japan written by Thomas LaMarre and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary criticism of classical Japanese poetry, focusing on the emergence of "Kokinwakashu, ' an imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled in the 9th century.
Download or read book Before the Nation written by Susan L Burns and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVShows how a modern nationalism was constructed in Japan from existing notions of community, at a time before the idea of “nation.”/div
Download or read book Rethinking Japanese History written by Yoshihiko Amino and published by U of M Center for Japanese Studies. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A call to reconsider Japanese history from the perspective of the deep past
Download or read book The Early Modern Travels of Manchu written by Mårten Söderblom Saarela and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-06-19 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A linguistic and historical study of the Manchu script in the early modern world Manchu was a language first written down as part of the Qing state-building project in Northeast Asia in the early seventeenth century. After the Qing invasion of China in 1644, and for the next two and a half centuries, Manchu was the language of state in one of the early modern world's great powers. Its prominence and novelty attracted the interest of not only Chinese literati but also foreign scholars. Yet scholars in Europe and Japan, and occasionally even within China itself, were compelled to study the language without access to a native speaker. Jesuit missionaries in Beijing sent Chinese books on Manchu to Europe, where scholars struggled to represent it in an alphabet compatible with Western pedagogy and printing technology. In southern China, meanwhile, an isolated phonologist with access to Jesuit books relied on expositions of the Roman alphabet to make sense of the Manchu script. When Chinese textbooks and dictionaries of Manchu eventually reached Japan, scholars there used their knowledge of Dutch to understand Manchu. In The Early Modern Travels of Manchu, Mårten Söderblom Saarela focuses on outsiders both within and beyond the Qing empire who had little interaction with Manchu speakers but took an interest in the strange, new language of a rising world power. He shows how—through observation, inference, and reference to received ideas on language and writing—intellectuals in southern China, Russia, France, Chosŏn Korea, and Tokugawa Japan deciphered the Manchu script and explores the uses to which it was put for recording sounds and arranging words.
Download or read book Coinage in Ancient India written by Satya Prakash Sarasvati (Svāmī) and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reading Du Fu written by Xiaofei Tian and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first collection of essays in English, contributed by well-known experts of Chinese literature as well as scholars of a younger generation, dedicated to the poetry of Du Fu, commonly regarded as the greatest Chinese poet. These essays are engaged in historically nuanced close reading of Du Fu’s poems, both canonical and less known, from new angles and in various contexts, and discuss a series of critical issues, including the local and the imperial; the body politic and the individual body; poetry and geography; perspectives on the complicated relation of religion and literature; materiality and contemporary reception of Du Fu; poetry and visual art; and tradition and modernity. Many of the poems discussed in this book were written in the backwater town of Kuizhou, far from Du Fu’s earlier residence in the capital city Chang’an, at a time when the Tang dynasty was going through devastating social and political disturbances. The authors contend that Du Fu’s isolation from the elite literary establishments allowed him to become a pioneer who introduced a new order to the Chinese poetic discourse. However, his attention to details in everyday reality, his preoccupation with domestic life and the larger issues embroiled in it, his humor, and his ability to surprise tend to be obscured by the clichéd image of the “poet sage” and “poet historian”—an image this collection of essays successfully complicates. “The scholarship that went into this collection of essays is extremely solid and fills an important gap in the study of China’s greatest poet Du Fu. The convincing and compelling collection of articles from distinguished scholars rereads Du Fu from fresh and different perspectives and informs the reader about the amazing power of intertextuality.” —Kang-I Sun Chang, Yale University “This rich and multilayered collection of essays about Du Fu, all written by major scholars, presents research of the highest quality and originality that succeeds most impressively in enriching and deepening our knowledge and appreciation of this great poet. This volume has the potential to engender a new stage of Du Fu studies.” —Antje Richter, University of Colorado, Boulder
