Abstract
This comprises a report on a project conducted at the Ruhr University, Bochum, on the interrelationship and exchanges between China's two major religious traditions, Buddhism and Daoism, during the medieval and early pre-modern periods. While the departure for the research was primarily concerned with the mutual exchanges of ritual techniques and technology, i.e.~ritual practices in general, concepts of ritual, ritual implements, ritual language, rituals in specific cultic contexts etc., I gradually expanded my interest to include a wider range of topics relating to the exchanges between Buddhism and Daoism in China including the appropriation of divinities and saints, integrated beliefs and practices involving elements from both religions, apocryphal writings, conceptualizations concerning specific religious themes in which ideas and beliefs from both Buddhism and Daoism were brought together. Among other issues dealt with is the manner in which such concepts of “secrecy” and “the netherworld” were formulated and constructed in the Buddho–Daoist exchanges.
Highlights
In the past year and more I was a research fellow at the Ruhr University, Bochum working on the interrelationship and exchanges between China’s two major religious traditions, Buddhism and Daoism, during the medieval and early pre-modern periods
Jörg Plassen,“Methodological and Conceptual Considerations Relating to Buddho-Daoism”, unpublished paper given at the workshop,“On the Exchange of beliefs and Practices between Esoteric Buddhism and Daoism in Medieval China”, 21–22 June 2012 at the RUB
A recent study of the use of talismans in the Chinese Buddhist context can be found in James Robson, “Signs of Power: Talismanic Writing in Chinese Buddhism”, History of Religions 48.2 (2008), pp. 130–69
Summary
In the past year and more I was a research fellow at the Ruhr University, Bochum (hereafter RUB) working on the interrelationship and exchanges between China’s two major religious traditions, Buddhism and Daoism, during the medieval and early pre-modern periods. What we have here is a clear-cut example of full-scale appropriation of Sanskrit mantras, lifted out of their original Esoteric Buddhist context, both as regards their intended meaning as well their ritual usage They have in this case been transposed onto a Daoist ritual frame fashioned around the Spirits of the Five Directions/Five Agents complex, but without any attempt at altering or redacting their original meaning. This borrowing, which at times took on the shape of appropriation of both text passages and textual structures, resulted in a curious amalgamation of concepts and beliefs which more than anything reflects a sort of religious cross-over even to the point of constituting hybrid religion In this material we find that much of it retains an overall Buddhist structure as well as primary Buddhist features, many of the concepts and beliefs they contain, were taken more or less directly from Daoism and by extension the conceptual world of traditional Chinese society. This form of appropriation reminds us of what comes namely the Buddhist copying and adoption of Daoist talismanic practice
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