From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan

From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan PDF Author: David Quinter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004294597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In From Outcasts to Emperors, David Quinter illuminates the Shingon Ritsu movement founded by the charismatic Buddhist monk Eison (1201–90) at Saidaiji in Nara, Japan, with a focus on Eison and his disciples’ involvement in the cult of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.

From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan

From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan PDF Author: David Quinter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004294597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In From Outcasts to Emperors, David Quinter illuminates the Shingon Ritsu movement founded by the charismatic Buddhist monk Eison (1201–90) at Saidaiji in Nara, Japan, with a focus on Eison and his disciples’ involvement in the cult of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean” PDF Author: Sujung Kim
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824881737
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
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.

2500 Years of Buddhism

2500 Years of Buddhism PDF Author: P.V. Bapat
Publisher: Publications Division Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
ISBN: 8123023049
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
About the life of Buddha

Nine-Headed Dragon River

Nine-Headed Dragon River PDF Author: Peter Matthiessen
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834828790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In August 1968, naturalist-explorer Peter Matthiessen returned from Africa to his home in Sagaponack, Long Island, to find three Zen masters in his driveway—guests of his wife, a new student of Zen. Thirteen years later, Matthiessen was ordained a Buddhist monk. Written in the same format as his best-selling The Snow Leopard, Nine-Headed Dragon River reveals Matthiessen's most daring adventure of all: the quest for his spiritual roots.

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean” PDF Author: Sujung Kim
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824877993
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
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.

Letting Go

Letting Go PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824824402
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Of the many eccentric figures in Japanese Zen, the Soto Zen master Tosui Unkei (d. 1683) is surely among the most colorful and extreme. Variously compared to Ryokan and Francis of Assisi, Tosui has been called "the original hippie." After many grueling years of Zen study and the sanction of a distinguished teacher, Tosui abandoned the religious establishment and became a drifter. The arresting details of Tosui's life were recorded in the Tribute (Tosui osho densan), a lively and colloquial account written by the celebrated scholar and Soto Zen master Menzan Zuiho. Menzan concentrates on Tosui's years as a beggar and laborer, recounting episodes from an unorthodox life while at the same time opening a new window on seventeenth-century Japan. The Tribute is translated here for the first time, accompanied by woodblock prints commissioned for the original 1768 edition. Peter Haskel's introduction places Tosui in the context of the Japanese Zen of his period--a time when the identities of early modern Zen schools were still being formed and a period of spiritual crisis for many distinguished monks who believed that the authentic Zen transmission had long ceased to exist. A biographical addendum offers a detailed overview of Tosui's life in light of surviving premodern sources.

Encyclopedia of Buddhism

Encyclopedia of Buddhism PDF Author: Edward A. Irons
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780816054596
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
Presents nearly seven hundred A-to-Z entries relating to Buddhism, including theological concepts, important figures, historical events, institutions, and movements; and includes entries on other religious practices such as Daoism and Confucianism.

Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan

Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan PDF Author: Lori R. Meeks
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824860640
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
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.

Zen and Material Culture

Zen and Material Culture PDF Author: Pamela D. Winfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190469293
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Expanding on previous studies of Zen art history, material/visual culture, and religious practice, Zen and Material Culture focuses on the vast range of ""stuff"" in Japanese Zen, including beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes and even popular retail commodities distributed in America.

A Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet

A Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet PDF Author: Gombozhab T Tsybikov
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004336354
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Tsybikov’s book has both the vividness of a traveller’s eyewitness account and the informed detachment of a scholar. It is a unique and invaluable snapshot of religious practices and the everyday life in Tibet before Chinese inroads during the twentieth century effaced that way of life.