Abstract
Sino-Japanese religious discourse, more often than not, is treated as a unidirectional phenomenon. Academic treatments of pre-modern East Asian religion usually portray Japan as the passive recipient of Chinese Buddhist traditions, while explorations of Buddhist modernization efforts focus on how Chinese Buddhists utilized Japanese adoptions of Western understandings of religion. This paper explores a case where Japan was simultaneously the receptor and agent by exploring the Chinese revival of Tang-dynasty Zhenyan. This revival—which I refer to as Neo-Zhenyan—was actualized by Chinese Buddhist who received empowerment (Skt. abhiṣeka) under Shingon priests in Japan in order to claim the authority to found “Zhenyan” centers in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and even the USA. Moreover, in addition to utilizing Japanese Buddhist sectarianism to root their lineage in the past, the first known architect of Neo-Zhenyan, Wuguang (1918–2000), used energeticism, the thermodynamic theory propagated by the German chemist Freidrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932; 1919 Nobel Prize for Chemistry) that was popular among early Japanese Buddhist modernists, such as Inoue Enryō (1858–1919), to portray his resurrected form of Zhenyan as the most suitable form of Buddhism for the future. Based upon the circular nature of esoteric transmission from China to Japan and back to the greater Sinosphere and the use of energeticism within Neo-Zhenyan doctrine, this paper reveals the sometimes cyclical nature of Sino-Japanese religious influence. Data were gathered by closely analyzing the writings of prominent Zhenyan leaders alongside onsite fieldwork conducted in Taiwan from 2011–2019.
Highlights
Introduction“Neo-Zhenyan” and “Zhenyan Revivalism” are umbrella terms used to denote a number of esoteric Buddhist lineages that were recently founded throughout the global Chinese cultural sphere in order to resurrect an extinct form of Chinese Buddhism known as the Zhenyan School 真言宗, the Chinese forerunner to the Japanese
The status of the Zhenyan School 真言宗—the Chinese precursor to Shingon that captivated the Tang court in Chang’an 長安—continues to evade scholarly consensus
“Neo-Zhenyan” and “Zhenyan Revivalism” are umbrella terms used to denote a number of esoteric Buddhist lineages that were recently founded throughout the global Chinese cultural sphere in order to resurrect an extinct form of Chinese Buddhism known as the Zhenyan School 真言宗, the Chinese forerunner to the Japanese
Summary
“Neo-Zhenyan” and “Zhenyan Revivalism” are umbrella terms used to denote a number of esoteric Buddhist lineages that were recently founded throughout the global Chinese cultural sphere in order to resurrect an extinct form of Chinese Buddhism known as the Zhenyan School 真言宗, the Chinese forerunner to the Japanese. In addition to representing a new form of Buddhism, Neo-Zhenyan is the direct product of the bidirectional nature of Sino-Japanese Buddhist cross-pollination, which is a facet of SinoJapanese discourse that is often overlooked. In order to adequately explore this bidirectional nature, understand why it receives relatively little attention, and analyze how NeoZhenyan exemplifies this bidirectional facet, this paper begins with an overview of the scholarship on Sino-Japanese Buddhist interaction within the contexts from which. Special attention will be paid to his use of the monistic ontology known as “energeticism” to harmonize esoteric Buddhist theology with Chinese metaphysics and science and how the prominence of this theory within Wuguang’s writings attests to the multidirectional nature of Sino-Japanese Buddhist discourse. The discussion on energeticism will correct a number of widespread misunderstandings regarding the history of science as well as Buddhist applications of science
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