Abstract Among the Buddhist materials from Dunhuang, numerous dhāraṇī , talismans, and seals offering healing support for safe and successful childbirth are closely associated with the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, or Guanyin in Chinese. Between the fourth and tenth centuries, several dhāraṇī and esoteric Buddhist scriptures highlighting Guanyin’s protective power during childbirth were translated and gained wide circulation in China. This article examines these textual sources alongside four Dunhuang manuscripts that contain incantations, talismans, seals, and images used in childbirth protection. The evidence suggests that Guanyin’s role as a childbirth protector intensified after the mid-Tang period, contributing to the bodhisattva’s later transformation into a female figure in the Song dynasty. Two of the manuscripts further demonstrate a syncretic blend of Buddhist dhāraṇī and Daoist talismanic traditions. Stamping seals in Guanyin’s name resemble Daoist talismans and even appear in medical texts from the Tang and Song periods. These materials reveal how local ritual practitioners creatively merged Buddhist and Daoist healing practices, reflecting a broader integration of religious and medical traditions in everyday life.

Abstract Female health and fertility issues belong to the main fields where Traditional Japanese Medicine is applied today. The early fourteenth-century Notes by a Simple Physician ( Ton’ishō 頓医抄 ) stands as a significant text in the history of Japanese medicine, particularly as the first known Japanese medical work to dedicate an entire chapter to menstruation. This article provides the first full annotated translation of this treatise. Its author, Kajiwara Shōzen, integrates new ideas from Song-era medical practices with knowledge from ancient medical texts, adding his own commentary drawn from his experiences as a practicing physician. This makes Notes by a Simple Physician a vital record of medieval Japanese medical knowledge and its practical application. The annotated translation of a key original source offers a valuable resource for understanding historical approaches to women’s reproductive health. The detailed identification of materia medica in the formulas highlights the availability, substitution, and application of the phytotherapeutic ingredients. This makes the work a significant contribution to the study of Japanese medical and social history and a useful reference for those researching historical pharmacology and the evolution of women’s health practices.

Abstract What methods could women wanting to conceive children in premodern Japan potentially use to enhance their fertility? The written and material evidence surviving from ninth- and tenth-century Japan suggests that during that time fertility-enhancing methods stemmed mostly from two distinct and at times overlapping or competing traditions of written knowledge: Buddhist and medicinal expertise. Focusing on a ninth-century handbook attributed to a prominent Japanese Tendai scholar, this article first traces the Buddhist theories of infertility and the adoption of premodern Indian, Chinese, and possibly Korean pharmacological knowledge on aiding conception. Next, it investigates a new infertility theory and prescriptions on aiding conception included in Japan’s earliest surviving medical encyclopedia, the tenth-century Essentials of Medicine ( Ishinpō 医心方 , 984), before drawing conclusions on how these diverse types of knowledge may have coexisted in early medieval Japan.

Abstract This article delves into the intricacies of a safe childbirth talisman that gained prominence and popularity during the Chosŏn (1392–1910) period in Korean Buddhism. Focusing on the talisman included at the end of the Great Dhāraṇī of the Buddha’s Uṣṇīṣa [Crown] Heart of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva , the study explores how the talismanic treatment, interwoven with traditional Buddhist healing practices and long-standing Chinese medical knowledge, engaged with the dangers and uncertainties of childbirth. Through a close textual, visual, medical, and socio-historical analysis of this talisman, the article offers a nuanced understanding of how healing strategies were perceived, negotiated, and enacted within Chosŏn Buddhism. It further argues that talismanic methods were not peripheral but constituted a trusted therapeutic recourse for mothers and female donors, bridging domains often labeled “magical” and “medical” in the everyday religious life of the period.