Esoteric Buddhism in Song Dynasty Sichuan

I review a book.

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2007

reviews | 463 feudal system" (p. 375). In addition to this ironic outcome, the Mito emphasis on public ritual served to finalize the shift away from medieval conceptions of the power of secrecy into the modern suspicion of secrecy, and valorization of the public. It is rare to find a collection of essays in which all of the individual contributions are themselves important works. This is one such case, making the whole worthy of reading and rereading. It fits together well, is well-balanced and provides insight into an aspect of Japanese religious culture that is key to our understanding. The editors, as well as the individual contributors are to be congratulated on the production of such a fine collection. At the same time, this work serves as a valuable complement to Teeuwen and Rambelli 2003, which contains articles by many of the same authors. references

Dao Companion to the Excavated Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts, 2019

This chapter builds upon research showing that the Guodian corpus has a coherent religious philosophy. The implications of this coherence have yet to be explored to their fullest potential, particularly as it relates to later developments in Chinese history. Having a new window into the religious world of pre-Han China should have transformed our assessment of historical developments at a fundamental level. In truth, deeply rooted historical trends are difficult to overturn. Previous scholarship privileged institutional questions, which skewed the discussion toward the elite levels of discourse. In contrast to the older search for how texts can shed light on the upper echelon of society, my work has sought to gaze downward at lower social strata to understand how it can offer insight into individual practices of self-cultivation. My approach reflects current trends in religious studies which value social history over an older political focus. A heightened interest in the role of embodiment has been a natural outgrowth of my inquiry into how these texts would have affected individuals. One influence on this analysis is the work of Richard Shusterman, whose somaesthetics helps to reconstruct features of texts that are otherwise visible only in hazy outlines. 1 Prior to continuing to describe the argument of this chapter within the framework of religious studies in East Asia, it is important to pause to underscore a few aspects 1 My first two books outline the coherence of the Guodian corpus with an emphasis on how they relate to individual practices of self-cultivation. A contrasting approach, one that focuses on elite discourse, is represented by Lewis. Richard Shusterman's work on somaesthetics and its relationship to Chinese philosophy was the subject of a 2015 special edition of Frontiers of Philosophy in China 10.2. This special issue does not discuss Guodian specifically, but more general connections with Confucian and Daoist thought. The connection between somaesthetics and Guodian is found in Shusterman's article (

The China Journal, 2017

This is the first volume to focus exclusively on Jain pat : as, large-format paintings. These include square cloth renderings of yantras typically carried by monks; depictions of scenes from the lives of the Jinas, especially P ar svan atha; vijñaptipatras, long scrolls sent to monks to invite them to a city for the rainy season; diagrams of the cosmos and parts thereof; and images of pilgrimage sites kept in homes and local temples. Unique objects include a scroll illustrating image-poem verse forms (citra-k avya bandhas) and an astrological chart concerning the slaying of a child (si sum ara-cakra). Most of the images collected here are housed in the L. D. Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad. Forty-one objects are presented in 131 stunningly clear images; nearly all text on the objects is legible. Two scrolls are rendered as foldouts. Several detail images are in actual size. The authors offer sparse analysis throughout and make few arguments. While rightly pointing out that these paintings are understudied, they frequently do not take recent work into consideration in their analyses, claiming that less has been written about some objects than is actually the case. Their most substantial contribution is to expand U. P. Shah's twofold typology of pat : as (tantric and non-tantric) into five categories, though even this could be expanded further. The authors' stated interest is to introduce these paintings to researchers, rather than to analyze pat : as as a category-they omit embroidered pat : as. These objects give us a vivid picture of the lived medieval and early modern Svet ambara Jain tradition in western India, demonstrating their importance as resources for understanding the Jain tradition. The authors share valuable insights into how several pat : a forms continue to be used today. Historically significant portions of text on select pat : as are transcribed in Devanagari or Gujarati script, with a few errors, and are imprecisely paraphrased rather than translated. Several points of fact about Jainism are confused. For these reasons, the volume will be primarily useful to researchers with the ability to read from the images directly and who have enough knowledge of Jainism to handle nonstandard interpretations. This volume is recommended for university libraries with a South Asian art collection.

Abhidharmakośa śāstra 69 abhiṣeka 335, 336 see also guàndǐng ācārya 333, 335, 346 Admonition on Establishing the Will and Marking of the Mind 238, 244, 246, 247, 251-257 ākāśa 263 ālayavijñāna 42, 45, 49, 60, 71, 83 Altbuddhistische Kultstätten 145 Amoghavajra 16n43, 81, 102n9, 348-355 see also Bùkōng 不空 Analects (by Confucius) 257n52 anatman 376 Angulimālīya 42 Anjali 111, 345 Annen 安然 80, 101 Ān Shìgāo 安世高 121 ānxīn 安心 ('calming/pacifying the mind') 244 apocryphal (scriptures) 11, 211n51, 331, 348 Āryadeva 41, 72 association between Tibetan Chán and tantric texts 202, 205 Bǎifǎ lùn 百法論 232 see also Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 百法明門論 232 see also Bǎifǎ lùn Baiṣajyaguru 342n73 Bǎizhàng Huáihǎi 百丈懷海 106 bandhanas 133 Bāngjī 邦畿 36n64 Bàodé Monastery 報德寺 35n57 Bǎofēng Monastery 寶峰寺 232, 233 Bǎogōng 保恭 (542-621) 56, 73, 75 Bǎotáng 保唐 School (of Chán in Sìchuán) 6n22, 13, 211, 341, 347, 348 and Tibetan Chán 209 lineage 209, 211n51 Bǎozàng lùn 寶藏論 17, 363n1 see also Treasure Store Treatise Ba Sangshi 210, 219 bde bzhin gshegs pa'i bsam gtan 201 see also meditation of the tathāgata see also tathāgata-dhyāna Běizōng 北宗 5n15, 212, 330 see also Northern School běnjué 本覺 ('original enlightenment') 244 Biàn Fànwén Hànzì gōngdé jí chūshēng yīqiè wénzì gēnběn cìdì 辨梵文漢字功徳及出 生一切文字根本次第 80 bìguān 壁觀 39n83, 44 see also 'wall-contemplation' bījā 70 as siddhaṃ syllables 346, 352, 353 bilip köŋülüg ('realizing the mind') 151 Blon pa bka' thang yig 196n7 bodhi 114, 152, 267, 339n55, 340 see also enlightenment see also pútí and Bodhiruci 34 and the Laṅkavatāra tradition 10, 107, 111, 112 burial of 31 death of 35-37 lineage 212 see also Pútídámó Bodhidharmatāra 57n206, 207, 215 Bodhināgendra 206n35 Bodhiruci 32, 34, 38, 60, 62n228, 71, 72, 82 bodhisattvā mahāsattvā mahāyogayogin 204 Bōrě dēng lùn shì 般若燈論釋 37 Bōsī 波斯 33, 34, 38, 39, 40 Bōzhī 波知 38, 39 Brahmajāla sūtra 331 see also Fànwáng jīng index 399 Broughton, Jeffrey X, 44, 54, 66, 196, 206, 212 Bsam gtan gi yi ge 203, 204n29, 207, 207n38 see also The Chán Book Bsam gtan mig sgron 196n7, 199, 205n32, 215n66, 220 see also The Lamp for the Eyes of Meditation Bsgom pa'i rim pa 195n5, 44, 45, 47, 63, 72, 73, 83, 116, 261, 271, 277, 281, 285, 371, 374 see also fóxìng Buddhist path 329, 331 Bùkōng 不空 81 see also Amoghavajra bù-sī bù-guān 不思不觀 ('non-thought and non-contemplation') 118n43 Bütön 209n46, 218n79, 219 Bzang po spyod pa'i smon lam gyi rgyal po 198 Cài Zǐhuàng 蔡子晃 363, 364, 365 Campā (Campāi) 112n37, 337n37 Central Asia 4, 6n19, 26, 41, 81n357, 229 Cham Línyì 林邑 (Champa) 40 Chánchāng 禪唱 100n2 Chán Chart 229n7 see also Zhōnghuá chuán xīndì chánmén shīzī chéngxí tú

2001

IN THIS ISSUE WE continue with the publication of selections from Leo Pruden’s translation of Shinkø Mochizuki’s Pure Land Buddhism in China: A Doctrinal History. Given the theme of this issue, we have chosen to publish chapter seven, on T’an-luan, out of order. As mentioned in the previous issue, editing of Pruden’s typescript has been limited to improvements in the readability and updating some of the terminology employed. We again wish to express our appreciation to everyone who contributed to initiating this project, especially the Pruden estate for their permission to publish the work.

Vajrayana Buddhism in Russia: Relevant History and Sociocultural Analytics, 2020

This conference paper discusses the esoteric practices of Vinaya monks in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Probing Shengyan’s argument that the revived Vinaya school had ‘a strong esoteric flavour’, this research examines the biographies in the eighteenth-century Lüzong dengpu 律宗燈譜 (Genealogy of the Lamp of the Vinaya School). The findings of research show that there are mainly two esoteric practices explicitly mentioned in the biographies, i.e., the recitation of Ucchuṣma mantra and feeding hungry ghosts. The latter, apart from performing the rites (known as flame-mouth (yankou 燄口), also includes the composition of relevant ritual manuals. However, the cases of esoteric practice among Vinaya monks are few and loosely connected with each other.