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Philosopher Practitioner Politician The Many Lives Of Fazang 643 712
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Book Synopsis Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician by : Jinhua Chen
Download or read book Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician written by Jinhua Chen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddhist master Fazang is regarded as one of the greatest metaphysicians in medieval Asia. This study aims at correcting misinterpretations and shedding light on neglected areas, opening up for discussion the various structures of medieval East Asian monastic biography.
Book Synopsis Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: the Many Lives of Fazang (643-712) by : Jinhua Chen
Download or read book Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: the Many Lives of Fazang (643-712) written by Jinhua Chen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddhist monk Fazang (643-712), regarded today mainly as a scholastic monk, was in fact one of the greatest metaphysicians in Asia. This biographical - and hagiographical - study of Fazang seeks to explore his other contributions and in so doing to correct some major mis-presentations and misinterpretations existing in modern scholarship. It highlights and uncovers aspects of Fazang’s complicated life which have been neglected or ignored until now. By experimenting with some methodological innovations in reading medieval Chinese monastic hagio-biography, this study reveals general features, structures and overall governing laws of medieval East Asian monastic hagio-biographic literature. In doing so it is a major contribution to the ongoing discussion among scholars of hagiography in other contexts as well.
Book Synopsis Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy by : Youru Wang
Download or read book Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy written by Youru Wang and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too often Buddhism has been subjected to the Procrustean box of western thought, whereby it is stretched to fit fixed categories or had essential aspects lopped off to accommodate vastly different cultural norms and aims. After several generations of scholarly discussion in English-speaking communities, it is time to move to the next hermeneutical stage. Buddhist philosophy must be liberated from the confines of a quasi-religious stereotype and judged on its own merits. Hence this work will approach Chinese Buddhism as a philosophical tradition in its own right, not as an historical after-thought nor as an occasion for comparative discussions that assume the west alone sets the standards for or is the origin of philosophy and its methodologies. Viewed within their own context, Chinese Buddhist philosophers have much to contribute to a wide range of philosophical concerns, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion, even though Western divisions of philosophy may not exhaust the rich contents of Chinese Buddhist philosophy. .
Book Synopsis The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang by : Mary Anne Cartelli
Download or read book The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang written by Mary Anne Cartelli and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-12-07 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang, Mary Anne Cartelli examines a set of poems from the Dunhuang manuscripts about Mount Wutai, the most sacred mountain in Chinese Buddhism. Dating from the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, they reflect the mountain’s transformation into the home of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, and provide important literary evidence for the development of Buddhism in China. This interdisciplinary study analyzes the poems using Buddhist scriptures and pilgrimage records, as well as the contemporaneous wall-painting of Mount Wutai in Dunhuang cave 61. The poems demonstrate how the mountain was created as a sacred Buddhist space, as their motifs reflect the cosmology associated with the mountain by the Tang dynasty, and they vividly portray the experience of the pilgrim traveling through a divinely empowered landscape.
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.
Book Synopsis Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism by : April D. Hughes
Download or read book Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism written by April D. Hughes and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although scholars have long assumed that early Chinese political authority was rooted in Confucianism, rulership in the medieval period was not bound by a single dominant tradition. To acquire power, emperors deployed objects and figures derived from a range of traditions imbued with religious and political significance. Author April D. Hughes demonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690–705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581–604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule. During periods of upheaval caused by the decline of the Dharma, worldly saviors arrived on earth to quell chaos and to rule and liberate their subjects simultaneously. By incorporating these figures into the imperial system, sovereigns were able to depict themselves both as monarchs and as buddhas or bodhisattvas in uncertain times. In this inventive and original work, Hughes traces worldly saviors—in particular Maitreya Buddha and Prince Moonlight—as they appeared in apocalyptic scriptures from Dunhuang, claims to the throne made by various rebel leaders, and textual interpretations and assertions by Yang Jian and Wu Zhao. Yang Jian associated himself with Prince Moonlight and took on the persona of a Wheel-Turning King whose offerings to the Buddha were not flowers and incense but weapons of war to reunite a long-fragmented empire and revitalize the Dharma. Wu Zhao was associated with several different worldly savior figures. In addition, she saw herself as the incarnation of a Wheel-Turning King for whom it was said the Seven Treasures manifested as material representations of his right to rule. Wu Zhao duly had the Seven Treasures created and put on display whenever she held audiences at court. The worldly savior figure allowed rulers to inhabit the highest role in the religious realm along with the supreme role in the political sphere. This incorporation transformed notions of Chinese imperial sovereignty, and associating rulers with a buddha or bodhisattva continued long after the close of the medieval period.
Book Synopsis Buddhism and the Political Process by : Hiroko Kawanami
Download or read book Buddhism and the Political Process written by Hiroko Kawanami and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the impact of Buddhism on the political process of Asian countries in recent times. The intersection between Buddhism and politics; religious authority and political power is explored through the engagement of Buddhist monks and lay activists in the process of nation-building, development, and implementation of democracy.
Book Synopsis The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel by :
Download or read book The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The matter of saṃgha-state relations is of central importance to both the political and the religious history of China. The volume The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel brings together, for the first time, articles relating to this field covering a time span from the early Tang until the Qing dynasty. In order to portray also the remarkable thematic diversity of the field, each of the articles not only refers to a different time but also discusses a different aspect of the subject. Contributors include: Chris Atwood, Chen Jinhua, Max Deeg, Barend ter Haar, Thomas Jülch, Albert Welter and Zhang Dewei.
Book Synopsis Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third-Century AD China by : Howard L. Goodman
Download or read book Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third-Century AD China written by Howard L. Goodman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of the court scholar Xun Xu explores central areas of intellectual life in third-century China — court lyrics, music, metrology, pitch systems, archeology, and historiography. It clarifies the relevant source texts in order to reveal fierce debates. Besides solving technical puzzles about the material details of court rites, the book unfolds factional struggles that developed into scholarly ones. Xun’s opponents were major figures like Zhang Hua and Zhi Yu. Xun Xu’s overall approach to antiquity and the derivation of truth made appeals to an idealized Zhou for authority. Ultimately, Xun’s precision and methods cost him both reputation and court status. The events mark a turning point in which ideals were moving away from such court constructs toward a relatively more philosophical antiquarianism and towards new terms and genres of self-expression.
Book Synopsis Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought by : King Pong Chiu
Download or read book Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought written by King Pong Chiu and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-06-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought, King Pong Chiu discusses Thomé H. Fang and Tang Junyi, two of the most important Confucian thinkers in twentieth-century China, who appropriated aspects of the medieval Chinese Buddhist school of Huayan to develop a response to the challenges of ‘scientism’, the belief that quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth. As Chiu argues, Fang’s and Tang’s selective appropriations of Huayan thought paid heed to the hermeneutical importance of studying ancient texts in order to be more responsive to modern issues, and helped confirm the values of Confucianism under the challenge of ‘scientism’, a topic widely ignored in academia.
Book Synopsis Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers by : N. Harry Rothschild
Download or read book Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu, is the only woman to have ruled China as emperor over the course of its 5,000-year history. How did she—in a predominantly patriarchal and androcentric society—ascend the dragon throne? Exploring a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries, this multifaceted history suggests that China's rich pantheon of female divinities and eminent women played an integral part in the construction of Wu Zhao's sovereignty. Wu Zhao deftly deployed language, symbol, and ideology to harness the cultural resonance, maternal force, divine energy, and historical weight of Buddhist devis, Confucian exemplars, Daoist immortals, and mythic goddesses, establishing legitimacy within and beyond the confines of Confucian ideology. Tapping into powerful subterranean reservoirs of female power, Wu Zhao built a pantheon of female divinities carefully calibrated to meet her needs at court. Her pageant was promoted in scripted rhetoric, reinforced through poetry, celebrated in theatrical productions, and inscribed on steles. Rendered with deft political acumen and aesthetic flair, these affiliations significantly enhanced Wu Zhao's authority and cast her as the human vessel through which the pantheon's divine energy flowed. Her strategy is a model of political brilliance and proof that medieval Chinese women enjoyed a more complex social status than previously known.
Book Synopsis Religious Individualisation by : Martin Fuchs
Download or read book Religious Individualisation written by Martin Fuchs and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 1086 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together key findings of the long-term research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ (Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University). Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in different religious environments and historical periods, in particular in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past. Contrary to standard theories of modernisation, which tend to regard religious individualisation as a specifically modern or early modern as well as an essentially Western or Christian phenomenon, the chapters reveal processes of religious individualisation in a large variety of non-Western and pre-modern scenarios. Furthermore, the volume challenges prevalent views that regard religions primarily as collective phenomena and provides nuanced perspectives on the appropriation of religious agency, the pluralisation of religious options, dynamics of de-traditionalisation and privatisation, the development of elaborated notions of the self, the facilitation of religious deviance, and on the notion of dividuality.
Book Synopsis Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China by : N. Harry Rothschild
Download or read book Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China presents a rogues’ gallery of treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, and disloyal officials. It plumbs the dark matter of the human condition, placing front and center transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. The work endeavors to apprehend the actions and motivations of these men and women, whose conduct deviated from normative social, cultural, and religious expectations. Early chapters examine how core Confucian bonds such as those between parents and children, and ruler and minister, were compromised, even severed. The living did not always reverently pay homage to the dead, children did not honor their parents with due filiality, a decorous distance was not necessarily observed between sons and stepmothers, and subjects often pursued their own interests before those of the ruler or the state. The elasticity of ritual and social norms is explored: Chapters on brazen Eastern Han (25–220) mourners and deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang (618–907) Buddhist monks, and drunken Song (960–1279) literati reveal social norms treated not as universal truths but as debated questions of taste wherein political and social expedience both determined and highlighted individual roles within larger social structures and defined what was and was not aberrant. A Confucian predilection to “valorize [the] civil and disparage the martial” and Buddhist proscriptions on killing led literati and monks alike to condemn the cruelty and chaos of war. The book scrutinizes cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare, including those surrounding the bloody and capricious world of the Zuozhuan (Chronicle of Zuo), the relentless violence of the Five Dynasties and Ten States periods (907–979), and the exploits of Tang warrior priests—a series of studies that complicates the rhetoric by situating it within the turbulent realities of the times. By the end of this volume, readers will come away with the understanding that behaving badly in early and medieval China was not about morality but perspective, politics, and power.
Book Synopsis Cultural Pragmatism for US-China Relations by : Charles Chao Rong Phua
Download or read book Cultural Pragmatism for US-China Relations written by Charles Chao Rong Phua and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Thucydides trap and a US-China face-off are not structurally inevitable; US-China relations are what the US and China make of them. Phua focuses on the ability to see "US as US" and "China as China" to trigger both countries’ cultural tendencies towards pragmatism. Phua examines China’s arduous journey to fit in the Westphalian system, the deep cultural misunderstandings by the West of Sunzi’s The Art of War, and attempts to offer an inside-out cultural synthesis of classical and modern Chinese thought as a proxy of their operational code, beyond the standard clichés about Confucian and Daoist thought. He builds on Jervis’ perception and misperception as well as Alastair Johnston’s cultural realism. Readers will benefit from a culturally-Chinese, western-educated and politically neutral understanding of "China as China". An essential primer for academics, practitioners and students of international relations, diplomacy and Chinese culture.
Book Synopsis The Moon Points Back by : Koji Tanaka
Download or read book The Moon Points Back written by Koji Tanaka and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Moon Points Back investigates central areas of Buddhist philosophy -- most importantly the notion of emptiness (sunyata) -- using the techniques of contemporary analytic philosophy and logic. The volume's approach allows for novel understandings and insights of these areas, showing how Buddhist philosophers can engage with debates in contemporary Western philosophy.
Book Synopsis Heidegger and Dao by : Eric S. Nelson
Download or read book Heidegger and Dao written by Eric S. Nelson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative contribution, Eric S. Nelson offers a contextualized and systematic exploration of the Chinese sources and German language interpretations that shaped Heidegger's engagement with Daoism and his thinking of the thing, nothingness, and the freedom of releasement (Gelassenheit). Encompassing forgotten and recently published historical sources, including Heidegger's Daoist and Buddhist-related reflections in his lectures and notebooks, Nelson presents a critical intercultural reinterpretation of Heidegger's philosophical journey. Nelson analyzes the intersections and differences between the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and Heidegger's philosophy and the linguistic and conceptual shifts in Heidegger's thinking that correlate with his encounters and interactions with Daoist, Buddhist, and East Asian texts and interlocutors. He thereby traces hints for encountering things and environments anew, models for intercultural hermeneutics, and ways of reimagining the thing, nothingness, and freedom with and beyond Heidegger's thought. This work elucidates the thing, the mystery, and freedom in Heidegger and Daoism in Part I and Heidegger's thinking of nothingness, emptiness, and the clearing in relation to Daoist and Buddhist philosophy in Part II. In each part, Nelson unfolds a fresh perspective for thinking further with Heidegger and East Asian philosophies in relation to the contemporary existential and environmental situation for the sake of nourishing life amidst damaged life.
Book Synopsis The Huayan University Network by : Erik J. Hammerstrom
Download or read book The Huayan University Network written by Erik J. Hammerstrom and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twentieth century, Chinese Buddhists sought to strengthen their tradition through publications, institution building, and initiatives aimed at raising the educational level of the monastic community. In The Huayan University Network, Erik J. Hammerstrom examines how Huayan Buddhism was imagined, taught, and practiced during this time of profound political and social change and, in so doing, recasts the history of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. Hammerstrom traces the influence of Huayan University, the first Buddhist monastic school founded after the fall of the imperial system in China. Although the university lasted only a few years, its graduates went on to establish a number of Huayan-centered educational programs throughout China. While they did not create a new sectarian Huayan movement, they did form a network unified by a common educational heritage that persists to the present day. Drawing on an extensive range of Buddhist texts and periodicals, Hammerstrom shows that Huayan had a significant impact on Chinese Buddhist thought and practice and that the history of Huayan complicates narratives of twentieth-century Buddhist modernization and revival. Offering a wide range of insights into the teaching and practice of Huayan in Republican China, this book sheds new light on an essential but often overlooked element of the East Asian Buddhist tradition.
