Author: Yui Suzuki
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004196013
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Through analysis of sculptural representations of the Medicine Buddha (J: Yakushi Nyorai), this book offers a fresh perspective on the seminal role played by Saich? and the Tendai school in disseminating this devotional cult throughout Japan during the Heian period.
Medicine Master Buddha: The Iconic Worship of Yakushi in Heian Japan
Author: Yui Suzuki
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004196013
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Through analysis of sculptural representations of the Medicine Buddha (J: Yakushi Nyorai), this book offers a fresh perspective on the seminal role played by Saich? and the Tendai school in disseminating this devotional cult throughout Japan during the Heian period.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004196013
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Through analysis of sculptural representations of the Medicine Buddha (J: Yakushi Nyorai), this book offers a fresh perspective on the seminal role played by Saich? and the Tendai school in disseminating this devotional cult throughout Japan during the Heian period.
Buddhism and Medicine
Author: C. Pierce Salguero
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154426X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 541
Book Description
From its earliest days, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with medicine. Buddhism and Medicine is a singular collection showcasing the generative relationship and mutual influence between these fields across premodern Asia. The anthology combines dozens of English-language translations of premodern Buddhist texts with contextualizing introductions by leading international scholars in Buddhist studies, the history of medicine, and a range of other fields. These sources explore in detail medical topics ranging from the development of fetal anatomy in the womb to nursing, hospice, dietary regimen, magical powers, visualization, and other healing knowledge. Works translated here include meditation guides, popular narratives, ritual manuals, spells texts, monastic disciplinary codes, recipe inscriptions, philosophical treatises, poetry, works by physicians, and other genres. All together, these selections and their introductions provide a comprehensive overview of Buddhist healing throughout Asia. They also demonstrate the central place of healing in Buddhist practice and in the daily life of the premodern world. This anthology is a companion volume to Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (Columbia, 2019).
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154426X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 541
Book Description
From its earliest days, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with medicine. Buddhism and Medicine is a singular collection showcasing the generative relationship and mutual influence between these fields across premodern Asia. The anthology combines dozens of English-language translations of premodern Buddhist texts with contextualizing introductions by leading international scholars in Buddhist studies, the history of medicine, and a range of other fields. These sources explore in detail medical topics ranging from the development of fetal anatomy in the womb to nursing, hospice, dietary regimen, magical powers, visualization, and other healing knowledge. Works translated here include meditation guides, popular narratives, ritual manuals, spells texts, monastic disciplinary codes, recipe inscriptions, philosophical treatises, poetry, works by physicians, and other genres. All together, these selections and their introductions provide a comprehensive overview of Buddhist healing throughout Asia. They also demonstrate the central place of healing in Buddhist practice and in the daily life of the premodern world. This anthology is a companion volume to Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (Columbia, 2019).
Buddhism and Medicine in Japan
Author: Katja Triplett
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311057621X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
This book demonstrates the close link between medicine and Buddhism in early and medieval Japan. It may seem difficult to think of Japanese Buddhism as being linked to the realm of medical practices since religious healing is usually thought to be restricted to prayers for divine intervention. There is a surprising lack of scholarship regarding medicinal practices in Japanese Buddhism although an overwhelming amount of primary sources proves otherwise. A careful re-reading of well-known materials from a study-of-religions perspective, together with in some cases a first-time exploration of manuscripts and prints, opens new views on an understudied field. The book presents a topical survey and comprises chapters on treating sight-related diseases, women’s health, plant-based materica medica and medicinal gardens, and finally horse medicine to include veterinary knowledge. Terminological problems faced in working on this material – such as ‘religious’ or ‘magical healing’ as opposed to ‘secular medicine’ – are assessed. The book suggests focusing more on the plural nature of the Japanese healing system as encountered in the primary sources and reconsidering the use of categories from the European intellectual tradition.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311057621X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
This book demonstrates the close link between medicine and Buddhism in early and medieval Japan. It may seem difficult to think of Japanese Buddhism as being linked to the realm of medical practices since religious healing is usually thought to be restricted to prayers for divine intervention. There is a surprising lack of scholarship regarding medicinal practices in Japanese Buddhism although an overwhelming amount of primary sources proves otherwise. A careful re-reading of well-known materials from a study-of-religions perspective, together with in some cases a first-time exploration of manuscripts and prints, opens new views on an understudied field. The book presents a topical survey and comprises chapters on treating sight-related diseases, women’s health, plant-based materica medica and medicinal gardens, and finally horse medicine to include veterinary knowledge. Terminological problems faced in working on this material – such as ‘religious’ or ‘magical healing’ as opposed to ‘secular medicine’ – are assessed. The book suggests focusing more on the plural nature of the Japanese healing system as encountered in the primary sources and reconsidering the use of categories from the European intellectual tradition.
A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine
Author: C. Pierce Salguero
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546076
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 406
Book Description
Medicine, health, and healing have been central to Buddhism since its origins. Long before the global popularity of mindfulness and meditation, Buddhism provided cultures around the world with conceptual tools to understand illness as well as a range of therapies and interventions for care of the sick. Today, Buddhist traditions, healers, and institutions continue to exert a tangible influence on medical care in societies both inside and outside Asia, including in the areas of mental health, biomedicine, and even in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the global history of the relationship between Buddhism and medicine remains largely untold. This book is a wide-ranging and accessible account of the interplay between Buddhism and medicine over the past two and a half millennia. C. Pierce Salguero traces the intertwining threads linking ideas, practices, and texts from many different times and places. He shows that Buddhism has played a crucial role in cross-cultural medical exchange globally and that Buddhist knowledge formed the nucleus for many types of traditional practices that still thrive today throughout Asia. Although Buddhist medicine has always been embedded in local contexts and differs markedly across cultures, Salguero identifies key patterns that have persisted throughout this long history. This book will be informative and invaluable for scholars, students, and practitioners of both Buddhism and complementary and alternative medicine.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546076
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 406
Book Description
Medicine, health, and healing have been central to Buddhism since its origins. Long before the global popularity of mindfulness and meditation, Buddhism provided cultures around the world with conceptual tools to understand illness as well as a range of therapies and interventions for care of the sick. Today, Buddhist traditions, healers, and institutions continue to exert a tangible influence on medical care in societies both inside and outside Asia, including in the areas of mental health, biomedicine, and even in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the global history of the relationship between Buddhism and medicine remains largely untold. This book is a wide-ranging and accessible account of the interplay between Buddhism and medicine over the past two and a half millennia. C. Pierce Salguero traces the intertwining threads linking ideas, practices, and texts from many different times and places. He shows that Buddhism has played a crucial role in cross-cultural medical exchange globally and that Buddhist knowledge formed the nucleus for many types of traditional practices that still thrive today throughout Asia. Although Buddhist medicine has always been embedded in local contexts and differs markedly across cultures, Salguero identifies key patterns that have persisted throughout this long history. This book will be informative and invaluable for scholars, students, and practitioners of both Buddhism and complementary and alternative medicine.
Buddhist Healing in Medieval China and Japan
Author: C. Pierce Salguero
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824881214
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
From its inception in northeastern India in the first millennium BCE, the Buddhist tradition has advocated a range of ideas and practices that were said to ensure health and well-being. As the religion developed and spread to other parts of Asia, healing deities were added to its pantheon, monastic institutions became centers of medical learning, and healer-monks gained renown for their mastery of ritual and medicinal therapeutics. In China, imported Buddhist knowledge contended with a sophisticated, state-supported system of medicine that was able to retain its influence among the elite. Further afield in Japan, where Chinese Buddhism and Chinese medicine were introduced simultaneously as part of the country’s adoption of civilization from the “Middle Kingdom,” the two were reconciled by individuals who deemed them compatible. In East Asia, Buddhist healing would remain a site of intercultural tension and negotiation. While participating in transregional networks of circulation and exchange, Buddhist clerics practiced locally specific blends of Indian and indigenous therapies and occupied locally defined social positions as religious and medical specialists. In this diverse and compelling collection, an international group of scholars analyzes the historical connections between Buddhism and healing in medieval China and Japan. Contributors focus on the transnationally conveyed aspects of Buddhist healing traditions as they moved across geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Simultaneously, the chapters also investigate the local instantiations of these ideas and practices as they were reinvented, altered, and re-embedded in specific social and institutional contexts. Investigating the interplay between the macro and micro, the global and the local, this book demonstrates the richness of Buddhist healing as a way to explore the history of cross-cultural exchange.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824881214
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
From its inception in northeastern India in the first millennium BCE, the Buddhist tradition has advocated a range of ideas and practices that were said to ensure health and well-being. As the religion developed and spread to other parts of Asia, healing deities were added to its pantheon, monastic institutions became centers of medical learning, and healer-monks gained renown for their mastery of ritual and medicinal therapeutics. In China, imported Buddhist knowledge contended with a sophisticated, state-supported system of medicine that was able to retain its influence among the elite. Further afield in Japan, where Chinese Buddhism and Chinese medicine were introduced simultaneously as part of the country’s adoption of civilization from the “Middle Kingdom,” the two were reconciled by individuals who deemed them compatible. In East Asia, Buddhist healing would remain a site of intercultural tension and negotiation. While participating in transregional networks of circulation and exchange, Buddhist clerics practiced locally specific blends of Indian and indigenous therapies and occupied locally defined social positions as religious and medical specialists. In this diverse and compelling collection, an international group of scholars analyzes the historical connections between Buddhism and healing in medieval China and Japan. Contributors focus on the transnationally conveyed aspects of Buddhist healing traditions as they moved across geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Simultaneously, the chapters also investigate the local instantiations of these ideas and practices as they were reinvented, altered, and re-embedded in specific social and institutional contexts. Investigating the interplay between the macro and micro, the global and the local, this book demonstrates the richness of Buddhist healing as a way to explore the history of cross-cultural exchange.
Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan
Author: Sherry D. Fowler
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824856228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
Buddhists around the world celebrate the benefits of worshipping Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), a compassionate savior who is one of the most beloved in the Buddhist pantheon. When Kannon appears in multiple manifestations, the deity’s powers are believed to increase to even greater heights. This concept generated several cults throughout history: among the most significant is the cult of the Six Kannon, which began in Japan in the tenth century and remained prominent through the sixteenth century. In this ambitious work, Sherry Fowler examines the development of the Japanese Six Kannon cult, its sculptures and paintings, and its transition to the Thirty-three Kannon cult, which remains active to this day. An exemplar of Six Kannon imagery is the complete set of life-size wooden sculptures made in 1224 and housed at the Kyoto temple Daihōonji. This set, along with others, is analyzed to demonstrate how Six Kannon worship impacted Buddhist practice. Employing a diachronic approach, Fowler presents case studies beginning in the eleventh century to reinstate a context for sets of Six Kannon, the majority of which have been lost or scattered, and thus illuminates the vibrancy, magnitude, and distribution of the cult and enhances our knowledge of religious image-making in Japan. Kannon’s role in assisting beings trapped in the six paths of transmigration is a well-documented catalyst for the selection of the number six, but there are other significant themes at work. Six Kannon worship includes significant foci on worldly concerns such as childbirth and animal husbandry, ties between text and image, and numerous correlations with Shinto kami groups of six. While making groups of Kannon visible, Fowler explores the fluidity of numerical deity categorizations and the attempts to quantify the invisible. Moreover, her investigation reveals Kyushu as an especially active site in the history of the Six Kannon cult. Much as Kannon images once functioned to attract worshippers, their presentation in this book will entice contemporary readers to revisit their assumptions about East Asia’s most popular Buddhist deity.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824856228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
Buddhists around the world celebrate the benefits of worshipping Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), a compassionate savior who is one of the most beloved in the Buddhist pantheon. When Kannon appears in multiple manifestations, the deity’s powers are believed to increase to even greater heights. This concept generated several cults throughout history: among the most significant is the cult of the Six Kannon, which began in Japan in the tenth century and remained prominent through the sixteenth century. In this ambitious work, Sherry Fowler examines the development of the Japanese Six Kannon cult, its sculptures and paintings, and its transition to the Thirty-three Kannon cult, which remains active to this day. An exemplar of Six Kannon imagery is the complete set of life-size wooden sculptures made in 1224 and housed at the Kyoto temple Daihōonji. This set, along with others, is analyzed to demonstrate how Six Kannon worship impacted Buddhist practice. Employing a diachronic approach, Fowler presents case studies beginning in the eleventh century to reinstate a context for sets of Six Kannon, the majority of which have been lost or scattered, and thus illuminates the vibrancy, magnitude, and distribution of the cult and enhances our knowledge of religious image-making in Japan. Kannon’s role in assisting beings trapped in the six paths of transmigration is a well-documented catalyst for the selection of the number six, but there are other significant themes at work. Six Kannon worship includes significant foci on worldly concerns such as childbirth and animal husbandry, ties between text and image, and numerous correlations with Shinto kami groups of six. While making groups of Kannon visible, Fowler explores the fluidity of numerical deity categorizations and the attempts to quantify the invisible. Moreover, her investigation reveals Kyushu as an especially active site in the history of the Six Kannon cult. Much as Kannon images once functioned to attract worshippers, their presentation in this book will entice contemporary readers to revisit their assumptions about East Asia’s most popular Buddhist deity.
Blind in Early Modern Japan
Author: Wei Yu Wayne Tan
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472220438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) could thrive because of disability. The blind of the era were prominent across a wide range of professions, and through a strong guild structure were able to exert contractual monopolies over certain trades. Blind in Early Modern Japan illustrates the breadth and depth of those occupations, the power and respect that accrued to the guild members, and the lasting legacy of the Tokugawa guilds into the current moment. The book illustrates why disability must be assessed within a particular society’s social, political, and medical context, and also the importance of bringing medical history into conversation with cultural history. A Euro-American-centric disability studies perspective that focuses on disability and oppression, the author contends, risks overlooking the unique situation in a non-Western society like Japan in which disability was constructed to enhance blind people’s power. He explores what it meant to be blind in Japan at that time, and what it says about current frameworks for understanding disability.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472220438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) could thrive because of disability. The blind of the era were prominent across a wide range of professions, and through a strong guild structure were able to exert contractual monopolies over certain trades. Blind in Early Modern Japan illustrates the breadth and depth of those occupations, the power and respect that accrued to the guild members, and the lasting legacy of the Tokugawa guilds into the current moment. The book illustrates why disability must be assessed within a particular society’s social, political, and medical context, and also the importance of bringing medical history into conversation with cultural history. A Euro-American-centric disability studies perspective that focuses on disability and oppression, the author contends, risks overlooking the unique situation in a non-Western society like Japan in which disability was constructed to enhance blind people’s power. He explores what it meant to be blind in Japan at that time, and what it says about current frameworks for understanding disability.
Sensational Religion
Author: Sally Promey
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190360
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 793
Book Description
The result of a collaborative, multiyear project, this groundbreaking book explores the interpretive worlds that inform religious practice and derive from sensory phenomena. Under the rubric of "making sense," the studies assembled here ask, How have people used and valued sensory data? How have they shaped their material and immaterial worlds to encourage or discourage certain kinds or patterns of sensory experience? How have they framed the sensual capacities of images and objects to license a range of behaviors, including iconoclasm, censorship, and accusations of blasphemy or sacrilege? Exposing the dematerialization of religion embedded in secularization theory, editor Sally Promey proposes a fundamental reorientation in understanding the personal, social, political, and cultural work accomplished in religion’s sensory and material practice. Sensational Religion refocuses scholarly attention on the robust material entanglements often discounted by modernity’s metaphysic and on their inextricable connections to human bodies, behaviors, affects, and beliefs.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190360
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 793
Book Description
The result of a collaborative, multiyear project, this groundbreaking book explores the interpretive worlds that inform religious practice and derive from sensory phenomena. Under the rubric of "making sense," the studies assembled here ask, How have people used and valued sensory data? How have they shaped their material and immaterial worlds to encourage or discourage certain kinds or patterns of sensory experience? How have they framed the sensual capacities of images and objects to license a range of behaviors, including iconoclasm, censorship, and accusations of blasphemy or sacrilege? Exposing the dematerialization of religion embedded in secularization theory, editor Sally Promey proposes a fundamental reorientation in understanding the personal, social, political, and cultural work accomplished in religion’s sensory and material practice. Sensational Religion refocuses scholarly attention on the robust material entanglements often discounted by modernity’s metaphysic and on their inextricable connections to human bodies, behaviors, affects, and beliefs.
The Fluid Pantheon
Author: Bernard Faure
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082485702X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, The Fluid Pantheon is the first installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. The approach considers the gods (including buddhas and demons) as meaningful and powerful interlocutors and not merely as cyphers for social groups or projections of the human mind. Throughout he engages insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-network theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō). Through a number of case studies, Faure describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. He displays vast knowledge of his subject and presents his research—much of it in largely unstudied material—with theoretical sophistication. His arguments and analyses assume the centrality of the iconographic record, and so he has brought together in this volume a rich and rare collection of more than 180 color and black-and-white images. This emphasis on iconography and the ways in which it complements, supplements, or deconstructs textual orthodoxy is critical to a fuller comprehension of a set of medieval Japanese beliefs and practices. It also offers a corrective to the traditional division of the field into religious studies, which typically ignores the images, and art history, which oftentimes overlooks their ritual and religious meaning. The Fluid Pantheon and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082485702X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, The Fluid Pantheon is the first installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. The approach considers the gods (including buddhas and demons) as meaningful and powerful interlocutors and not merely as cyphers for social groups or projections of the human mind. Throughout he engages insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-network theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō). Through a number of case studies, Faure describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. He displays vast knowledge of his subject and presents his research—much of it in largely unstudied material—with theoretical sophistication. His arguments and analyses assume the centrality of the iconographic record, and so he has brought together in this volume a rich and rare collection of more than 180 color and black-and-white images. This emphasis on iconography and the ways in which it complements, supplements, or deconstructs textual orthodoxy is critical to a fuller comprehension of a set of medieval Japanese beliefs and practices. It also offers a corrective to the traditional division of the field into religious studies, which typically ignores the images, and art history, which oftentimes overlooks their ritual and religious meaning. The Fluid Pantheon and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.
Picture Ecology
Author: Alan C. Braddock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236011
Category : ART
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Seeking a broad reexamination of visual culture through the lenses of ecocriticism, environmental justice, and animal studies, this compendium offers a diverse range of art-historical criticism formulated within an ecological context. Picture Ecology brings together scholars whose contributions extend chronologically and geographically from 11th-century Chinese painting to contemporary photography of California wildfires. The book's 17 interdisciplinary essays provide a dynamic, cross-cultural approach to an increasingly vital area of study, emphasizing the environmental dimensions inherent in the content and materials of aesthetic objects. Picture Ecology provides valuable new approaches for considering works of art, in ways that are timely, intellectually stimulating, and universally significant.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236011
Category : ART
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Seeking a broad reexamination of visual culture through the lenses of ecocriticism, environmental justice, and animal studies, this compendium offers a diverse range of art-historical criticism formulated within an ecological context. Picture Ecology brings together scholars whose contributions extend chronologically and geographically from 11th-century Chinese painting to contemporary photography of California wildfires. The book's 17 interdisciplinary essays provide a dynamic, cross-cultural approach to an increasingly vital area of study, emphasizing the environmental dimensions inherent in the content and materials of aesthetic objects. Picture Ecology provides valuable new approaches for considering works of art, in ways that are timely, intellectually stimulating, and universally significant.