Chinese Buddhism

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The Science of Chinese Buddhism

Erik J. Hammerstrom
The Science of Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Erik J. Hammerstrom
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2015-08-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231539586

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The Science of Chinese Buddhism by Erik J. Hammerstrom Pdf

Kexue, or science, captured the Chinese imagination in the early twentieth century, promising new knowledge about the world and a dynamic path to prosperity. Chinese Buddhists embraced scientific language and ideas to carve out a place for their religion within a rapidly modernizing society. Examining dozens of previously unstudied writings from the Chinese Buddhist press, this book maps Buddhists' efforts to rethink their traditions through science in the initial decades of the twentieth century. Buddhists believed science offered an exciting, alternative route to knowledge grounded in empirical thought, much like their own. They encouraged young scholars to study subatomic and relativistic physics while still maintaining Buddhism's vital illumination of human nature and its crucial support of an ethical system rooted in radical egalitarianism. Showcasing the rich and progressive steps Chinese religious scholars took in adapting to science's rising authority, this volume offers a key perspective on how a major Eastern power transitioned to modernity in the twentieth century and how its intellectuals anticipated many of the ideas debated by scholars of science and Buddhism today.

Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

April D. Hughes
Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : April D. Hughes
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2021-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824888701

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Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism by April D. Hughes Pdf

Although scholars have long assumed that early Chinese political authority was rooted in Confucianism, rulership in the medieval period was not bound by a single dominant tradition. To acquire power, emperors deployed objects and figures derived from a range of traditions imbued with religious and political significance. Author April D. Hughes demonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690–705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581–604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule. During periods of upheaval caused by the decline of the Dharma, worldly saviors arrived on earth to quell chaos and to rule and liberate their subjects simultaneously. By incorporating these figures into the imperial system, sovereigns were able to depict themselves both as monarchs and as buddhas or bodhisattvas in uncertain times. In this inventive and original work, Hughes traces worldly saviors—in particular Maitreya Buddha and Prince Moonlight—as they appeared in apocalyptic scriptures from Dunhuang, claims to the throne made by various rebel leaders, and textual interpretations and assertions by Yang Jian and Wu Zhao. Yang Jian associated himself with Prince Moonlight and took on the persona of a Wheel-Turning King whose offerings to the Buddha were not flowers and incense but weapons of war to reunite a long-fragmented empire and revitalize the Dharma. Wu Zhao was associated with several different worldly savior figures. In addition, she saw herself as the incarnation of a Wheel-Turning King for whom it was said the Seven Treasures manifested as material representations of his right to rule. Wu Zhao duly had the Seven Treasures created and put on display whenever she held audiences at court. The worldly savior figure allowed rulers to inhabit the highest role in the religious realm along with the supreme role in the political sphere. This incorporation transformed notions of Chinese imperial sovereignty, and associating rulers with a buddha or bodhisattva continued long after the close of the medieval period.

Chinese Buddhism

Chün-fang Yü
Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Chün-fang Yü
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2020-06-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824883485

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Chinese Buddhism by Chün-fang Yü Pdf

What are the foundational scriptures and major schools for Chinese Buddhists? What divinities do they worship? What festivals do they celebrate? These are some of the basic questions addressed in this book, the first introduction to Chinese Buddhism written expressly for students and those interested in an accessible yet authoritative overview of the subject based on current scholarship. After presenting the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings and the Chinese religious traditions, the book focuses on topics essential for understanding Chinese Buddhism: major scriptures, worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, rituals and festivals, the monastic order, Buddhist schools such as Tiantai and Chan, Buddhism and gender, and current trends—notably humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan and the resurgence of Buddhism in post-Mao China. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. A convenient glossary of common terms, titles, and names is included.

Chinese Buddhism and Traditional Culture

Litian Fang
Chinese Buddhism and Traditional Culture Book PDF

Author : Litian Fang
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2018-11-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317519096

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Chinese Buddhism and Traditional Culture by Litian Fang Pdf

Since the first century, when Buddhism entered China, the foreign religion has influenced and been influenced in turn by traditional Chinese culture, and eventually became an important part of it. That is one of the great historical themes not only for China but also for East Asia. This book explores the elements of Buddhism, including its classics, doctrines, system, and rituals, to reveal the basic connotation of Buddhism as a cultural entity. Regarding the development of Buddhism in China, it traces the spread in chronological order, from the introduction in Han Dynasties (202 BC–220 AD), to the prosperity in the Sixteen Kingdoms (ca. 304–439 AD), and then to the decline since the Five Dynasties (907–ca. 960 AD). It is noteworthy that the Buddhist schools in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589 AD) and the Buddhist sects in Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907 AD) contributed to the sinicization of Buddhism. This book also deals with the interesting question of the similarities and differences between Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism, to examine the specific characters of the former in terms of thought and culture. In the last chapter, the external influence of Chinese Buddhism in East Asia is studied. Scholars and students in Buddhism and Chinese culture studies, especially those in Buddhist countries, will benefit from the book. Also, it will appeal to readers interested in religion, Chinese culture, and ancient Chinese history.

Chinese Esoteric Buddhism

Geoffrey C. Goble
Chinese Esoteric Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Geoffrey C. Goble
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2019-10-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231550642

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Chinese Esoteric Buddhism by Geoffrey C. Goble Pdf

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.

Burning for the Buddha

James A. Benn
Burning for the Buddha Book PDF

Author : James A. Benn
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2007-02-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824861735

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Burning for the Buddha by James A. Benn Pdf

Burning for the Buddha is the first book-length study of the theory and practice of "abandoning the body"(self-immolation) in Chinese Buddhism. It examines the hagiographical accounts of all those who made offerings of their own bodies and places them in historical, social, cultural, and doctrinal context. Rather than privilege the doctrinal and exegetical interpretations of the tradition, which assume the central importance of the mind and its cultivation, James Benn focuses on the ways in which the heroic ideals of the bodhisattva present in scriptural materials such as the Lotus Sutra played out in the realm of religious practice on the ground.

Chinese Pure Land Buddhism

Charles B. Jones
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Charles B. Jones
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2019-09-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824879716

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Chinese Pure Land Buddhism by Charles B. Jones Pdf

Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. Even though Pure Land Buddhism was born in China and currently constitutes the dominant form of Buddhist practice there, it has previously received very little attention from western scholars. In this book, Charles B. Jones examines the reasons for the lack of scholarly attention and why the few past treatments of the topic missed many of its distinctive features. He argues that the Chinese Pure Land tradition, with its characteristic promise of rebirth in the Pure Land to even non-elite or undeserving practitioners, should not be viewed from the perspective of the Japanese Pure Land tradition, which differs greatly. More accurately contextualizing Chinese Pure Land Buddhism within the landscape of Chinese Buddhism and the broader global Buddhist tradition, this work celebrates Chinese Pure Land, not as a school or sect, but as a unique and inherently valuable “tradition of practice.” This volume is organized thematically, clearly presenting topics such as the nature of the Pure Land, the relationship between “self-power” and “other-power,” the practice of nianfo (buddha-recollection), and the formation of the line of “patriarchs” that keep the tradition grounded. It guides us in understanding the vigorous debates that Chinese Pure Land Buddhism evoked and delves into the rich apologetic literature that it produced in its own defense. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unexamined primary source materials, as well as modern texts by contemporary Chinese Pure Land masters, the author provides lucid translations of resources previously unavailable in English. He also shares his lifetime of experience in this field, enlivening the narrative with personal anecdotes of his visits to sites of Pure Land practice in China and Taiwan. The straightforward and nontechnical prose makes this book a standby resource for anyone interested in pursuing research in this lively, sophisticated, and still-evolving religious tradition. Scholars—including undergraduates—specializing in East Asian Buddhism, as well as those interested in Buddhism or Chinese religion and history in general, will find this book invaluable.

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism

Karil J. Kucera
Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Karil J. Kucera
Publisher : Cambria Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2016-01-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781621967132

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Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism by Karil J. Kucera Pdf

Includes 159 color images. Baodingshan consists of a monastic complex and two rock-carved areas, Little Buddha Bend and Great Buddha Bend, located in Dazu in western China and dates from the Southern Song period. The complex is fundamentally different from earlier Buddhist rock-carved sites in China in its construction and layout. Foregoing traditional niche-based iconography for large, deeply cut reliefs reaching dimensions as great as eight meters high by twenty meters wide, within Baodingshan's Great Buddha Bend, the carved works flow from one tableau into another. The site contains both texts and images related to the main schools of Buddhist thought. This book presents an integrated analysis of all of the components of Great Buddha Bend within the greater Baodingshan site, something that was lacking in earlier studies. Written to provide guidance to the site for a wide spectrum of readers-specialists and non-specialists alike-it provides a clear explanation of the major iconographic features of the imagery as well as translations of the numerous accompanying carved Buddhist texts. It also presents the basic tenets of Pure Land, Chan [Zen], Huayan and Esoteric Buddhism in order to explain the features of these sects as seen represented in visual as well as textual form at the site. Lastly, with its focus on ritual use and audience reception from the 12th to the 21st century, this study provides a new model for the discussion and evaluation of other religious sites as entities that organically evolve over time. This study also includes new translations of both the inscribed Buddhist texts and secular inscriptions carved at the site dating from the twelfth through the twenty-first centuries-inscriptions left by educated elite, soldiers, and government officials, highlighting regional issues related to continuity and change made visible at Baodingshan.

The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950

Holmes Welch
The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900 1950 Book PDF

Author : Holmes Welch
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 600 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1967
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 0674697006

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The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950 by Holmes Welch Pdf

Based partly on unpublished documents and oral information obtained from monks who headed major monasteries on mainland China, Holmes Welch presents a detailed description of the modern practice of Chinese Buddhism. Focusing on the actual rather than the theoretical observances of the religion, he gives an exhaustive account of the monastic system and the style of life of both monk and layman. His study makes new information available for the Western reader and calls into question the whole concept of the moribund state of Chinese Buddhism.

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism

Chan Master Sheng Yen
Orthodox Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Chan Master Sheng Yen
Publisher : North Atlantic Books
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2007-08-07
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1556436572

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Orthodox Chinese Buddhism by Chan Master Sheng Yen Pdf

As a well-known scholar and meditation master—His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama called him “extremely modest, a true spiritual practitioner of deep and broad learning”—Sheng Yen is uniquely qualified to guide Western seekers into the world of contemporary Chinese Buddhism. Written while the author was secluded in solitary retreat in southern Taiwan, Orthodox Chinese Buddhism provides a wealth of theory and simple, clear guidelines for practicing this increasingly popular form of spirituality. One of the most influential Buddhist books in the Chinese language, the book explores a wide range of subjects, from distinguishing core teachings from outdated cultural norms to bridging the gap between Western and Chinese traditions. In the process, it addresses such questions as “To what extent should Buddhism be Westernized to fit new cultural conditions?” and “Does Westernization necessarily lead to ‘a dumbing down’ of Buddhism?” In addition to the translation of the complete original text, this edition includes new annotations, appendixes, and a glossary designed for the Western reader.

Buddhism in Chinese Society

Jacques Gernet
Buddhism in Chinese Society Book PDF

Author : Jacques Gernet
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : 0231114117

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Buddhism in Chinese Society by Jacques Gernet Pdf

Translated and revised by respected scholar of Chinese religions Franciscus Verellen, who has worked closely with Gernet, this edition includes new references, an extensive, up-to-date bibliography, and a comprehensive index.

Chan Before Chan

Eric M. Greene
Chan Before Chan Book PDF

Author : Eric M. Greene
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-01-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824886875

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Chan Before Chan by Eric M. Greene Pdf

What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on—and what should be going on—behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha or Buddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to what ends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhists themselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes up these questions through a cultural history of the earliest traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to what would become typical in the later Chan School, early Chinese Buddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation primarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic but potentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan Before Chan, Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focus on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others’ visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed to them. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material culture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manuals translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China in the 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and the mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real place in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider traditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia, early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of “chan” as something that would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. The concrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation were understood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified master, as indicative of the mediator’s purity or impurity. Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a small number of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus in practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic worlds of divination and “repentance” (chanhui) that were so important within the medieval Chinese religious world as a whole.

Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism

Robert H. Sharf
Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : Robert H. Sharf
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2005-11-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824861940

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Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism by Robert H. Sharf Pdf

The issue of sinification—the manner and extent to which Buddhism and Chinese culture were transformed through their mutual encounter and dialogue—has dominated the study of Chinese Buddhism for much of the past century. Robert Sharf opens this important and far-reaching book by raising a host of historical and hermeneutical problems with the encounter paradigm and the master narrative on which it is based. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism is, among other things, an extended reflection on the theoretical foundations and conceptual categories that undergird the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Sharf draws his argument in part from a meticulous historical, philological, and philosophical analysis of the Treasure Store Treatise (Pao-tsang lun), an eighth-century Buddho-Taoist work apocryphally attributed to the fifth-century master Seng-chao (374–414). In the process of coming to terms with this recondite text, Sharf ventures into all manner of subjects bearing on our understanding of medieval Chinese Buddhism, from the evolution of T’ang "gentry Taoism" to the pivotal role of image veneration and the problematic status of Chinese Tantra. The volume includes a complete annotated translation of the Treasure Store Treatise, accompanied by the detailed exegesis of dozens of key terms and concepts.

Recovering Buddhism in Modern China

Jan Kiely,J. Brooks Jessup
Recovering Buddhism in Modern China Book PDF

Author : Jan Kiely,J. Brooks Jessup
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2016-03-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231541107

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Recovering Buddhism in Modern China by Jan Kiely,J. Brooks Jessup Pdf

Modern Chinese history told from a Buddhist perspective restores the vibrant, creative role of religion in postimperial China. It shows how urban Buddhist elites jockeyed for cultural dominance in the early Republican era, how Buddhist intellectuals reckoned with science, and how Buddhist media contributed to modern print cultures. It recognizes the political importance of sacred Buddhist relics and the complex processes through which Buddhists both participated in and experienced religious suppression under Communist rule. Today, urban and rural communities alike engage with Buddhist practices to renegotiate class, gender, and kinship relations in post-Mao China. This volume vividly portrays these events and more, recasting Buddhism as a critical factor in China's twentieth-century development. Each chapter connects a moment in Buddhist history to a significant theme in Chinese history, creating new narratives of Buddhism's involvement in the emergence of urban modernity, the practice of international diplomacy, the mobilization for total war, and other transformations of state, society, and culture. Working across an extraordinary thematic range, this book reincorporates Buddhism into the formative processes and distinctive character of Chinese history.

Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism

R. Alan Cole
Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism Book PDF

Author : R. Alan Cole
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1998-07
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9780804765107

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Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism by R. Alan Cole Pdf

Based on close readings of more than twenty Buddhist texts written in China from the 5th to the 13th century, this book demonstrates that Buddhist authors crafted new models for family reproduction based on a mother-son style of filial piety, in contrast to the traditional father-son model.--NAN NÜ