Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism PDF Author: Karil J. Kucera
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621967131
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
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.

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism PDF Author: Karil J. Kucera
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621967131
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism

Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism PDF Author: Karil J. Kucera
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781624999147
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Ritual and Representation in Buddhist Art

Ritual and Representation in Buddhist Art PDF Author: Jindal Bae
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783897396418
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This publication investigates the ritual and cultural contexts in which art and representations of Buddhist thought were used in East and Central Asia. The book contains nine essays by specialists in the field. The contributions range from the Buddhist cult of relics in ancient China and material evidences for Buddhist rituals of confession and repentance in North Chinese cave temples of the 6th and early 7th centuries to aspects of cultural exchange, regional innovation, and traditions of imperial workmanship as means of dynastic power. The development of popular iconographies based on Avatamsaka doctrine in Tang China and the Korean kingdom of unified Silla is discussed.

The Body Incantatory

The Body Incantatory PDF Author: Paul Copp
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537786
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Whether chanted as devotional prayers, intoned against the dangers of the wilds, or invoked to heal the sick and bring ease to the dead, incantations were pervasive features of Buddhist practice in late medieval China (600–1000 C.E.). Material incantations, in forms such as spell-inscribed amulets and stone pillars, were also central to the spiritual lives of both monks and laypeople. In centering its analysis on the Chinese material culture of these deeply embodied forms of Buddhist ritual, The Body Incantatory reveals histories of practice—and logics of practice—that have until now remained hidden. Paul Copp examines inscribed stones, urns, and other objects unearthed from anonymous tombs; spells carved into pillars near mountain temples; and manuscripts and prints from both tombs and the Dunhuang cache. Focusing on two major Buddhist spells, or dhāraṇī, and their embodiment of the incantatory logics of adornment and unction, he makes breakthrough claims about the significance of Buddhist incantation practice not only in medieval China but also in Central Asia and India. Copp's work vividly captures the diversity of Buddhist practice among medieval monks, ritual healers, and other individuals lost to history, offering a corrective to accounts that have overemphasized elite, canonical materials.

Buddhist Thought and Ritual

Buddhist Thought and Ritual PDF Author: David J. Kalupahana
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120817739
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Buddhist Thought and Ritual will appeal to anyone interested in acquiring an authentic grasp of Buddhism as it lives and functions in today`s world. The wide spectrum of Buddhist practice is represented here by the men and women who contributed to this volume. The focus on thought and ritual captures the organic interrelationship of these religious components and moves away from the compartmentalization characteristic of much religious scholarship. The reader discovers the central tenets of Buddhism, Anatta, Pratityasamutpada, Sunyatta, Nirvana, and others, not as free-floating curiosities, but in terms of their contemporary relevance and active participation in the formation of society and culture. Likewise, commonly practiced rituals such as the Paritta Ceremony and Mantra Recitation are analyzed in terms of their role in living Buddhism.

Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religions, 1500-1700

Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religions, 1500-1700 PDF Author: Jimmy Yu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844895
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In this illuminating study of a vital but long overlooked aspect of Chinese religious life, Jimmy Yu reveals that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, self-inflicted violence was an essential and sanctioned part of Chinese culture. He examines a wide range of practices, including blood writing, filial body-slicing, chastity mutilations and suicides, ritual exposure, and self-immolation, arguing that each practice was public, scripted, and a signal of cultural expectations. Individuals engaged in acts of self-inflicted violence to exercise power and to affect society, by articulating moral values, reinstituting order, forging new social relations, and protecting against the threat of moral ambiguity. Self-inflicted violence was intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of the various religions of the period: Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and other religions. This book is a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on bodily practices in late imperial China, challenging preconceived ideas about analytic categories of religion, culture, and ritual in the study of Chinese religions.

Chinese Esoteric Buddhism

Chinese Esoteric Buddhism PDF Author: Geoffrey C. Goble
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550642
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
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.

Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia PDF Author: Charles Orzech
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004184910
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1223

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Book Description
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.

Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation

Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation PDF Author: David B. Gray
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199763690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
This volume explores the movement of tantric Buddhist traditions through time and space, from the early history of tantric Buddhism to the present day. These studies investigate the development of tantric Buddhist traditions in India, their dissemination into Central and East Asia, and exchanges between tantric Buddhist and rival religious traditions. From the hyper-masculine Buddha to the ritualized bodies of the siddhas, the first chapter traces shifts in Indian Buddhist ideal masculinities. The second chapter explores the intersection of Buddhism and Śaivism in early medieval India through the evolving figure of the yoginī. Another chapter explores how tenth- and eleventh-century scholars and translators in Tibet "purified" a Buddhist deity that showed signs of Śaiva Hindu origins. Two chapters use often-overlooked Tibetan and Chinese materials to explore the influence of incantations and ritual manuals on the formation of early tantric Buddhist literature. The volume's longest chapter is a detailed history of Vajrayāna Buddhism in Nepal. The work concludes with two studies of hybridity and transformation in East Asia: one on the Homa of the Northern Dipper, a fire ritual which passed from India to China to Japan, adapting to Daoist, Buddhist, and Shintō contexts; and another on the True Buddha School, a contemporary Chinese transformation of Vajrayāna Buddhism.

Buddhist Rituals of Obeisance and the Contestation of the Monk's Body in Medieval China

Buddhist Rituals of Obeisance and the Contestation of the Monk's Body in Medieval China PDF Author: Eric Robert Reinders
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description