Medieval Buddhist Research Articles

A study of the discourse on the justification of sodomy in medieval Buddhist temples ─ Focused on the Justification for sodomy among monks and chigo ─

A study of the discourse on the justification of sodomy in medieval Buddhist temples ─ Focused on the Justification for sodomy among monks and chigo ─

The Zen of Mahāvairocana, Or: Does Bodhidharma’s Nose Preach the Dharma?

Abstract This paper addresses the relationship between Zen and tantric or esoteric Buddhism in premodern Japan from the point of view of the Buddhas and Buddha bodies considered to be preaching these two traditions. After surveying theories on the dharmakāya teaching already present in Chinese Buddhism, it considers the development of this doctrinal notion in the Japanese tantric traditions. The paper demonstrates that this tantric discourse on the Buddha as preacher provided thinkers such as Enni 圓爾 (1202–1280) and Chikotsu Daie 癡兀大慧 (1229–1312) with a framework to integrate Zen into a tantric world. Eventually, and under the influence of embryological motifs circulating widely in medieval Buddhism, Zen practitioners came to establish their own theories on the human as Buddha body. The paper concludes that medieval Zen and medieval tantric Buddhism should be considered sister movements.

Sanskrit Manuscripts of the Serindia Collection (IOM RAS) as Sources on the History of Buddhism in Khotan

This paper provides the information about the study of the Sanskrit manuscript fragments kept in the Serindia Collection of the IOM RAS. Among the Buddhist handwritten rarities discovered in the 19th—20th centuries in so-called Serindia Sanskrit manuscripts are of particular importance. Sanskrit originals of Buddhist texts preserved in Central Asian manuscripts represent what little remained of the vast Sanskrit written heritage of ancient and early medieval Buddhism. Sanskrit manuscripts are highly valuable historical sources for studying the history of spread of Buddhism throughout Central Asia and the process of reception of the Indo-Buddhist culture outside India in the first millennium AD. The article focuses on the study of Sanskrit manuscripts, which circulated in Khotan. Among the manuscripts, which constitute the Sanskrit part of the Serindia Collection, written monuments related to Khotan are represented most extensively both in terms of quantity of fragments and volume of preserved texts. A comprehensive study of this part of the Serindia Collection made it possible to classify Sanskrit manuscripts in relation to external characteristics and repertoire, to outline chronologically traceable stages of spread of Buddhism in Khotan and to work out the periodization of the history of Buddhism in this Central Asian subregion.

Cultivation, Salvation, and Obligation: Quanzhen Daoist Thoughts on Family Abandonment

This article explores one of the great paradoxes of imperial China: the rise of religions that required qijia (family abandonment) in a society that privileged a patriarchal family system. Grounded in the case of Quanzhen Daoism, the article examines representations of qijia in poetry, hagiographies, inscriptions, and plays to explain the distinctive ways in which this nonscriptural tradition of renunciation configured its relationship with families. It demonstrates that there existed ambivalent, even contradictory, attitudes toward the issue of family, particularly that of parents, in different genres of Quanzhen texts. This ambivalence speaks to irreconcilable family-monastery tensions as the Quanzhen order transformed from a local movement with a few ascetic elites to a nationwide monastic order in the early thirteenth century. In thirteenth-century qijia narratives, Quanzhen apologists deployed flexible renderings of filial piety to validate personal and universal salvation—instead of familial salvation—as the principal goal of a Quanzhen monastic career. Neither the Quanzhen ideology nor its monastic institution truly addressed the interests of natural families. As such, the Quanzhen tradition contrasts sharply with the medieval Buddhism and Daoism, whose apologists conceptualized the family-monastery relations to harness the family interests to the needs of the churches. Despite posing a direct challenge to the patriarchal family system, Quanzhen Daoism developed into one of the two major Daoist schools after the thirteenth century. Its success resulted from the Quanzhen order’s salvationist contribution to the crumbling northern Chinese society under Mongol conquest, as well as its initiatives producing texts to promote pro-Quanzhen narratives.

On Rewriting Buddhism

Abstract Through a detailed reading of a recent study of medieval Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka in conjunction with a number of other works, this article explores the troubling legacy of translating the historical questions of subjectivity into the modern language of ‘agency’, ‘autonomy’, ‘innovation’, and ‘creativity’. This legacy cannot easily be separated from the politics of white privilege in post-colonial studies of Buddhism and South Asian religion. The problem with trying to expose creativity, so pervasive in the studies of South Asian religion, is not merely a matter of anachronistic conceptualization of divergent historical forms of religious practice and subjectivity. It is that the very possibility of translating subjectivity into easily digestible aestheticized modes of being (e.g., creativity) is predicated on an uninterrogated assumption about the self-evidence of such concepts independent of temporal forms of power encountered in forms of life.

Surveilled, harmonized, purified

The human body has long occupied a central role in religious praxis across the globe. Recent decades have witnessed a change in academic studies aimed at theorizing the body and its relationship with society and the cosmos. This article adds to this discourse by demonstrating the pervasiveness of the body as a root metaphor in medieval Chinese religious culture. The notion of the body as a microcosmic replica of the social, political, and metaphysical realms, and the need to synchronize it with the natural cycles of the universe, played a key role in the emerging doctrinal and liturgical schemes of Buddhism and Daoism, China’s two main organized religious traditions. Using the apocryphal medieval Buddhist scripture The Sutra of Trapusa and Bhallika as a case study, and reading it against the backdrop of earlier religious, medical, and philosophical texts, this article argues that visions of the body as an object of surveillance by the celestial authorities, and its purification and harmonization through ethical practices and ritual means, were hailed as the most significant religious activities in Buddhist and Daoist communities alike in medieval China, a feature that continues to occupy a central place in contemporary Chinese religious life.

Buddhist Ethics in Treatises of Post-Canonical Abhidharma

The aim of the article is to define the tendencies of elaboration of ethical problems in early medieval exegetical texts - treatises of post-canonical Abhidharma. Ethics as a specific philosophical discipline concerning morals was not specifically developed because of cosmological character of Buddhist philosophy. Explication of the ethical discourse presented in treatises of eminent early medieval Indian Buddhist exegetics Vasubandhu (4-5 cc.), Asaṅga (4 c.) and Yaśomitra (8 c.) showed that specific for ethics questions on the highest good, sense of human life, the nature and sources of morals, freedom of will etc. were solved in post-canonical period. According to the religious doctrine they interpreted the highest good as the benefit of liberation ( mokṣabhāgīya ) from the fetches of suffering. The Buddha’s moral instructions known as prātimokṣa is aimed at the attainment of the highest good. Therefore the essence of morality has nothing to do with saṃsāra, and human society forming and perishing in cosmic cycles cannot be the source of moral norms. According to historiosophical myth, human beings get the first instructions on righteous behavior in deep antiquity from charismatic Universal ruler ( cakravartin ) coming to the world as the forerunner of the Buddha. He explains ontological contrariness of the good and the evil but is not the Teacher of the truth. Freedom of will cannot manifest itself spontaneously in a human being attached affectively to saṃsāra. Such an individual falsely takes his ignorant self-will for the freedom of will. Hearing the sermons of salvific teaching is the condition for the rising of free will impulse.

The Catechism of the Gods: Kōyasan’s Medieval Buddhist Doctrinal Debates, Dōhan, and Kami Worship

A survey of the history of medieval Kōyasan, an important mountain-based headquarters for esoteric Shingon Buddhism since the early ninth century, cannot omit significant developments in the worship of kami (tutelary and ancestral gods) from the end of the Heian period (794–1185) to the Muromachi period (1333–1573). A fundamental aspect of kami worship at Kōyasan was the regular offering to the kami (shinbōraku 神法楽) of mondō-kō 問答講 (catechism/dialogue form, or ‘question and answer’ ‘lectures’) and rongi (debate examinations in the form of mondō). The relationship between Buddhist scholarship and kami worship has not been fully elucidated and such will enrich understanding of both subjects. The identities and meanings of the two oldest kami enshrined at Kōyasan, Niu Myōjin 丹生明神 (also called Niutsuhime) and Kariba Myōjin 狩場明神 (also called Kōya Myōjin), were delineated in texts produced by scholar monks (gakuryo 学侶) during a period when the debates were re-systematized after a period of sporadicity and decline, so the precise functions of this cinnabar goddess and hunter god in the related ritual offerings deserve attention. In this paper I examine ideas about the Kōyasan kami that can be found, specifically, in the institution and development of these mondō and rongi 論義. Placing them in this context yields new information, and offers new methods of understanding of not only related textual materials, but also of the icons used in the debates, and the related major ceremonies (hōe 法会) and individual ritual practices (gyōbō 行法) that were involved. Given that the candidates of a major ritual debate examination—to be discussed—that has been practiced from the Muromachi period up to the present day are said to ‘represent’ kami, and are even referred to by the names of kami, the history of the precise relationship between the kami and the debates invites more detailed explanation that has so far been largely lacking in the scholarship.

Taming Dragons: The Buddhist Mythmaking of Sacred Violence in Medieval Buddhist Tales Samgukyusa and Konjaku Monogatarishū

The insights available in Japanese medieval Buddhist narratives on the appropriation and reconstruction of various non-Buddhist divine characters has long been overlooked. Yet an examination of these narratives reveals Buddhist thinkers’ endeavors to reconfigure the religious and cultural roles of folk religious worship and related figures into essential tools through which they could popularize Buddhism, legitimize Buddhist cosmology, and, ultimately, to dominate the religious and cultural milieu of medieval Japan. This essay compares such medieval Buddhist narratives of Japan with Korean mythic tale literature. It pays particular attention to representations of folk religious figures in the works, and in particular, the dragon, an exceptionally prominent character associated with particular roles and symbolism in the simplified, popularized Buddhist framework represented in the dragon character in Korean literature Samgukyusa (三國遺事) and Japanese Konjaku monogatarishū (今昔物語集). The essay investigates various representations of the dragon, which was apparently understood in ambivalent terms—as both a sacred figure and a being inferior to Buddhist figures. Moreover, the way in which such representation is related to medieval Japanese discourse of defilement and threatening power is illuminated. Consequently, the essay discusses how Buddhist mythographers in medieval Japan devised a sophisticated literary strategy to accommodate non-Buddhist religious symbols and, simultaneously, to marginalize them.

Studying the Dharma: Moral Qualities of a Disciple

The topic of the article is early medieval Indian Buddhist views on the problem of monks selection for the study in monastery universities. Basing on the analysis of Vasubandhus treatise The Encyclopedia of Abhidharma and the commentary on it (Abhidharmakośa, Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya), the author demonstrates that the criteria of the selection elaborated by Kaśmīr Vaibhāṣikas included only moral qualities of competitors. Only monks inspired with determination to achieve the soteriological aim of the Buddhas Teaching to eradicate the root of suffering could be regarded as appropriate for the study. The object of special attention was virtuous behavior of a competitor and strict observance of monastic vows. Those who were diligent, abstinent from sin, content with minimal material goods (clothes, food, bed, and seat), and see happiness in monastic ascetics and religious practices regarded as worthy competitor.

Embodied Objects: Chūjōhime’s Hair Embroideries and the Transformation of the Female Body in Premodern Japan

The female body in medieval Japanese Buddhist texts was characterized as unenlightened and inherently polluted. While previous scholarship has shown that female devotees did not simply accept and internalize this exclusionary ideology, we do not fully understand the many creative ways in which women sidestepped the constraints of this discourse. One such method Japanese women used to expand their presence and exhibit their agency was through the creation of hair-embroidered Buddhist images. Women bundled together and stitched their hair into the most sacred parts of the image—the deity’s hair or robes and Sanskrit seed-syllables—as a means to accrue merit for themselves or for a loved one. This paper focuses on a set of embroidered Japanese Buddhist images said to incorporate the hair of Chūjōhime (753?CE–781?CE), a legendary aristocratic woman credited with attaining rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Chūjōhime’s hair embroideries served to show that women’s bodies could be transformed into miraculous materiality through corporeal devotional practices and served as evidence that women were capable of achieving enlightenment. This paper emphasizes materiality over iconography and practice over doctrine to explore new insights into Buddhist gendered ritual practices and draws together critical themes of materiality and agency in ways that resonate across cultures and time periods.

The Looping Structure of Buddhist Thought (Or, How Chan Buddhism Resolves the Quantum Measurement Problem)

Abstract Is there a world out there when nobody is looking? This is a question that medieval Buddhist scholiasts struggled with over many centuries, giving rise to a variety of competing positions. In this article, I identify a loop that runs through and structures seemingly antithetical positions—some realist, some antirealist—in these debates. My claim is that the loop is a feature of our lifeworld, and thus any serious reflection on the mind/world relationship is bound to get entangled in it. Even modern physics has come up against it, such that rival positions advanced by quantum theorists are structurally analogous to positions proffered in medieval Buddhist writings. I conclude by turning to the Chan Buddhist tradition, which is often mischaracterized as hostile to philosophical analysis. Chan is among the few Buddhist schools that recognize, foreground, and celebrate the manner in which mind and world enfold each other. As such, this paper foregrounds the decidedly philosophical insights of the Chan tradition.

China in medieval Indian imagination: “China”-inspired images in medieval South Asia

AbstractCross-cultural exchanges between India and China during the first millennium are often understood through a Buddhist lens; by investigating the impact of Indian Buddhist sources, be they literary, doctrinal, or artistic, to receiving Chinese communities. In these cultural transactions, instigated by traveling pilgrim-monks and enacted by imperial power players in China, India emerges as a remote, idealized, and perhaps “hollow” center. Imagined or real, the importance of images of India in medieval Chinese Buddhist landscape has been established beyond doubt. What seems to be missing in this unidirectional looking is the impact of these cultural communications in India. What were the Indian responses to Chinese Buddhists' demands and their physical presence? How was China imagined and translated in medieval India? This essay proposes to locate the activities of Chinese monks in India and the iconographies of China-inspired Indian Buddhist images within the larger historical context of shifting cultural and political geography of the medieval Buddhist world. By exploring different types of evidence from borderlands, vis-à-vis the monolithic concepts of China and India, the essay also complicates the China–India studies' comparative model.

Буддийская этика: концептуальные основы достойной деятельности

The doctrine of meritorious activity as an everyday practice of individual moral development is the center of Buddhist ethics. The topic of the paper comprises the conceptual basis of this activity as presented in the exegetic treatise «The Encyclopedia of Abhidharma» («Abhidharmakośa») ascribed to eminent medieval Indian Buddhist thinker Vasubandhu (4–5th centuries). Three forms of meritorious activity are analyzed here: giving, cultivation of benevolence to all sentient beings, virtuous action. Meritorious activity is treated as religious virtue. The basis for this interpretation is formed by the theory of karma (transcendental law of causality). Ethical aspect of the practice of giving deserves special attention. Canonical typology of giving’s having no religious virtue because of moral defectiveness of the giver is considered. The paper also presents the explication of virtuous action. According to this theory abstention from immoral actions must be supplied with the refusal of self-gratification.

Vasubandhu. [“The Great Compassion and the Perfections of All Buddhas”]. A Fragment of the Seventh Part of Abhidharmakośabhāṣya

The paper presents a commented translation of the fragment Jāna-nirdeśa (The doctrine of knowledge) from the seventh part of the exegetic compendium Abhidharmakośabhāya ascribed to the eminent medieval Buddhist thinker Vasubandhu (4th5th centuries AD). The fragment can be used as a historical source for the study of evolution of the image of the Buddha in post-Canonical treatises where the real Śakyamuni was invested with the attributes of a transcendental object of religious cult. The text explicates the conceptual differences between the great compassion (mahākāruā), treated as the Buddhas attribute, and compassion (kāruā) as a characteristic trait of enlightened ascetics (śravakas and pratyekabuddhas) and explains the postulate of identity of all buddhas perfections (the perfection of religious merits and knowledge, the perfection of the Dharmic body, the perfection of serving all sentient beings). This is the first translation based on the Sanskrit edition by P. Pradhan (Pradhan 1967: 414416).

Medieval Buddhism and Music

Medieval Buddhism and Music

PROGNOSTICATION IN CHINESE BUDDHIST HISTORICAL TEXTS THE GĀOSĒNG ZHUÀN AND THE XÙ GĀOSĒNG ZHUÀN

This paper explores topics and techniques of prognostication as recorded in medieval Buddhist historical literature, with an emphasis on theGāosēng zhuàn高僧傳 (GSZ) andXù gāosēng zhuàn續高僧傳 (XGSZ). The paper first provides a short survey of how prognostication is treated in Chinese Buddhist translated texts. In these ‘canonical’ sources there is clear ambiguity over the use of supernatural powers: on the one hand, such practices are criticised as non-Buddhist or even heterodox; on the other, narratives on Śākyamuni’s former and present lives as well as accounts of other buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the Buddha’s disciples abound with descriptions of their special abilities, including knowledge of the future. In contrast, the GSZ and XGSZ display a clear standpoint concerning mantic practices and include them as integral aspects of monastics’ lives. The two texts articulate that the ability to predict the future and other supernatural powers are natural by-products of spiritual progress in the Buddhist context. This paper discusses the incorporation of various aspects of the Indian and Chinese traditions in monastics’ biographies, and investigates the inclusion of revelations of future events (for example, in dreams) and mantic techniques in these texts. In addition, it traces parallels to developments in non-Buddhist literature and outlines some significant differences between the GSZ and the XGSZ.

Rebirth as an Animal in Early Medieval Buddhism and Daoism

Rebirth as an Animal in Early Medieval Buddhism and Daoism

Reading Medieval Buddhist Manuscripts: Thoughts on Text and Image

Reading Medieval Buddhist Manuscripts: Thoughts on Text and Image

Commoditization of the sacred: production and transaction of Buddhist statues in fifth- to tenth-century China

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the relationship between two seemingly opposite aspects of Buddhist statues: being both a sacred object and a commodity. By looking at their production and transaction processes, it examines how these medieval Buddhist statues were ‘singularized’ and ‘commoditized,’ as well as the activities of different social groups in relation to them. This article intends to shed some new light on the roles played by ‘sacred objects’ in medieval Chinese society, through studying how people actually perceived and interacted with them in diverse ways. It is suggested that the ambiguity of the nature of these statues – being both singular and common, sacred and commercial – entailed a host of new religious and economic practices which contributed to the wide spread of the religion in medieval China.