Pub Date : 2019-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1686874
B. T. ter Haar
ABSTRACT The Way of the Nine Palaces (jiugong dao 九宮道) was founded in the late nineteenth century by a monk on Mount Wutai. Largely unknown in Western scholarship, it is studied in Chinese scholarship in the context of secret societies. In earlier research I have argued that research on new religious movements in China suffers from negative labelling, which skews our perspective on new developments at the level of lay religious activities. Since this particular movement has been relatively well-studied in Chinese language scholarship, I will use this case to show what insights we can get when we relinquish traditional labels and look at a specific local group or movement in a more empathetic way. In this case we will see that the Way of the Nine Palaces was very much an ordinary lay Buddhist movement in the eyes of northern Chinese believers of the time. Moreover, it is from this regular lay Buddhist perspective that its followers provided crucial financial support to the rebuilding of Mount Wutai in the early twentieth century. Without their support the mountain’s monasteries would not have survived into the present in their relatively well-kept form.
{"title":"The way of the Nine Palaces (jiugong dao 九宮道): a lay Buddhist movement","authors":"B. T. ter Haar","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1686874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686874","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Way of the Nine Palaces (jiugong dao 九宮道) was founded in the late nineteenth century by a monk on Mount Wutai. Largely unknown in Western scholarship, it is studied in Chinese scholarship in the context of secret societies. In earlier research I have argued that research on new religious movements in China suffers from negative labelling, which skews our perspective on new developments at the level of lay religious activities. Since this particular movement has been relatively well-studied in Chinese language scholarship, I will use this case to show what insights we can get when we relinquish traditional labels and look at a specific local group or movement in a more empathetic way. In this case we will see that the Way of the Nine Palaces was very much an ordinary lay Buddhist movement in the eyes of northern Chinese believers of the time. Moreover, it is from this regular lay Buddhist perspective that its followers provided crucial financial support to the rebuilding of Mount Wutai in the early twentieth century. Without their support the mountain’s monasteries would not have survived into the present in their relatively well-kept form.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"415 - 432"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686874","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46622857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1686871
Imre Hamar
ABSTRACT The so-called new representation of Mañjuśrī that is found in Dunhuang and became quite popular in Wutaishan region and East Asian Buddhism includes a foreign looking person who became identified as the Khotanese king. This representation shows the close association of Khotan with Mañjuśrī and the Cult of Mañjuśrī on Wutaishan. The possible Khotanese compilation of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, which is the main proof text for Mañjuśrī’s presence on Wutaishan and the Khotanese pilgrims to Wutaishan recorded by Dunhuang manuscripts also seem to substantiate the claim that Khotan was very important in terms of Mañjuśrī cult, and could have an important role in identifying Wutaishan as the abode of Mañjuśrī. In this article I will show these and other proofs in Khotanese literature for the importance of Mañjuśrī in Khotanese Buddhism.
{"title":"The Mañjuśrī cult in Khotan","authors":"Imre Hamar","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1686871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686871","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The so-called new representation of Mañjuśrī that is found in Dunhuang and became quite popular in Wutaishan region and East Asian Buddhism includes a foreign looking person who became identified as the Khotanese king. This representation shows the close association of Khotan with Mañjuśrī and the Cult of Mañjuśrī on Wutaishan. The possible Khotanese compilation of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, which is the main proof text for Mañjuśrī’s presence on Wutaishan and the Khotanese pilgrims to Wutaishan recorded by Dunhuang manuscripts also seem to substantiate the claim that Khotan was very important in terms of Mañjuśrī cult, and could have an important role in identifying Wutaishan as the abode of Mañjuśrī. In this article I will show these and other proofs in Khotanese literature for the importance of Mañjuśrī in Khotanese Buddhism.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"343 - 352"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686871","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42719070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1686872
G. Keyworth
ABSTRACT Despite the legendary role ascribed to Shaolin monastery 少林寺 it is probably not an exaggeration to say that it has been considered sacrosanct within Chinese Chan Buddhist discourse [since at least] the mid-8th century that legitimacy comes from the south, and not the north. Since the tenth century, the rhetoric of the so-called ‘five schools’ has perpetuated peculiarly southern lineages; in practice, both the Linji and Caodong lineages (in China and beyond) propagate stories of celebrated patriarchs against a distinctively southern Chinese backdrop. What are we to make of Chan monasteries or cloisters in Ningbo, Fuzhou Jiangning, and of course, Hongzhou, apparently named to reflect the enduring significance of Mount Wutai 五臺山, a notably northern sacred site? In the first part of this article I outline the less than marginal – or peripheral – role Mount Wutai appears to have played in ‘core’ Chinese Chan Buddhist sources. Then I proceed to explain how four Qingliang monasteries 清涼寺 in southern China attest to the preservation and dissemination of a lineage of masters who supported what looks like a ‘Qingliang cult,’ with a set of distinctive teachings and practices that appears to collapse several longstanding assumptions about what separates Chan from the Teachings in Chinese Buddhism.
{"title":"How the Mount Wutai cult stimulated the development of Chinese Chan in southern China at Qingliang monasteries","authors":"G. Keyworth","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1686872","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686872","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite the legendary role ascribed to Shaolin monastery 少林寺 it is probably not an exaggeration to say that it has been considered sacrosanct within Chinese Chan Buddhist discourse [since at least] the mid-8th century that legitimacy comes from the south, and not the north. Since the tenth century, the rhetoric of the so-called ‘five schools’ has perpetuated peculiarly southern lineages; in practice, both the Linji and Caodong lineages (in China and beyond) propagate stories of celebrated patriarchs against a distinctively southern Chinese backdrop. What are we to make of Chan monasteries or cloisters in Ningbo, Fuzhou Jiangning, and of course, Hongzhou, apparently named to reflect the enduring significance of Mount Wutai 五臺山, a notably northern sacred site? In the first part of this article I outline the less than marginal – or peripheral – role Mount Wutai appears to have played in ‘core’ Chinese Chan Buddhist sources. Then I proceed to explain how four Qingliang monasteries 清涼寺 in southern China attest to the preservation and dissemination of a lineage of masters who supported what looks like a ‘Qingliang cult,’ with a set of distinctive teachings and practices that appears to collapse several longstanding assumptions about what separates Chan from the Teachings in Chinese Buddhism.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"353 - 376"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1686872","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45400822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1676076
Isabelle Charleux
ABSTRACT In the Qing and early Republican period, Wutaishan had between 25 and 30 monasteries affiliated to Tibetan Buddhism. Their monastic architecture seemed to exclusively follow the Chinese-Buddhist style, except for the Tibetan-style bottle-shaped stupa. The Wutaishan built landscape seemed relatively homogeneous, and travellers were sometimes confused about the blurred visual frontier between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries.Were there buildings (other than stupas) typical of Tibetan monasteries that have not been preserved on Wutaishan? Why did the Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist communities settled in Chinese style monastic buildings? Was there local or imperial pressure to ‘keep things Chinese,’ or was it in their interest to entertain a visual confusion between the two traditions of Buddhism? And how did Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monks, whose lifestyles and spatial practices of Buddhist architecture differ from Chinese Buddhist monks’s, adapt themselves to Chinese spatial arrangements?This article will highlight mutual borrowings between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries on Wutaishan. Using various sources such as ancient picture-maps, old photographs, floor plans and travellers’ accounts, I will highlight interactions between Chinese and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries from the point of view of architecture, iconography and material culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
{"title":"Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist architecture and iconography on Wutaishan, seventeenth to early twentieth centuries","authors":"Isabelle Charleux","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1676076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1676076","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the Qing and early Republican period, Wutaishan had between 25 and 30 monasteries affiliated to Tibetan Buddhism. Their monastic architecture seemed to exclusively follow the Chinese-Buddhist style, except for the Tibetan-style bottle-shaped stupa. The Wutaishan built landscape seemed relatively homogeneous, and travellers were sometimes confused about the blurred visual frontier between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries.Were there buildings (other than stupas) typical of Tibetan monasteries that have not been preserved on Wutaishan? Why did the Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist communities settled in Chinese style monastic buildings? Was there local or imperial pressure to ‘keep things Chinese,’ or was it in their interest to entertain a visual confusion between the two traditions of Buddhism? And how did Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monks, whose lifestyles and spatial practices of Buddhist architecture differ from Chinese Buddhist monks’s, adapt themselves to Chinese spatial arrangements?This article will highlight mutual borrowings between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries on Wutaishan. Using various sources such as ancient picture-maps, old photographs, floor plans and travellers’ accounts, I will highlight interactions between Chinese and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries from the point of view of architecture, iconography and material culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"256 - 305"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1676076","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45466990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1676084
R. Borgen
ABSTRACT China’s Wutai mountains make scattered appearances in classical Japanese literature, but mostly outside the conventional literary mainstream. In courtly literature, Wutai is mentioned occasionally in works both in the vernacular and in classical Chinese. Medieval war tales too allude to events at Wutai, occasionally in tangential episodes added to late versions of the texts. In collections of popular didactic anecdotes one can find, for example, miraculous stories concerning Japanese pilgrims who visited Wutai. Popular song collections also include lyrics mentioning Wutai, often in lists of noteworthy mountains. Poems in Chinese by medieval Zen monks mention Wutai, some of them paying homage to Mañjuśrī, others more directly tied to Zen lore. Finally, Wutai is mentioned in noh plays, most notably in a play about a Japanese pilgrim that features a lively dance. The dance later evolved into a genre of kabuki plays. Classical Japanese literature was strongly influenced by Buddhist ideas and Wutai was well known for its association with Mañjuśrī and as a pilgrimage destination. Although one finds references to Wutai throughout classical Japanese literature, it is not as conspicuous as one might expect.
{"title":"Representations of the Wutai Mountains in classical Japanese literature","authors":"R. Borgen","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1676084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1676084","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT China’s Wutai mountains make scattered appearances in classical Japanese literature, but mostly outside the conventional literary mainstream. In courtly literature, Wutai is mentioned occasionally in works both in the vernacular and in classical Chinese. Medieval war tales too allude to events at Wutai, occasionally in tangential episodes added to late versions of the texts. In collections of popular didactic anecdotes one can find, for example, miraculous stories concerning Japanese pilgrims who visited Wutai. Popular song collections also include lyrics mentioning Wutai, often in lists of noteworthy mountains. Poems in Chinese by medieval Zen monks mention Wutai, some of them paying homage to Mañjuśrī, others more directly tied to Zen lore. Finally, Wutai is mentioned in noh plays, most notably in a play about a Japanese pilgrim that features a lively dance. The dance later evolved into a genre of kabuki plays. Classical Japanese literature was strongly influenced by Buddhist ideas and Wutai was well known for its association with Mañjuśrī and as a pilgrimage destination. Although one finds references to Wutai throughout classical Japanese literature, it is not as conspicuous as one might expect.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"215 - 255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1676084","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48475021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-03DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1639464
Juewei Shi
ABSTRACT The Buddhism that was introduced into China proposed that secular puṇya follows wholesome religious deeds intended to achieve happiness and prosperity in the human world or rebirth in heavenly realms. Buddhism then assimilated the classical Chinese fude and emphasised the merit field and transfer of merit. With the popularity of Mahāyana Buddhism, the cultivation of fude reached new heights. In the West, the Buddhist concepts of puṇya and fude did not take off. This article explores the extent to which Buddhist merit may be accepted in the West, and the mechanism by which it can be presented for easy acceptance. Australia’s largest Buddhist sanctuary, Fo Guang Shan Nan Tien Temple, hosts over 200,000 visitors and a public festival that attracts over 1,000 volunteers annually for more than 20 years. The studies in this article indicate that religious merit is attractive to those seeking blessings for a healthier, happier and more peaceful future as well as to those who wish to cultivate altruistic behaviour. Blessings and voluntarism may serve as skilful means to meet human needs in the short term as well as to introduce karmic merit and selfless bodhisattva aspiration in the long run.
{"title":"Buddhist merit in the West: a case study from Australia’s Nan Tien Temple","authors":"Juewei Shi","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1639464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639464","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Buddhism that was introduced into China proposed that secular puṇya follows wholesome religious deeds intended to achieve happiness and prosperity in the human world or rebirth in heavenly realms. Buddhism then assimilated the classical Chinese fude and emphasised the merit field and transfer of merit. With the popularity of Mahāyana Buddhism, the cultivation of fude reached new heights. In the West, the Buddhist concepts of puṇya and fude did not take off. This article explores the extent to which Buddhist merit may be accepted in the West, and the mechanism by which it can be presented for easy acceptance. Australia’s largest Buddhist sanctuary, Fo Guang Shan Nan Tien Temple, hosts over 200,000 visitors and a public festival that attracts over 1,000 volunteers annually for more than 20 years. The studies in this article indicate that religious merit is attractive to those seeking blessings for a healthier, happier and more peaceful future as well as to those who wish to cultivate altruistic behaviour. Blessings and voluntarism may serve as skilful means to meet human needs in the short term as well as to introduce karmic merit and selfless bodhisattva aspiration in the long run.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"165 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639464","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41888233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-03DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1639455
R. Her
ABSTRACT Looking back in history, humans have put in much effort in making profit distribution fair: the outcome for Adam Smith’s proposition of maximising self-interest became public welfare in the end, which led to severe exploitation of the classes; Stalinist communism asserted that government should control distribution, which resulted in bureaucratic bureaucrat; Weber’s calling of the sagely hero, the entrepreneur, the actualisation of which has caused many imperialist expansions of capitalist enterprises; Hayek’s laissez-faire system, which resulted in Austria’s economic depression and high unemployment rate; and Schumpeter’s bureaucratic specialised management, where we see senior management gobbling up huge amounts of investors’ capital at Wall Street. Can Marx’s ideal of the proletariat’s dictatorship emerging from highly capitalist society ever be fulfilled? Hundreds and thousands of social entrepreneurs are now dedicated to solving social problems. They do this on the basis of benevolent motivations (not seeking person gain) and moral goals (not seeking the expansion of individual or organisation). Social enterprise is only the beginning for an ‘economy of goodness’ and ‘moral economy,’ not the end. If even more commercial corporations and for-profit enterprises could base their operational philosophy on benevolence and morality, it would have a historically profound and far-reaching impact on socio-economic impartiality and justice.
{"title":"Economy of goodness: the benevolence and morality of economic lifestyle","authors":"R. Her","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1639455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639455","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Looking back in history, humans have put in much effort in making profit distribution fair: the outcome for Adam Smith’s proposition of maximising self-interest became public welfare in the end, which led to severe exploitation of the classes; Stalinist communism asserted that government should control distribution, which resulted in bureaucratic bureaucrat; Weber’s calling of the sagely hero, the entrepreneur, the actualisation of which has caused many imperialist expansions of capitalist enterprises; Hayek’s laissez-faire system, which resulted in Austria’s economic depression and high unemployment rate; and Schumpeter’s bureaucratic specialised management, where we see senior management gobbling up huge amounts of investors’ capital at Wall Street. Can Marx’s ideal of the proletariat’s dictatorship emerging from highly capitalist society ever be fulfilled? Hundreds and thousands of social entrepreneurs are now dedicated to solving social problems. They do this on the basis of benevolent motivations (not seeking person gain) and moral goals (not seeking the expansion of individual or organisation). Social enterprise is only the beginning for an ‘economy of goodness’ and ‘moral economy,’ not the end. If even more commercial corporations and for-profit enterprises could base their operational philosophy on benevolence and morality, it would have a historically profound and far-reaching impact on socio-economic impartiality and justice.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"122 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47777308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-03DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1639465
Zeng Yang
ABSTRACT The Tang state under Emperor Daizong 代宗 was afflicted with acute financial depletion caused by prolonged warfare. In this time of hardship, the court provided institutional support to a series of costly Buddhist projects directed by Bukong 不空 in the name of state protection. This invited intense criticism from traditional historians, not only for the drain on national resources but also for the corruption done to governmental ethics. Why did a time that should have been the worst for massive religious booms turn out to be the best? This question deserves explanation, yet seems to have evaded scholarly efforts. This article shows that the ceremony of chanting the new Renwang jing 仁王經 in 765 ce is the key to answering this question. The unusual events during this ceremony, which was held for divine protection of the Tang against the ongoing Tibetans’ invasion, inspired a prevailing discourse of divine intervention. The widened and enhanced belief must be recognized. Even more important might be the political significance that emerged to address Daizong’s constant concern. The subsequently increased investment can be understood as efforts to reenact the divine intervention and refresh its discourse, so as to reutilize political value.
{"title":"Miracles and military merit: the state’s sponsor to Bukong’s 不空 Buddhist enterprise","authors":"Zeng Yang","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1639465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639465","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Tang state under Emperor Daizong 代宗 was afflicted with acute financial depletion caused by prolonged warfare. In this time of hardship, the court provided institutional support to a series of costly Buddhist projects directed by Bukong 不空 in the name of state protection. This invited intense criticism from traditional historians, not only for the drain on national resources but also for the corruption done to governmental ethics. Why did a time that should have been the worst for massive religious booms turn out to be the best? This question deserves explanation, yet seems to have evaded scholarly efforts. This article shows that the ceremony of chanting the new Renwang jing 仁王經 in 765 ce is the key to answering this question. The unusual events during this ceremony, which was held for divine protection of the Tang against the ongoing Tibetans’ invasion, inspired a prevailing discourse of divine intervention. The widened and enhanced belief must be recognized. Even more important might be the political significance that emerged to address Daizong’s constant concern. The subsequently increased investment can be understood as efforts to reenact the divine intervention and refresh its discourse, so as to reutilize political value.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"180 - 202"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639465","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41426449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-03DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1639451
Tatsuhiko Seo
ABSTRACT Chang’an was a religious center of Buddhism in seventh- and eighth-century East Asia. More than 50,000 Buddhist monks, nuns and priests lived in the city. Buddhist monasteries spread all over in the city, centers of social, economic and cultural activity. Yet while a large number of research studies have explored Chang’an Buddhism in the mid-Tang, the relationship between the social economic history and the religious activities of Buddhist monasteries in this center remains little studied. This article aims to improve our understanding of this topic through a close reading of ninth-century Japanese Buddhist cleric Ennin’s (圓仁 794–864) Nittō Guhō Junrei Kōki 入唐求法巡禮行記 (The Record of a Pilgrimage to the Tang in Search of the Buddhist Law). After reviewing previous work in this field and putting Chang’an Buddhism in its historical context, this paper examines interconnections between commerce and Buddhism in the ninth-century capital as seen through the eyes of this well-known religious figure.
{"title":"Buddhism and commerce in ninth-century Chang’an: a study of Ennin’s Nittō Guhō Junrei Kōki 入唐求法巡禮行記","authors":"Tatsuhiko Seo","doi":"10.1080/23729988.2019.1639451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639451","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Chang’an was a religious center of Buddhism in seventh- and eighth-century East Asia. More than 50,000 Buddhist monks, nuns and priests lived in the city. Buddhist monasteries spread all over in the city, centers of social, economic and cultural activity. Yet while a large number of research studies have explored Chang’an Buddhism in the mid-Tang, the relationship between the social economic history and the religious activities of Buddhist monasteries in this center remains little studied. This article aims to improve our understanding of this topic through a close reading of ninth-century Japanese Buddhist cleric Ennin’s (圓仁 794–864) Nittō Guhō Junrei Kōki 入唐求法巡禮行記 (The Record of a Pilgrimage to the Tang in Search of the Buddhist Law). After reviewing previous work in this field and putting Chang’an Buddhism in its historical context, this paper examines interconnections between commerce and Buddhism in the ninth-century capital as seen through the eyes of this well-known religious figure.","PeriodicalId":36684,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Chinese Religions","volume":"5 1","pages":"104 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23729988.2019.1639451","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47011704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-03DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2019.1639456
Leah Kalmanson
ABSTRACT When considering questions of Buddhism, business and the economy, the production and transfer of karmic merit is an often-overlooked resource, perhaps due to the unexamined assumption that merit is not, after all, ‘real.’ This essay aims to show that taking merit production seriously reveals a well-established economic model that operates alongside, and at times contrary to, systems of monetary exchange. Precisely because of the tendency to interface with money economies, networks of merit transfer can intervene in common economic practices underlying existing social conditions. For example, Xinxing (540–594), founder of the Sanjie movement, teaches that we can discharge our otherwise insurmountable karmic burden by making a single donation to the ‘Inexhaustible Storehouse.’ Donations to the Storehouse were thought to generate merit for the donors, a system already relied upon by Buddhist monasteries to raise money. However, unique to Xinxing’s Storehouse, anyone could borrow as needed, and repayment was optional. The Storehouse was so successful that it began to rival the government as a resource for social welfare, leading to its eventual disbandment. Moving from Xinxing to the present, this essay surveys other examples of merit-making rituals as drivers for charitable giving and socio-political change.
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