Asian Buddhism Research Articles

Философско-смисловото поле на преводаческо-интерпретативната техника на гъ-и

The Philosophical Sense of the translatory-interpretive technique of the Geyi The article aims to present the controversy surrounding the geyi's translation and interpretation technique, which was used in the third and fourth centuries in China, commonly translated as "matching concepts", which is the most distinct manifestation of the adaptation of Buddhist concepts to classical Taoist doctrines. For this purpose, its basic philological and philosophical interpretations of the term are presented. Studying the spread and adaptation of Buddhist doctrines in China gives the unique opportunity to balance these two opposing positions. The very specificity of the philosophical sense of the translator and the interpretive technique of the geyi is considered in its aspect as one of the main factors that shaped the features of Chinese Buddhism and its subsequent final detachment from its Indian equivalent. Its use and improvement mark the beginning of the formation of East Asian Buddhism as an essentially new Buddhist doctrinal strand.

MEMORY, MUSIC, MANUSCRIPTS: THE RITUAL DYNAMICS OF KŌSHIKI IN JAPANESE SŌTŌ ZEN. By MichaelaMross. Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 30. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022. . Pp. xviii + 365. Hardback. $68.00; Paperback, $20.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 98-99 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia MEMORY, MUSIC, MANUSCRIPTS: THE RITUAL DYNAMICS OF KŌSHIKI IN JAPANESE SŌTŌ ZEN. By Michaela Mross. Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 30. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022. . Pp. xviii + 365. Hardback. $68.00; Paperback, $20.00. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16401Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 98-99 RelatedInformation

THE AWAKENING OF FAITH AND NEW CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY. . Edited by JohnMakeham. East Asian Buddhist Philosophy, 2. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021. Pp. xii + 503. Hardback, €193.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 94-94 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia THE AWAKENING OF FAITH AND NEW CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY. . Edited by John Makeham. East Asian Buddhist Philosophy, 2. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021. Pp. xii + 503. Hardback, €193.00. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16387Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 94-94 RelatedInformation

Editorial: Gender Asymmetry and Nuns’ Agency in the Asian Buddhist Traditions

Looking at early Indian Buddhist texts and inscriptions, we can generally find gender pairing within the terminology deployed, a situation which is replicated in many texts related to monastic discipline (Vinaya) and in teachings addressed by the Buddha to either his male or female disciples (Skilling 2001) [...]

“Meditation madness”: meditation’s popularity, popular religion and unsupervised religion

ABSTRACT Publications have used pathologizing language when reporting a boom in the popularity of meditation practices: a ‘meditation madness’. I argue that analysing the intellectual roots of the category ‘popular religion’ improves our understanding of debates about the status of meditation and its potential adverse effects. My analyses first provide historical context for portrayals of religiocultural activities of ‘the masses’ as irrational and dangerous. But European ideas about ‘the popular’ are also foundational to the very construction of ‘meditation’ in its current dominant forms. Buddhist studies scholars today critique a new ‘popular Buddhism in the West’ precisely because it, in turn, denigrates common Asian Buddhist practices as ‘popular religion’ dross obscuring the true essence of Buddhism (as transmitted through modern(ist) meditation forms). I find that responses to the popularity of meditation may evoke old dichotomies of popular/elite religion, but they often ultimately express concrete, practical anxieties about the recent rapid spread of therapeutic meditation practices. Psychologists studying ‘meditation sickness’, for example, may be less concerned about ‘unofficial’ than ‘unsupervised religion’. They warn that ‘meditation mania’ risks actually rendering meditators manic, that, without guidance from responsible educated (if not elite) teachers, uninformed meditators can, indeed, experience episodes of mania and other difficulties.

Zongmi’s Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity: Rhetorical Characteristics and Their Implications

Zongmi 宗密 (780–841) is a pivotal figure in understanding the characteristics of East Asian Buddhist philosophy, especially that of Huayan and Chan. And it is in the Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity (Yuanren lun 原⼈論) that Zongmi developed his integrated and universal system of philosophy that incudes Confucianism and Taoism in addition to the five schools of Teaching and Chan. This paper probes the rhetorical characteristics of the Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity focusing on the six categories of panjiao 判敎, the chiastic structure from shallow to deep, and the unique terminology Zongmi coined in the matrix of inclusive reconciliation.BR Zongmi devises a two-layered chiastic structure in the Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity. On one layer, he writes the panjiao in a forward order and then in reverse. At the same time, he makes a chiastic contrast “from shallow to deep.” At the center of the chiastic structure, he deliberately places his own terms such as the One True Numinosity (yizhen lingxing 一眞靈性), which he adopted from Buddhist elemental concepts and transformed them into more universal notions in East Asian philosophy, a recurring occurrence in the history of East Asian Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism This experimental application of rhetorical criticism of East Asian Buddhist texts proves that the method can contribute enormously to our understanding of the broader picture and the depth of the text.

Международная деятельность Пандито Хамбо-ламы Ж.Д. Гомбоева как проявление народной дипломатии

The article deals with the international activities of the Buryat Buddhist clergy in the Soviet and post-Soviet period. Since the 1950s Buddhist clerics traveled abroad and took an active part in building a peaceful community and the movement for nuclear disarmament. The paper shows that during the years of Soviet power, the head of the Buddhist clergy the 19th Pandito Khambo Lama Zh.D. Gomboev made an invaluable contribution to establishing and strengthening the ties of the Buddhists of the USSR with Buddhists of the other countries and the international recognition of its policy. The Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace, founded with his participation, has become a significant non-governmental religious organization designed to expand and strengthen the friendly relations of the USSR / Russian Federation with Asian countries whose population professes Buddhism.

The Main Principles and Directions of the Activity of Socially Engaged Buddhism

The work deals with the history, main principles and areas of activity of "Socially Engaged Buddhism" - an influential trend of modern Buddhist social activism that is especially popular in Western countries. It is noted that its relevance is caused by the need to develop new forms of interaction between Buddhism and society, brought about by a clash with the ideology and social practices of modernity as well as by the consequences of the globalization process; according to the ideologists of "Socially Engaged Buddhism," the traditional forms of Sangha social activity had ceased to meet the challenges of modernity. The main areas of activity of the movement are: 1) environmental issues; 2) racism and ethno-cultural diversity; 3) volunteer and educational work with prisoners; and 4) the women's movement and gender issues. The movement of Engaged Buddhism rather quickly acquired institutionalized forms in the West. Moreover, if initially its activity developed within the framework of Asian Buddhist organizations that have branches in the countries of the West, subsequently new forms and organizations developed within Western communities. These structures quite actively conduct publishing, educational and training activities, so that at present the "Engaged Buddhism" movement is one of the most influential forms of social activity of Buddhism in the countries of the West.

The Exegetical Tradition of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra

The Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, which served as an ideological foundation for the establishment and gradual development of the Huayan school, is one of the most influential Mahāyāna sūtras in East Asian Buddhism. This article shows how the exegetical tradition that focused on the study of this scripture was started by the scholar monks of the Dilun school, who highly valued the Vasubandhu’s commentary on the Daśabhūmika-sūtra chapter of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, and was completed during the Tang dynasty by the masters of the Buddhist exegesis, who later were venerated as patriarchs of the Huayan school.

A Study of Chinese Commentaries on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, also known as Yuanjuejing 圓覺經 or, in full, Dafang guangyuanjue xiuduoluo liaoyijing 大方廣圓覺修多羅了義經, is a mindfulness meditation sutra with a particularly high reputation that has been the subject of a great deal of annotations and commentaries throughout the history of East Asian Buddhism. However, hitherto, the literature has not systematically organized and studied these annotations and commentaries. The aim of this paper is to organize the Chinese commentaries on this sutra from the 8th to the 17th centuries systematically and tointroduce the different situations by the commentaries produced by different schools of Buddhism. Briefly, these works mainly include the commentaries by Weique 惟愨, Wushi 悟實, Jianzhi 堅志, Daoquan 道詮, and Tsung-mi 宗密 during the Tang Dynasty (618–907); the commentaries of the Huayan 華嚴宗, Tiantai 天臺宗, and Chan 禪宗 schools during the Song Dynasty (960–1279); and the literal interpretations and collected commentaries produced during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1912).

Fragments of the Old Uyghur Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī in the Serindia Collection of the IOM, RAS

The Uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī, considered a Buddhist text about the Goddess Uṣṇīṣavijayā and her dhāraṇī, is known as one of the most important texts in the Old Uyghur translation literature. It occupies a central position as a dhāraṇī text in South Asian, Central Asian, and East Asian Buddhism. Apart from Old Uyghur, it appears in a variety of languages and scripts, including Sanskrit, Tangut, Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian. The text is appraised as particularly beneficial for eliminating karmic obstacles and evil paths, annihilating hostility, disasters, demons, and scourges, relieving beings of suffering and bringing them happiness, prolonging their well-being, and increasing their longevity. It is also believed to increase wisdom, obliterate hells, and provide a chance to be born in Buddha heaven, called Sukhāvatī, or other pure lands. This paper deals with the edition of newly identified fragments of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī in Old Uyghur preserved in the Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM, RAS). The fragments presented belong to the same blockprint edition produced during the Mongolian period. The study includes the transliteration, transcription, and translation of these fragments within the context of a semantic sequence of the text. The version on the fragments is compared with versions in other languages to reveal differences between texts. Finally, a reconstructed text is presented.

The impact of Buddhism on society during the Goryeo period

Professor Myungje Cho has been studying the impact of Buddhism on society during the Goryeo period. In his current research, he is exploring the significance of the History of Thought by reorganising the flow and character of Goryeo Buddhism as East Asian Buddhism and the History of Thought. Cho has shown that while Goryeo Buddhism demonstrated some influence from Song's Zen philosophy, it also maintained its own independent characteristics. In his analysis, Cho showed that the two phases of Goryeo’s adoption of Koan Zen, the spread of Wenzi Chan during the period of the 12th to 13th centuries, was followed by the popularity of Kanhua Chan amongst the Goryeo intellectuals in the 14th century. In his work, he sought to identify the phases of adoption of Goryeo’s Koan Zen and explain the factors for accelerating its spread and impact of the transmission on society. Cho analysed and clarified, for the first time, the main text and the flow of ideas of Zen Buddhism in Goryeo. His research also offers a way to understand Korean mediaeval Buddhism within a wider context of East Asian history of ideas through the literary analysis of Chinese literature published in Goryeo or Zen literature compiled in Goryeo Buddhism from the perspective of cultural history.

Report of How Zen Became Chan: Pre-modern and Modern Representations of a Transnational East Asian Buddhist Tradition (July 29–31, 2022)

Report of How Zen Became Chan: Pre-modern and Modern Representations of a Transnational East Asian Buddhist Tradition (July 29–31, 2022)

Perceived space: Demonstrating a quantified approach to illumination in archaeological sites based on Asian Buddhist cave temples 5th–8th century CE

Perceived space: Demonstrating a quantified approach to illumination in archaeological sites based on Asian Buddhist cave temples 5th–8th century CE

Trajectories of East Asian Buddhism in South Africa: a comparative perspective

ABSTRACT In this article I take my cue from Michel Clasquin-Johnson’s reflections on six main themes (lay practice, gender equality, adhesion to democratic principles, impact of Western psychology, social engagement, creation of a non-sectarian tradition) underlying the development of mainstream South African Buddhism to explore three forms of East Asian Buddhism operating in the country: the Dharma Centre (Korean Sŏn)—a representative of mainstream South African Buddhism—and the local branches of two large new religious movements—the Japan-based Soka Gakkai International (Nichiren Buddhism) and the Taiwan-based Foguangshan (Chinese Pure Land/Chan Buddhism)—which include a more diverse section of the South African population. Besides providing a detailed analysis of these forms of East Asian Buddhism in the country, I test the applicability of Clasquin-Johnson’s themes to the case studies and explore four further topics for the comparative study of South African Buddhism: interactions with local religions, proselytization, hybridization, the promise of worldly benefits.

Becoming and Negation, Protagoras and Nāgārjuna

ABSTRACT This essay explores a curious point of intersection in the historical pairing of becoming and negation, between two thinkers and two traditions: the Sophist Protagoras of fifth-century BCE Greece and the second-century CE South Asian Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna. I offer a speculative account of how becoming and negation are linked in Protagoras—speculative because only so much can be deduced from the extant fragments and testimony. I compare that account to the more coherent picture offered by Nāgārjuna—more coherent because a complete account of the logic that links becoming and negation is carefully preserved in the works attributed to Nāgārjuna. While no specific conclusions regarding the bridge that linked India and Greece may be reached, the similarities between these thinkers and the greater coherence of the Buddhist tradition nevertheless offer hypothetical possibilities for reconstructing the larger architecture of the world of sophistic thought that is now lost to us.

한국 고대 香徒의 고려 계승과 변화상

Hyang-do(香徒) is a subject that has universality and specificity in East Asia from whether or not the term is used. In East Asian Buddhism, the term Hyang-do is unique because it is found only in Korea but in the sense that Hyang-do is a community for Buddhist services(佛事) such as making Buddha statues and pagodas, it can be said that universality is also found because it can be compared with ‘eui-eup(義邑)’ and ‘knowledge(知識)’, which are common in China and Japan. Although relatively extensive research results have been derived in the meantime, there is no comparative perspective on the human composition of Hyang-do, and the purpose and region of Buddhist services in the ancient times and Goryeo dynasty. Since Hyang-do can be studied as a link between ancient times and the Middle Ages, this paper examines aspects and changes of Hyang-do that has been inherited to Goryeo dynasty without being disconnected from the ancient times. Through this, this paper reveals that Hyang-do has functioned as a religious association from the time of its origin, and examines that these were composed of religious actors and participants of Buddhist services. This is also found in the aspect of Hyang-do in the Goryeo Dynasty, but in the case of participants in Buddhist services, the number of prayers and donors and laborers is divided. In the case of Seonrang(仙郞), which appears to be a member of Hyang-do, the difference between the two periods was found in that the ritual character was strongly revealed unlike in ancient times. Through this paper, as a constituent organization based on the system of Hyang-do as a community of Buddhist services and the common belief in merit through participation in Buddhist services, it can be noted that Hyang-do has been responsible for the promotion of the teachings of the Buddha(弘法) in the Buddhist world.

The Metaphysics of Sophistry: Protagoras, Nāgārjuna, Antilogos

There is no category of thought more deliberately or explicitly relegated to a subordinate role in Plato’s dialogues than Sophists and sophistry. It is due to Plato’s influence that terms “sophist” and “sophistry” handed down to us have unilaterally negative associations—synonymous with lies and deception, obscurantism and false reasoning. There are several reasons to be dubious of this standard view of the Sophists and their practices. The primary reason addressed in this essay is that the surviving fragments of the Sophists do not accord with this standard view, a discrepancy that is particularly acute in the case of the 5th-century sophist Protagoras. This essay attends to Protagoras’s doctrines concerning antilogos, the sophistic practice of contradiction and negation. I contend that sophistic antilogos was a paradoxical practice that embodied metaphysical stakes for language and discourse. I challenge the standard view of Sophists and their antilogos by reconstructing a speculative counter-definition: a method for instantiating through language an ontology of flux and becoming over and against what would come to be a Platonist metaphysics of enduring, pure Being. I do this through a comparative analysis of Protagoras and the second century C.E. South Asian Buddhist thinker, Nāgārjuna.

An Ongoing Womanist Buddhist Project: Reading between the Times

This article challenges the dominant Christian-centered approach to Black religious life by exploring contemporary Womanist Buddhist and Black Buddhist practice, writing, and thought alongside writings of early East Asian Buddhist nuns, noting similarities, differences, and the intersections among and between these written accounts. “Reading Between the Times” signals the ongoing nature of this project, and this particular paper draws heavily upon Kathryn Ann Tsai’s 1994 translation Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries along with several Womanist and/or Black Buddhist voices, such as Faith Adiele, Melanie Harris, bell hooks, Layli Maparyan, Carolyn Jones Medine, Alice Walker, reverend angel Kyodo williams, Jan Willis, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde. Rather than make definitive claims, this paper becomes curious with initial observations surrounding authorial voice, intersections of race/gender/class within a particular temporal space, “legitimacy” questions, and others—and, of course, invites more work in the future. Deploying an engaged Buddhist pedagogy to inform mindful scholarship, this paper reminds us that we have more commonalities than oppressive systems often admit or acknowledge, and it concludes with a call to action.

A Study of the Early-Stage Translations of Foxing佛性 in Chinese Buddhism: The Da Banniepan Jing大般涅槃經 Trans. Dharmakṣema and the Da Fangdeng Rulaizang Jing大方等如來藏經 Trans. Buddhabhadra

The Da fangdeng rulaizang jing大方等如來藏經 (Skt. Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra), translated by Buddhabhadra佛陀跋陀羅 (358–429) is one of the early Chinese Buddhist canon texts where the term foxing佛性 (Jp. busshō; Buddha-nature) is clearly used to express Buddha-nature. However, the term foxing cannot be confirmed in other extant translations of the Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra. Another early text in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Da banniepan jing大般涅槃經 (Skt. Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra), translated by Dharmakṣema曇無讖 (385?–433), also used the term foxing, which cannot be correspondingly confirmed in the surviving Sanskrit fragments of this scripture. Some significant differences in foxing between the Sanskrit fragments and Dharmakṣema’s translation of this sutra belong to the first twelve fascicles of Dharmakṣema’s translation completed under his collaborators’ support when he had not mastered the Chinese language. It is very likely that Faxian法顯 (337–422) translated a version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra that featured buddhadhātu as foxing. Buddhabhadra, in the same period, translated a version of the Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra, in which he favoured the term foxing over a literal translation of the Sanskrit. As another contemporary monk with these two, Dharmakṣema translated the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, going further than Faxian by using the term foxing regularly. These texts influenced the Dilun monastic tradition地論宗. Among these, the term foxing and its Sinicism explanations played the most significant role, influencing the whole of the Chinese and even East Asian Buddhist thought.