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Living Buddhist Statues In Early Medieval And Modern Japan
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Book Synopsis Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan by : S. Horton
Download or read book Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan written by S. Horton and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the surprising functions of Buddhist statues, which helped disseminate Buddhist beliefs among the populace in Tenth- and Eleventh-century Japan. Using ethnographic data drawn from present-day fieldwork and marshalling ancient textual evidence, Horton reveals the historical origins and development of modern Japanese beliefs and practices.
Book Synopsis Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan by : S. Horton
Download or read book Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan written by S. Horton and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-10-19 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the surprising functions of Buddhist statues, which helped disseminate Buddhist beliefs among the populace in Tenth- and Eleventh-century Japan. Using ethnographic data drawn from present-day fieldwork and marshalling ancient textual evidence, Horton reveals the historical origins and development of modern Japanese beliefs and practices.
Book Synopsis Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism by : Jacqueline I. Stone
Download or read book Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism written by Jacqueline I. Stone and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-08-20 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in this volume, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two essays. Sarah Horton traces the development in Heian Japan (794–1185) of images depicting the Buddha Amida descending to welcome devotees at the moment of death, while Jacqueline Stone analyzes the crucial role of monks who attended the dying as religious guides. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four essays. Brian Ruppert examines the roles of relic worship in strengthening family lineage and political power; Mark Blum investigates the controversial issue of religious suicide to rejoin one’s teacher in the Pure Land; and Hank Glassman analyzes how late medieval rites for women who died in pregnancy and childbirth both reflected and helped shape changing gender norms. The rise of standardized funerals in Japan’s early modern period forms the subject of the chapter by Duncan Williams, who shows how the Soto Zen sect took the lead in establishing itself in rural communities by incorporating local religious culture into its death rites. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. Mariko Walter uncovers a "deep structure" informing Japanese Buddhist funerals across sectarian lines—a structure whose meaning, she argues, persists despite competition from a thriving secular funeral industry. Stephen Covell examines debates over the practice of conferring posthumous Buddhist names on the deceased and the threat posed to traditional Buddhist temples by changing ideas about funerals and the afterlife. Finally, George Tanabe shows how contemporary Buddhist sectarian intellectuals attempt to resolve conflicts between normative doctrine and on-the-ground funerary practice, and concludes that human affection for the deceased will always win out over the demands of orthodoxy. Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date. Contributors: Mark L. Blum, Stephen G. Covell, Hank Glassman, Sarah Johanna Horton, Brian O. Ruppert, Jacqueline I. Stone, George J. Tanabe, Jr., Mariko Namba Walter, Duncan Ryuken Williams.
Book Synopsis Modern Japan, Student Economy Edition by : Mikiso Hane
Download or read book Modern Japan, Student Economy Edition written by Mikiso Hane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the essential facts of modern Japanese history. It covers a variety of important developments through the 1990s, giving special consideration to how traditional Japanese modes of thought and behavior have affected the recent developments.
Download or read book Kamakura written by Ive Covaci and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catalog of the exhibition at the Asia Society Museum, New York, February 9-May 8, 2016.
Download or read book Modern Japan written by Mikiso Hane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrating political events with cultural, economic, and intellectual movements, Modern Japan provides a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history. A summary of Japan's early history, emphasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present. The fifth edition of Modern Japan is updated throughout to include the latest information on Japan's international relations, including secret diplomatic correspondence recently disclosed on WikiLeaks. This edition brings Japanese history up to date in the post 9/11 era, detailing current issues such as: the impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations, the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear accident, the recent tumultuous change of political leadership, and Japan's current economic and global status. An updated chronological chart, list of prime ministers, and bibliography are also included.
Book Synopsis The Nomadic Object by : Christine Göttler
Download or read book The Nomadic Object written by Christine Göttler and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the sixteenth century, the notion of world was dramatically being reshaped, leaving no aspect of human experience untouched. The Nomadic Object: The Challenge of World for Early Modern Religious Art examines how sacred art and artefacts responded to the demands of a world stage in the age of reform. Essays by leading scholars explore how religious objects resulting from cross-cultural contact defied national and confessional categories and were re-contextualised in a global framework via their collection, exchange, production, management, and circulation. In dialogue with current discourses, papers address issues of idolatry, translation, materiality, value, and the agency of networks. The Nomadic Object demonstrates the significance of religious systems, from overseas logistics to philosophical underpinnings, for a global art history. Contributors are: Akira Akiyama, James Clifton, Jeffrey L. Collins, Ralph Dekoninck, Dagmar Eichberger, Beate Fricke, Christine Göttler, Christiane Hille, Margit Kern, Dipti Khera, Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato, Urte Krass, Evonne Levy, Meredith Martin, Walter S. Melion, Mia M. Mochizuki, Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Rose Marie San Juan, Denise-Marie Teece, Tristan Weddigen, and Ines G. Županov.
Book Synopsis Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity by : Bardwell L. Smith
Download or read book Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity written by Bardwell L. Smith and published by . This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bardwell L. Smith offers a fresh perspective on mizuko kuyo, the Japanese ceremony performed to bring solace to those who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Showing how old and new forms of myth, symbol, doctrine, praxis, and organization combine and overlap in contemporary mizuko kuyo, Smith provides critical insight from many angles: the sociology of the family, the power of the medical profession, the economics of temples, the import of ancestral connections, the need for healing in both private and communal ways and, perhaps above all, the place of women in modern Japanese religion. At the heart of Smith's research is the issue of how human beings experience the death of a life that has been and remains precious to them. While universal, these losses are also personal and unique. The role of society in helping people to heal from these experiences varies widely and has changed enormously in recent decades. In examples of grieving for these kinds of losses one finds narratives not only of deep sorrow but of remarkable dignity.
Author :Alain Arrault Publisher :The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press ISBN 13 :9882371051 Total Pages :260 pages Book Rating :4.8/5 (823 download)
Book Synopsis A History of Cultic Images in China by : Alain Arrault
Download or read book A History of Cultic Images in China written by Alain Arrault and published by The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past twenty years, work on the local culture of central Hunan has been one of the most exciting sources for rethinking the nature and variety of Chinese local society. At the heart of this society is a kind of statuary found nowhere else in China--sculpted images of local people, primarily religious specialists of a wide range, but also parents and ancestors who, according to Confucian orthodoxy, should be represented by tablets, not statues. While the consecration ceremonies of these statues include rites that are common to all China, they are embedded in unique local ritual traditions. Based on two decades of international collaborative research, Alain Arrault focuses on some 4,000 of these statues and studies them on the basis of consecration certificates inserted in the statues, the earliest of which date to the sixteenth century.
Book Synopsis Buddhism and Iconoclasm in East Asia by : Fabio Rambelli
Download or read book Buddhism and Iconoclasm in East Asia written by Fabio Rambelli and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a cross-cultural study of the multifaceted relations between Buddhism, its materiality, and instances of religious violence and destruction in East Asia, which remains a vast and still largely unexplored field of inquiry. Material objects are extremely important not just for Buddhist practice, but also for the conceptualization of Buddhist doctrines; yet, Buddhism developed ambivalent attitudes towards such need for objects, and an awareness that even the most sacred objects could be destroyed. After outlining Buddhist attitudes towards materiality and its vulnerability, the authors propose a different and more inclusive definition of iconoclasm-a notion that is normally not employed in discussions of East Asian religions. Case studies of religious destruction in East Asia are presented, together with a new theoretical framework drawn from semiotics and cultural studies, to address more general issues related to cultural value, sacredness, and destruction, in an attempt to understand instances in which the status and the meaning of the sacred in any given culture is questioned, contested, and ultimately denied, and how religious institutions react to those challenges.
Book Synopsis Behold the Buddha by : James C. Dobbins
Download or read book Behold the Buddha written by James C. Dobbins and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Images of the Buddha are everywhere—not just in temples but also in museums and homes and online—but what these images mean largely depends on the background and circumstance of those viewing them. In Behold the Buddha, James Dobbins invites readers to imagine how premodern Japanese Buddhists understood and experienced icons in temple settings long before the advent of museums and the internet. Although widely portrayed in the last century as visual emblems of great religious truths or as exquisite works of Asian art, Buddhist images were traditionally treated as the very embodiment of the Buddha, his palpable presence among people. Hence, Buddhists approached them as living entities in their own right—that is, as awakened icons with whom they could interact religiously. Dobbins begins by reflecting on art museums, where many non-Buddhists first encounter images of the Buddha, before outlining the complex Western response to them in previous centuries. He next elucidates images as visual representations of the story of the Buddha’s life followed by an overview of the physical attributes and symbolic gestures found in Buddhist iconography. A variety of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other divinities commonly depicted in Japanese Buddhism is introduced, and their “living” quality discussed in the context of traditional temples and Buddhist rituals. Finally, other religious objects in Japanese Buddhism—relics, scriptures, inscriptions, portraits of masters, and sacred sites—are explained using the Buddhist icon as a model. Dobbins concludes by contemplating art museums further as potential sites for discerning the religious character of Buddhist images. Those interested in Buddhism generally who would like to learn more about its rich iconography—whether encountered in temples or museums—will find much in this concise, well-illustrated volume to help them “behold the Buddha.”
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts by : Frank Burch Brown
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts written by Frank Burch Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers 37 original essays from leading scholars on the crucial topics, issues, methods, and resources for studying and teaching religion and the arts.
Book Synopsis Materiality in Religion and Culture by : Saburo Shawn Morishita
Download or read book Materiality in Religion and Culture written by Saburo Shawn Morishita and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2017 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the significance of the material dimensions of religion and culture. By looking at how scholars have researched religious materiality in the past, and focusing especially upon the variety of ways objects are handled in contemporary religious life, the reader will discover some insight into the interplay between the material and the immaterial. Case studies analyze the use of things in rituals and sacred places as well as ways in which they are appropriated for religious and academic instruction. The book attempts to reinterpret what the materiality in religion and culture might signify in light of multidisciplinary methodological approaches and helps to gain some ground on the abstract perspective of religions. (Series: Marburg Religious Science in Discourse / Marburger Religionswissenschaft im Diskurs, Vol. 2) [Subject: Religious Studies, Sociology]
Book Synopsis A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism by : William E. Deal
Download or read book A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism written by William E. Deal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism offers a comprehensive, nuanced, and chronological account of the evolution of Buddhist religion in Japan from the sixth century to the present day. Traces each period of Japanese history to reveal the complex and often controversial histories of Japanese Buddhists and their unfolding narratives Examines relevant social, political, and transcultural contexts, and places an emphasis on Japanese Buddhist discourses and material culture Addresses the increasing competition between Buddhist, Shinto, and Neo-Confucian world-views through to the mid-nineteenth century Informed by the most recent research, including the latest Japanese and Western scholarship Illustrates the richness and complexity of Japanese Buddhism as a lived religion, offering readers a glimpse into the development of this complex and often misunderstood tradition
Book Synopsis Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan by : Robert F. Rhodes
Download or read book Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan written by Robert F. Rhodes and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ōjōyōshū, written by the monk Genshin (942–1017), is one of the most important texts in the history of Japanese religions. It is the first comprehensive guide to the doctrine and practice of Pure Land Buddhism written in Japan and so played a pivotal role in establishing this form of Buddhism in the country. In Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan, the first book in English on the Ōjōyōshū in more than forty years, Robert F. Rhodes draws on the latest scholarship to shed new light on the text, its author, and the tumultuous age in which it was written. Rhodes begins by providing substantial discussion on the development of Pure Land Buddhism before the Ōjōyōshū’s appearance and a thorough account of Genshin’s life, the full details of which have never before been available in English. Japan in the tenth century was marked by far-reaching political, social, and economic change, all of which had a significant effect on religion, including the emergence of numerous new religious movements in Kyoto. Pure Land was the most popular of these, and the faith embraced by the Tendai scholar Genshin when he became disaffected with the growing factionalism at Enrakuji, Tendai’s central temple. A significant portion of Rhodes’ study is a wide-ranging examination of the Ōjōyōshū’s Pure Land teachings in which he describes and analyzes Genshin’s interpretations of Pure Land cosmology and nenbutsu practice. For Genshin the latter encompassed an extensive range of practices for focusing the mind on Amida Buddha—from the simple recitation of Namu Amidabutsu (“recitative nenbutsu”) to the advanced meditative practice of visualizing the buddha (“meditative nenbutsu”). According to the Ōjōyōshū, all of these are effective means for ensuring birth in Amida’s Pure Land. This impressively researched and updated treatment of the formative text in the Japanese Pure Land tradition will be welcomed by all scholars and students of Japanese religions. It also offers a fascinating window into Heian (794–1185) religious life, which will be of interest to anyone concerned with medieval Japan.
Book Synopsis Right Thoughts at the Last Moment by : Jacqueline I. Stone
Download or read book Right Thoughts at the Last Moment written by Jacqueline I. Stone and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhists across Asia have often aspired to die with a clear and focused mind, as the historical Buddha himself is said to have done. This book explores how the ideal of dying with right mindfulness was appropriated, disseminated, and transformed in premodern Japan, focusing on the late tenth through early fourteenth centuries. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha in one’s last moments, it was said even an ignorant and sinful person could escape the cycle of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in a buddha’s pure land, where liberation would be assured. Conversely, the slightest mental distraction at that final juncture could send even a devout practitioner tumbling down into the hells or other miserable rebirth realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could act as religious guides at the deathbed. Buddhist death management in Japan has been studied chiefly from the standpoint of funerals and mortuary rites. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment investigates a largely untold side of that story: how early medieval Japanese prepared for death, and how desire for ritual assistance in one’s last hours contributed to Buddhist preeminence in death-related matters. It represents the first book-length study in a Western language to examine how the Buddhist ideal of mindful death was appropriated in a specific historical context. Practice for one’s last hours occupied the intersections of multiple, often disparate approaches that Buddhism offered for coping with death. Because they crossed sectarian lines and eventually permeated all social levels, deathbed practices afford insights into broader issues in medieval Japanese religion, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals. They also allow us to see beyond the categories of “old” versus “new” Buddhism, or establishment Buddhism versus marginal heterodoxies, which have characterized much scholarship to date. Enlivened by cogent examples, this study draws on a wealth of sources including ritual instructions, hagiographies, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, courtier diaries, historical records, letters, and relevant art historical material to explore the interplay of doctrinal ideals and on-the-ground practice.
Download or read book Buddhisms written by John S. Strong and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism or Buddhisms? By the time they move on to Buddhism in Japan, many students who have studied its origins in India ask whether this is in fact the same religion, so different can they appear. In Buddhisms: An Introduction, Professor John S. Strong provides an overview of the Buddhist tradition in all its different forms around the world. Beginning at the modern day temples of Lumbini, where the Buddha was born, Strong takes us through the life of the Buddha and a study of Buddhist Doctrine, revealing how Buddhism has changed just as it has stayed the same. Finally, Strong examines the nature of Buddhist community life and its development today in the very different environments of Thailand, Japan, and Tibet. Enriched by the author’s own insights gathered over forty years, Buddhisms never loses sight of the personal experience amidst the wide-scope of its subject. Clear in its explanations, replete with tables and suggestions for further reading, this is an essential new work that makes original contributions to the study of this 2,500 year-old religion.
