A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism

A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism PDF Author: William E. Deal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111860833X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism offers a comprehensive, nuanced, and chronological account of the evolution of Buddhist religion in Japan from the sixth century to the present day. Traces each period of Japanese history to reveal the complex and often controversial histories of Japanese Buddhists and their unfolding narratives Examines relevant social, political, and transcultural contexts, and places an emphasis on Japanese Buddhist discourses and material culture Addresses the increasing competition between Buddhist, Shinto, and Neo-Confucian world-views through to the mid-nineteenth century Informed by the most recent research, including the latest Japanese and Western scholarship Illustrates the richness and complexity of Japanese Buddhism as a lived religion, offering readers a glimpse into the development of this complex and often misunderstood tradition

A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism

A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism PDF Author: William E. Deal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111860833X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism offers a comprehensive, nuanced, and chronological account of the evolution of Buddhist religion in Japan from the sixth century to the present day. Traces each period of Japanese history to reveal the complex and often controversial histories of Japanese Buddhists and their unfolding narratives Examines relevant social, political, and transcultural contexts, and places an emphasis on Japanese Buddhist discourses and material culture Addresses the increasing competition between Buddhist, Shinto, and Neo-Confucian world-views through to the mid-nineteenth century Informed by the most recent research, including the latest Japanese and Western scholarship Illustrates the richness and complexity of Japanese Buddhism as a lived religion, offering readers a glimpse into the development of this complex and often misunderstood tradition

Japanese Buddhism

Japanese Buddhism PDF Author: Yoshiro Tamura
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Get Book Here

Book Description
Buddhism was founded in India more than two thousand years ago, but the Japanese molded it to suit their culture, and it became one of the most enduring and far-reaching cultural and intellectual forces in Japan's history. The stamp of Japanese Buddhism is unmistakable in the nation's poetry, literature, and art; and the imprint of Japan's indigenous culture is clear from the amalgamation of pre-Buddhist worship and esoteric Buddhism in the practice of the Shugendo ascetics. Japan's Buddhism and the nation's cultural infrastructure are so inextricably linked that it is impossible to understand one without the other. Japanese Buddhism is both a history of Japanese Buddhism and an introduction to Japan's political, social, and cultural history. It examines Japanese Buddhism in the context of literary and intellectual trends and of other religions, exploring social and intellectual questions that an ordinary history of religion would not address.

A History of Japanese Buddhism

A History of Japanese Buddhism PDF Author: Kenji Matsuo
Publisher: Global Oriental
ISBN: 9004213317
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
This first major study in English on Japanese Buddhism by one of Japan’s most distinguished scholars in the field of Religious Studies is to be widely welcomed.The main focus of the work is on the tradition of the monk (o-bo-san) as the main agent of Buddhism, together with the historical processes by which monks have developed Japanese Buddhism as it appears in the present day.

Buddhist Materiality

Buddhist Materiality PDF Author: Fabio Rambelli
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
This innovative book shows that throughout its history, contrary to received assumptions, Buddhism developed a sophisticated philosophy of materiality--one that allowed human beings to give shape and expression to their deepest religious and spiritual ideas.

Culture as Power

Culture as Power PDF Author: Madhu Bhalla
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100032947X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents new studies on intellectual and cultural interactions in the context of Buddhist heritage and Indo-Japanese dialogue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on art, religion, and cultural politics. By revisiting Buddhist connections between India and Japan, it examines the pathways of communication on common aesthetic and religious heritage that emerged in the backdrop of colonial experiences and the rise of Asian nationalisms. The volume discusses themes such as Asian arts and crafts under colonialism, formation of East Asian art collections, development of Buddhist art history in Japan, Japanese encounters with Ajanta, India in the history of the Shinto tradition, Japan in India’s xenology, and Buddhism and world peace, and suggests paradigms of reconnecting cultural heritage within a global platform. With essays from experts across the world, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, art history, ancient Indian history, colonial history, heritage and cultural studies, South Asian and East Asian history, visual and media studies, Asian studies, international relations and foreign policy, and the history of globalization.

Buddhism and Modernity

Buddhism and Modernity PDF Author: Orion Klautau
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824884582
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
Japan was the first Asian nation to face the full impact of modernity. Like the rest of Japanese society, Buddhist institutions, individuals, and thought were drawn into the dynamics of confronting the modern age. Japanese Buddhism had to face multiple challenges, but it also contributed to modern Japanese society in numerous ways. Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan makes accessible the voices of Japanese Buddhists during the early phase of high modernity. The volume offers original translations of key texts—many available for the first time in English—by central actors in Japan’s transition to the modern era, including the works of Inoue Enryō, Gesshō, Hara Tanzan, Shimaji Mokurai, Kiyozawa Manshi, Murakami Senshō, Tanaka Chigaku, and Shaku Sōen. All of these writers are well recognized by Buddhist studies scholars and Japanese historians but have drawn little attention elsewhere; this stands in marked contrast to the reception of Japanese Buddhism since D. T. Suzuki, the towering figure of Japanese Zen in the first half of the twentieth century. The present book fills the chronological gap between the premodern era and the twentieth century by focusing on the crucial transition period of the nineteenth century. Issues central to the interaction of Japanese Buddhism with modernity inform the five major parts of the work: sectarian reform, the nation, science and philosophy, social reform, and Japan and Asia. Throughout the chapters, the globally entangled dimension—both in relation to the West, especially the direct and indirect impact of Christianity, and to Buddhist Asia—is of great importance. The Introduction emphasizes not only how Japanese Buddhism was part of a broader, globally shared reaction of religions to the specific challenges of modernity, but also goes into great detail in laying out the specifics of the Japanese case.

A History of Japanese Religion

A History of Japanese Religion PDF Author: 笠原一男
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 660

Get Book Here

Book Description
Seventeen distinguished experts on Japanese religion provide a fascinating overview of its history and development. Beginning with the origins of religion in primitive Japanese society, they chart the growth of each of Japan's major religious organizations and doctrinal systems. They follow Buddhism, Shintoism, Christianity, and popular religious belief through major periods of change to show how history and religion affected each-and discuss the interactions between the different religious traditions.

Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture

Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture PDF Author: Elisabetta Porcu
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047443055
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
Despite being one of the most influential forms of Japanese Buddhism, the Pure Land tradition, and notably its impact on the development of Japanese cultural history, has often been overlooked outside Japan. Taking into account recent scholarship on orientalism and occidentalism, this book, written from the perspective of the Study of Religions, provides an analysis of the impact that the Pure Land tradition, in particular Shin Buddhism, has exerted on mainstream forms of artistic expression (especially creative arts, literature and the tea ceremony) in modern and contemporary Japan.

The Face of Jizo

The Face of Jizo PDF Author: Hank Glassman
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824860373
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Farther on, I find other figures of Jizo, single reliefs, sculptured upon tombs. But one of these is a work of art so charming that I feel a pain at being obliged to pass it by. More sweet, assuredly, than any imaged Christ, this dream in white stone of the playfellow of dead children, like a beautiful young boy, with gracious eyelids half closed, and face made heavenly by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have imagined, the smile of infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness. Indeed, so charming the ideal of Jizo is that in the speech of the people a beautiful face is always likened to his—‘Jizo-kao,’ as the face of Jizo.” —Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan (1894) Stone images of the Buddhist deity Jizo—bedecked in a red cloth bib and presiding over offerings of flowers, coins, candles, and incense—are a familiar sight throughout Japan. Known in China as a savior from hell’s torment, Jizo in Japan came to be utterly transformed through fusion with the local tradition of kami worship and ancient fertility cults. In particular, the Jizo cult became associated with gods of borders or transitions: the stone gods known as dosojin. Although the study of Jizo is often relegated to the folkloric, Hank Glassman, in this highly original and readable book, demonstrates that the bodhisattva’s cult was promoted and embraced at the most elite levels of society. The Face of Jizo explores the stories behind sculptural and painted images of Jizo to reveal a fascinating cultural history. Employing the methodologies of the early twentieth-century renegade art historian Aby Warburg, Glassman’s focus on the visual culture of medieval Japanese religion is not concerned with the surface form or iconographical lineages of Jizo’s images, but with the social, ritual, and narrative contexts that bring the icons to life. He skillfully weaves together many elements of the Jizo cult—doctrine, ritual, cosmology, iconography—to animate the images he examines. Thus The Face of Jizo is truly a work of iconology in the Warburgian sense. Glassman’s choice to examine the cult of Jizo through the medium of the icon makes for a most engaging and approachable history of this “most Japanese” of Buddhist deities.

Explaining Pictures

Explaining Pictures PDF Author: Ikumi Kaminishi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824826970
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning with the claim that the popularization of Buddhism in the medieval period was a phenomenon of visual culture, Explaining Pictures reexamines the history (and historiography) of medieval Japanese Buddhism. With theoretical sophistication and a full appreciation of the power of imagery to convey and control religious meaning, it investigates a range of aspects of etoki, including the particularly active role of itinerant nuns, whose performances were especially edifying to female audiences, as well as the visual hagiography of the reputed founder of Japanese Buddhism, the pictorial projections of Buddhist paradise and hell, and the explanation, through visual imagery, of sacred mountains. Explaining Pictures is the first book-length study in English devoted to the phenomenon of Buddhist art as religious propaganda and pictorial storytelling as a form of popular culture in medieval Japan. A truly interdisciplinary study, it suggests fruitful avenues of discussion between art historians and historians of Japanese Buddhism. Scholars and students with an interest in Japanese Buddhism, art, and social and cultural history will find its examination of significant issues fresh and stimulating. It will also find an appreciative audience among those concerned with the relationship between art and religion, the mechanics of proselytization, and Asian visual culture.