{"title":"Nenbutsu Orthodoxies in Medieval Japan","authors":"Aaron P. Proffitt","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.47.1.2020.135-160","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"New approaches to Buddhist doctrine and practice flourished within and across diverse lineages and sub-lineages in early medieval Japan. The early-modern and modern sectarianization of Japanese Buddhism, however, has tended to obscure the complex ways that the very idea of orthodoxy functioned in this fluid medieval environment. In this article, I explore attempts to account for the diversity of views regarding] nenbutsu orthodoxy in trea- tises composed by scholars monks affiliated with Mt. Kōya and Mt. Hiei. In particular, this article contextualizes how these monks constructed the idea of an esoteric nenbutsu by drawing upon earlier taxonomies developed in the Tendai school as well as the East Asian esoteric Buddhist corpus. Ultimately, this study concludes that the esoteric nenbutsu was not the provenance of a particular school or sect, but rather served as a polemical construct designed to subsume the diversity of approaches to nenbutsu praxis as monks in diverse lineages competed with one another to define esoteric Buddhism in the early medieval context.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.47.1.2020.135-160","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
New approaches to Buddhist doctrine and practice flourished within and across diverse lineages and sub-lineages in early medieval Japan. The early-modern and modern sectarianization of Japanese Buddhism, however, has tended to obscure the complex ways that the very idea of orthodoxy functioned in this fluid medieval environment. In this article, I explore attempts to account for the diversity of views regarding] nenbutsu orthodoxy in trea- tises composed by scholars monks affiliated with Mt. Kōya and Mt. Hiei. In particular, this article contextualizes how these monks constructed the idea of an esoteric nenbutsu by drawing upon earlier taxonomies developed in the Tendai school as well as the East Asian esoteric Buddhist corpus. Ultimately, this study concludes that the esoteric nenbutsu was not the provenance of a particular school or sect, but rather served as a polemical construct designed to subsume the diversity of approaches to nenbutsu praxis as monks in diverse lineages competed with one another to define esoteric Buddhism in the early medieval context.
期刊介绍:
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies is a peer-reviewed journal registered as an Open Access Journal with all content freely downloadable. The journal began in 1960 as Contemporary Religions in Japan, which was changed to the JJRS in 1974. It has been published by the Nanzan Institute since 1981. The JJRS aims for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion in Japan, and submissions are welcomed from scholars in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. To submit a manuscript or inquiry about publishing in our journal, please contact us at the address below.