Chinese Buddhism Research Articles

The Tangut Dhāraṇīs Collection in Siddhaṃ Script from the IOM RAS. Part III

The article completes the introduction into scientific circulation of two Tangut xylographs, containing Dharanis Collections, from the manuscript collection of the IOM RAS. The Dharani text (SI 6564) is a reverse reconstruction of the “Sanskrit original” from the Chinese phonetic transcription. This publication contains the xylograph facsimile and the text transliteration. The discrepancy between the text of the Tangut xylograph SI 6564 and the well-known Sanskrit texts, as well as the Chinese versions of the spells contained in the Chinese Buddhist canon, is indicated.

Identity in Transnational Buddhism—The Case of a Chinese Buddhist Nun in Shan State, Myanmar

This paper will use the case study of a Chinese Mahayana Buddhist nun in a border town in Shan state, Myanmar, to explore the importance of identity in transnational Buddhism. Three life stories related to the Chinese Mahayana Buddhist nun will be told; that is, stories of her mother, her tonsure grandmaster, and herself. The main discussion of this paper is on the analysis of three dimensions of the nun’s identity, which are overseas Chinese, Mahayana monastic, and Buddhist nun. This paper will argue that identity is a crucial factor in transnational Buddhism, for identity helps an individual to communicate, interact, and take actions with others transnationally.

Semantic Similarities and Differences of kong 空, ti 體, and li 理

This paper investigates the semantic similarities and differences between the notions of kong 空, ti 體, and li 理 in the Treatise on Eighteen Kinds of Emptiness (Shiba kong lun 十八空 論. The treatise is arguably authored by Paramārtha (Zhendi 真諦; 499–569), one of the most prominent translators and exegetes in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. This treatise is suitable for an investigation of the semantics of the above-mentioned terms, since it aims to explain Indic Buddhist concepts for a Chinese audience. This explanation is conducted by employing both Indian and Chinese concepts, such as persons-and-dharmas (Skt. *pudgala-dharma; Ch. renfa 人法) and the principle of the dao (daoli 道理). The explanation of various kinds of emptiness is presented through the Chinese hermeneutical framework of essence (ti 體) and function (yong 用) and altogether serves as a great example of how Indian Buddhist ideas were introduced into the Chinese philosophical landscape. An exegesis on the three terms conducted in the treatise provides readers with a highly nuanced and multi-layered picture of emptiness charged with both ontological and epistemological significance. In addition, the analysis on various aspects of emptiness is deeply connected to the Buddhist soteriological goal of nirvāṇa.

The Chinese Cultural Elements of the Ullambana Festival

Buddhism was disseminated from India to China during the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 C.E.) and incorporated local Chinese cultures. It emerged gradually as a specific cultural phenomenon with Chinese features. According to Li Li’an, such a phenomenon could be considered a miniature of all the foreign cultures’ destiny in China, too (Li, 2006). The Ullambana Festival of Buddhism experienced a long process of change within Buddhism itself. The Ullambana Service of Chinese Buddhism is a glittering example of this historically peerless amalgamation of two of the world’s most remarkable ancient civilizations. Thus, this paper attempts to investigate the Chinese cultural elements of the Ullambana Festival during its transmission in China to explore the localization of Buddhism in China further.

Narratives of Religious Landscape: Reading Gender and Chinese Buddhism in the Travel Writing of Christian Women

This article explores the narrative descriptions of the Chinese religious landscape embedded within nineteenth century Christian missionary writings. I demonstrate the potential use of Protestant missionary writings as sources in the academic study of religion in China for both the physical descriptions of religious places that they contain and the narratives they express regarding the religious activities and identities of Chinese women. Of particular interest to this study are the religious encounters experienced between Christian and Buddhist women. My analysis of the travel writings of three Protestant women, Eliza Bridgeman (1805–1871), Helen Nevius (1833–1910), and Isabelle Williamson (d. 1886), illustrates that Chinese women were highly active within sacred spaces across China. This article contributes to discourses on the history of women and Chinese Buddhism, offers historiographical insights into the origins of Western academic studies of Buddhism in China, and provides alternate source material for information about religious continuity and change in early modern China.

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

On the Optative Mood of the “Shi (使)/Ling (令)” Construction of the Chinese Buddhist Texts of the Middle Chinese

On the Optative Mood of the “Shi (使)/Ling (令)” Construction of the Chinese Buddhist Texts of the Middle Chinese

The Challenges and Opportunities of Buddhist Music Discipline in a New Era—The Practice and Application of Mind and Body System in Chinese Buddhist Chanting

The Challenges and Opportunities of Buddhist Music Discipline in a New Era—The Practice and Application of Mind and Body System in Chinese Buddhist Chanting

Female Education in a Chan Public Monastery in China: The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns

The Great Chan Monastery of the Golden Mountain (Dajinshan Chansi 大金山禪寺) is a large monastic complex for nuns located in Jiangxi province in southeast China and belonging to the Chan meditation school. The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Jiangxi foxueyuan Dajinshan nizhong xueyuan 江西佛學院大金山尼眾學院), established at the monastery in 1994, is one of the few institutes for nuns in China to be especially axed on Chan studies and practice. What are the pedagogical goals and agenda of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns? What are the specificities of this academy as compared to other female academies, and to academies for monks? Why do nuns enroll at Dajinshan Buddhist Academy? What does this case study tell us about the gender balance in Chinese Buddhism today? This paper, based on fieldwork, will try to answer these questions by especially considering enrollment and scale, students and personnel, and curricula and schedule of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns.

Buddhist Meditation and Generosity to Chinese Buddhists during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract This article studies the practices of meditation and generosity among Chinese Buddhists in 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak to provide insight into the interplay of religion, faith, well-being, and the pandemic more broadly, as well as to understand the specific ways in which Chinese Buddhists may draw on their faith to combat the ill effects of the pandemic. In particular, we trace the experience of Chinese Buddhists in mainland China, Taiwan, the United States, and other countries, identifying two popular Buddhist practices: meditation and generosity. We study their motivation for those practices, and the different ways Buddhist sites have sought to remain active in offering services to followers. We explore the role of faith in nurturing resiliency in the Chinese Buddhist community and conclude with specific recommendations for the prosperity of Chinese Buddhism during a pandemic and for leveraging specific tenets of the faith to reduce pandemic risks.

Toward a Chinese Buddhist Modernism: Khenpo Sodargye and the Han Inundation of Larung Gar

Abstract Larung Gar is often hailed by scholars and practitioners alike as a last bastion of authentic Buddhist practice by ethnic Tibetans within the PRC. And yet, Larung is visited every year by tens of thousands of Han pilgrims and houses hundreds of Han monastics who have taken vows in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The author draws on a variety of oral and written sources to show that the Han inundation of Larung was not a byproduct of happenstance, but was actively facilitated by the Larung leadership, especially Khenpo Sodargye (མཁན་པོ་བསོད་དར་རྒྱས་ 索达吉堪布), through the targeted recruitment of Han practitioners. A comparative analysis of Tibetan- and Chinese-language materials shows that the neo-scientific and therapeutic teachings used to recruit Han practitioners superficially resemble similar “Buddhist modernist” discourses in the west and Tibet, but that their content is decidedly more soteriological than this moniker suggests. The article considers whether the encounter between Han practitioners and Tibetan Buddhism might eventually represent a nascent form of inter-ethnic Chinese Buddhist modernism.

Embodying Legacy by Pursuing Asymmetry: Pushou Temple and Female Monastics’ Ordinations in Contemporary China

This paper focuses on ordination procedures specific to women in Chinese Buddhism, and on the positions adopted by bhikṣuṇīs regarding the procedures’ asymmetrical nature in contemporary China. Dual ordinations, according to which aspiring bhikṣuṇīs must present themselves in front of both an assembly of fully ordained nuns and of monks in order to be “properly” ordained, were restored by Longlian (隆莲 1909–2006) in 1982. Śikṣamāṇā ordinations, which postulate that women should train for an additional two years before receiving full ordination when their male counterparts do not have to, have also become increasingly common since the 1980s. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2015 and today, both on-site and online, this paper asks whether asymmetry should be considered similar to subordination with regard to ordination procedures. It looks into Rurui’s (如瑞, 1957–) position on the matter, as Longlian’s student and one of the most influential bhikṣuṇī of her generation. While recent survey data will be useful in addressing the issue of representation, qualitative data will question the role of vertical networks in perpetuating a teacher’s legacy, ultimately leaving us to wonder if asymmetry might not be actively sought after by contemporary Chinese Buddhist bhikṣuṇīs in order to improve their status.

Digital Merit: A Case Study of a Chinese Buddhist Meditation Group on WeChat During the Early Outbreak of Covid-19 in China

ABSTRACT While most academics regard virtual religious communities to be secondary to in-person religious communities, the virtual Buddhist sangha served as a full and complete social infrastructure that provides purpose to life and spiritual consolation to its members. From the outbreak of the Covid-19 from March to May in 2020, this paper investigates how a Chinese Buddhist group based in Beijing practices Theravada meditation on the WeChat social media platforms. This paper, based on online ethnography and informal interviews, argues that digital media is a significant arena for Chinese Buddhists to conduct Buddhist rituals, transmit Buddhist ideas, generate and accumulate Buddhist merits, and build alternative cyber-Buddhist economies. This paper also highlights that Buddhist groups are continuously growing and rising as highly united and community-oriented digital sanghas within current China’s technoculture context.

On Jan Yün-hua’s (Ran Yunhua 冉雲華 [1923-2018]) scholarship in Chinese Buddhism

ABSTRACT Jan Yün-hua is an internationally renowned scholar who has conducted exquisite research in the fields of Buddhist studies, Chan Studies, Dunhuang Studies, and Daoist Studies, among which Chinese Buddhism in particular is renowned. This paper discusses the life of Jan Yün-hua, his academic achievements, and his exploration of ‘transformation of Buddhism from India to China’ in three aspects. This paper argues that during his decades of academic career, Jan has focused on the ambitious academic goal of ‘the transformation of Buddhism from India to China and its process,’ which is the original purpose of his Buddhist studies and the theme of his lifelong exploration. According to Jan, the core idea of Chinese Buddhism, the idea of ‘one mind’, was formed in the eighth century. This idea was first established by Chengguan and finally completed by Zongmi and Yanshou. The concept of ‘one mind’ was first propagated by Tiantai, then supplemented and enriched by Huayan Buddhism, and after the incubation of the unification of meditation and doctrines, and the addition of Chan Buddhism, it became the mainstream development of Chinese Buddhism, and finally became the core thought of Chinese Buddhism.

Opening the Door to Heaven: Localization and London’s Fo Guang Shan Temple

This article addresses a lacuna in research into the religio-spatial practices of Chinese Buddhist communities in Britain. Although the numbers of Chinese migrants to Britain is increasing and diversifying, scholarly attention to religious practices (especially in relation to Buddhism) has been lacking. In this article, I focus on Fo Guang Shan London - a transnational Taiwanese Buddhist organization, occupying a Grade II* listed former Victorian Parish School and the first Buddhist temple to receive Heritage Lottery Funding for renovations. Drawing on interviews and observational data gathered at the temple, predominantly with university students and young professionals, I examine the varied attitudes to, and experiences of, the heritage building and explore how the built environment has contributed to Fo Guang Shan’s aim of localization in Britain.

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

Hongzan’s Maitreya Belief in the Context of Late Imperial Chinese Monastic Revival and Chan Decline

This paper shows that the early Qing Chinese Buddhist monk Zaisan Hongzan’s belief in Maitreya and Tuṣita Heaven pure lands, as reflected in his collection of miracle tales and biographies, should be understood in a broader socio-religious context of Chan decline and monastic revival in late imperial China. It is important to notice that instead of advocating for the combination of Chan and Amitābha’s Pure Land of Bliss practice, Hongzan proposed the most severe criticism of the Chinese Chan tradition since the Song dynasty. Through both his personal doctrinal writings and the narrative strategies applied in his Tuṣita Heaven miracle tales, Hongzan vividly displayed his concerns about literary Chan practice and argued for the pivotal and urgent need for Vinaya among monastic communities. Hongzan’s personal anti-Chan sentiment and his intention to reestablish the study and practice of Buddhist Vinaya disciplines in a time of alleged “crisis” of Chinese Buddhism strongly influenced how he composed and transcribed eminent monks’ biographies related to the cult of Maitreya and Tuṣita Heaven. A “hagiographic” reading of Hongzan’s miracle tale collections is necessary to understand his religious discourse in this special historical stage in China.

The Posture of Lalitāsana: Buddhist Posing Hierarchy in a Tang-Dynasty Chinese Bronze Sculpture

The rubric of the presence of Buddhist sculpture in the absence of an actual deity represents an admirable aspect of Buddhist art, especially sculpture, where the best works have drawn on this paradox in an astounding fashion. An important element in the realization of this religious archetype is the Buddhist statues’ sublime poses. This article demonstrates the Buddhist posture hierarchy, based on a case study of a Tang-Dynasty Chinese Buddhist Bronze collected by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the posture of which is identified as lalitāsana: one leg pendant and the other bent horizontally. This article shows how this pose engendered various other compositional situations and postures popular in East Asia icon design and, moreover, that this sculpture might form part of an assemblage, where the pose indicates the central Buddha figure, to which all of the other figures are formally and doctrinally posed following a hierarchy. This article argues that Buddhist figures of different religious ranks are characterized by their pose and degree of movement. This research proves that the myriad forms of Buddhist postures and hierarchy have been devised to illustrate mythologies and philosophical, doctrinal, or social concepts, and their representations, in turn, have engendered other myths and beliefs.

“Ritual and Magic” in Buddhist Visual Culture from the Bird Totem

Despite numerous research findings related to medieval Chinese Buddhism, the witchcraft role of bird totems in Buddhist history has not received sufficient attention. In order to fill this gap, this paper analyzes how Buddhist monks in medieval China developed a close relationship with bird-totem worship. This relationship has been documented in Buddhist scriptures, rituals, oral traditions, biographies, and mural art. Although bird-totem worship was practiced in many regions of medieval China, this paper specifically examines the visual culture of bird totems in Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. Furthermore, some details of this culture were recorded in Buddhist texts and images. According to these works, various bird-totem patterns and symbols are believed to be effective ritual arts used by Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist monks to influence nature and the supernatural through ritual and magic.

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.