Studies In Japanese Buddhism Scholars Choice Edition

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Studies in Japanese Buddhism - Scholar's Choice Edition

Author : August Karl Reischauer
Publisher : Scholar's Choice
ISBN 13 : 9781296130480
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Studies in Japanese Buddhism - Scholar's Choice Edition by : August Karl Reischauer

Download or read book Studies in Japanese Buddhism - Scholar's Choice Edition written by August Karl Reischauer and published by Scholar's Choice. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism

Author : Mark L. Blum
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195132750
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

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Book Synopsis Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism by : Mark L. Blum

Download or read book Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism written by Mark L. Blum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rennyo Shonin (1415-1499) is considered the 'second founder' of Shin Buddhism. This book deals with the major questions surrounding the phenomenal growth of Hongaji under Rennyo's leadership, such as the source of charisma, the soteriological implications of his thought against the background of other movements in Pure Land Buddhism, and more.

Buddhism and Modernity

Author : Orion Klautau
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824884582
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Buddhism and Modernity by : Orion Klautau

Download or read book Buddhism and Modernity written by Orion Klautau and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan was the first Asian nation to face the full impact of modernity. Like the rest of Japanese society, Buddhist institutions, individuals, and thought were drawn into the dynamics of confronting the modern age. Japanese Buddhism had to face multiple challenges, but it also contributed to modern Japanese society in numerous ways. Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan makes accessible the voices of Japanese Buddhists during the early phase of high modernity. The volume offers original translations of key texts—many available for the first time in English—by central actors in Japan’s transition to the modern era, including the works of Inoue Enryō, Gesshō, Hara Tanzan, Shimaji Mokurai, Kiyozawa Manshi, Murakami Senshō, Tanaka Chigaku, and Shaku Sōen. All of these writers are well recognized by Buddhist studies scholars and Japanese historians but have drawn little attention elsewhere; this stands in marked contrast to the reception of Japanese Buddhism since D. T. Suzuki, the towering figure of Japanese Zen in the first half of the twentieth century. The present book fills the chronological gap between the premodern era and the twentieth century by focusing on the crucial transition period of the nineteenth century. Issues central to the interaction of Japanese Buddhism with modernity inform the five major parts of the work: sectarian reform, the nation, science and philosophy, social reform, and Japan and Asia. Throughout the chapters, the globally entangled dimension—both in relation to the West, especially the direct and indirect impact of Christianity, and to Buddhist Asia—is of great importance. The Introduction emphasizes not only how Japanese Buddhism was part of a broader, globally shared reaction of religions to the specific challenges of modernity, but also goes into great detail in laying out the specifics of the Japanese case.

A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism

Author : William E. Deal
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118608313
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (186 download)

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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

Gleanings in Buddha-Fields

Author : Lafcadio Hearn
Publisher : Scholar's Choice
ISBN 13 : 9781298172969
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (729 download)

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Book Synopsis Gleanings in Buddha-Fields by : Lafcadio Hearn

Download or read book Gleanings in Buddha-Fields written by Lafcadio Hearn and published by Scholar's Choice. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Studies in Japanese Buddhism

Author : August Karl Reischauer
Publisher : Literary Licensing, LLC
ISBN 13 : 9781498057141
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (571 download)

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Book Synopsis Studies in Japanese Buddhism by : August Karl Reischauer

Download or read book Studies in Japanese Buddhism written by August Karl Reischauer and published by Literary Licensing, LLC. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Is A New Release Of The Original 1917 Edition.

Studies in Japanese Buddhism

Author : August Karl Reischauer
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781440062612
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (626 download)

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Book Synopsis Studies in Japanese Buddhism by : August Karl Reischauer

Download or read book Studies in Japanese Buddhism written by August Karl Reischauer and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Studies in Japanese Buddhism The present volume contains the seventh course of lectures offered by New York University upon the foundation known as the Charles F. Deems Lectureship of Philosophy. The University contracted April 15, 1895, with the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, a corporation chartered December 1, 1891, that the University would maintain said lectureship for at least twenty years by securing biennially a Lecturer, eminent in Science and Philosophy, who should treat in not less than six lectures some one of the most important questions of Science and Philosophy, with a special reference to its relation to the revealed truths of the Holy Scriptures and to the fundamental principles of Theistic Philosophy. The Lecturer was to be chosen by the University's Committee upon the Charles F. Deems Lectureship, which was to consist of the Chancellor of the University, two members of the Faculty of Arts and Science and two members of the University Council, to be named as the Council may direct. The subject for each year's lectures was to be agreed upon between this Committee and the Lecturer. The University provided, free of charge, a room for the lectures, and at its own expense, made due public announcement of the time and place of each lecture. The University was to publish, in book form, each series of lectures, and put the same on sale with one or more reputable book firms, provided this could be done without further expense than could be met by the accumulation of income over and above the expense of maintaining the lectures. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Author : Jacqueline I. Stone
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824827717
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (277 download)

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Book Synopsis Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism by : Jacqueline I. Stone

Download or read book Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism written by Jacqueline I. Stone and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-05-31 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist intellectual circles throughout Japan’s medieval period. Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true aspect, every activity of daily life—eating, sleeping, even one’s deluded thinking—is the Buddha’s conduct. Emerging from within the powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were appropriated by a number of Buddhist traditions and influenced nascent theories about the kami (local deities) as well as medieval aesthetics and the literary and performing arts. Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan’s medieval period. Jacqueline Stone’s groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched notions of “corruption” in the medieval Buddhist establishment. Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into question both overly facile distinctions between “old” and “new” Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era (1185–1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese religion and culture. Stone argues that “original enlightenment thought” represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between “old” and “new” institutions and was particularly characteristic of the medieval period.

A History of Japanese Buddhism

Author : Kenji Matsuo
Publisher : Global Oriental
ISBN 13 : 9004213317
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Japanese Buddhism by : Kenji Matsuo

Download or read book A History of Japanese Buddhism written by Kenji Matsuo and published by Global Oriental. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first major study in English on Japanese Buddhism by one of Japan’s most distinguished scholars in the field of Religious Studies is to be widely welcomed.The main focus of the work is on the tradition of the monk (o-bo-san) as the main agent of Buddhism, together with the historical processes by which monks have developed Japanese Buddhism as it appears in the present day.

Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume IV

Author : Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520976673
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume IV by : Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Download or read book Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume IV written by Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daisetsu Teitar? ̄ Suzuki was a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many outside Japan encountered Buddhism for the first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy have contributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. This fourth volume of Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki brings together a range of Suzuki’s writings in the area of Buddhist studies. Based on his text-critical work in the Chinese canon, these essays reflect his commitment to clarifying Mahayana Buddhist doctrines in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese historical contexts. Many of these innovative writings reflect Buddhological discourse in contemporary Japan and the West’s pre-war ignorance of Mahayana thought. Included is a translation into English for the first time of his "Mahayana Was Not Preached by Buddha." In addition to editing the essays and contributing the translation, Mark L. Blum presents an introduction that examines how Suzuki understood Mahayana discourse via Chinese sources and analyzes his problematic use of Sanskrit.

Critical Buddhism

Author : James Mark Shields
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317157605
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Critical Buddhism by : James Mark Shields

Download or read book Critical Buddhism written by James Mark Shields and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the relative calm world of Japanese Buddhist scholarship was thrown into chaos with the publication of several works by Buddhist scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, dedicated to the promotion of something they called Critical Buddhism (hihan bukkyo). In their quest to re-establish a "true" - rational, ethical and humanist - form of East Asian Buddhism, the Critical Buddhists undertook a radical deconstruction of historical and contemporary East Asian Buddhism, particularly Zen. While their controversial work has received some attention in English-language scholarship, this is the first book-length treatment of Critical Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious movement, where the lines between scholarship and practice blur. Providing a critical and constructive analysis of Critical Buddhism, particularly the epistemological categories of critica and topica, this book examines contemporary theories of knowledge and ethics in order to situate Critical Buddhism within modern Japanese and Buddhist thought as well as in relation to current trends in contemporary Western thought.

Pure Land, Real World

Author : Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 082485778X
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Pure Land, Real World by : Melissa Anne-Marie Curley

Download or read book Pure Land, Real World written by Melissa Anne-Marie Curley and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For close to a thousand years Amida’s Pure Land, a paradise of perfect ease and equality, was the most powerful image of shared happiness circulating in the Japanese imagination. In the late nineteenth century, some Buddhist thinkers sought to reinterpret the Pure Land in ways that would allow it speak to modern Japan. Their efforts succeeded in ways they could not have predicted. During the war years, economist Kawakami Hajime, philosopher Miki Kiyoshi, and historian Ienaga Saburō—left-leaning thinkers with no special training in doctrinal studies and no strong connection to any Buddhist institution—seized upon modernized images of Shinran in exile and a transcendent Western Paradise to resist the demands of a state that was bearing down on its citizens with increasing force. Pure Land, Real World treats the religious thought of these three major figures in English for the first time. Kawakami turned to religion after being imprisoned for his involvement with the Japanese Communist Party, borrowing the Shinshū image of the two truths to assert that Buddhist law and Marxist social science should reinforce each other, like the two wings of a bird. Miki, a member of the Kyoto School who went from prison to the crown prince’s think tank and back again, identified Shinran’s religion as belonging to the proletariat: For him, following Shinran and working toward building a buddha land on earth were akin to realizing social revolution. And Ienaga’s understanding of the Pure Land—as the crystallization of a logic of negation that undermined every real power structure—fueled his battle against the state censorship system, just as he believed it had enabled Shinran to confront the world’s suffering head on. Such readings of the Pure Land tradition are idiosyncratic—perhaps even heretical—but they hum with the same vibrancy that characterized medieval Pure Land belief. Innovative and refreshingly accessible, Pure Land, Real World shows that the Pure Land tradition informed twentieth-century Japanese thought in profound and surprising ways and suggests that it might do the same for twenty-first-century thinkers. The critical power of Pure Land utopianism has yet to be exhausted.

Women in Japanese Religions

Author : Barbara Ambros
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479827622
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

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Book Synopsis Women in Japanese Religions by : Barbara Ambros

Download or read book Women in Japanese Religions written by Barbara Ambros and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-05-29 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive history of women in Japanese religious traditions Scholars have widely acknowledged the persistent ambivalence with which the Japanese religious traditions treat women. Much existing scholarship depicts Japan’s religious traditions as mere means of oppression. But this view raises a question: How have ambivalent and even misogynistic religious discourses on gender still come to inspire devotion and emulation among women? In Women in Japanese Religions, Barbara R. Ambros examines the roles that women have played in the religions of Japan. An important corrective to more common male-centered narratives of Japanese religious history, this text presents a synthetic long view of Japanese religions from a distinct angle that has typically been discounted in standard survey accounts of Japanese religions. Drawing on a diverse collection of writings by and about women, Ambros argues that ambivalent religious discourses in Japan have not simply subordinated women but also given them religious resources to pursue their own interests and agendas. Comprising nine chapters organized chronologically, the book begins with the archeological evidence of fertility cults and the early shamanic ruler Himiko in prehistoric Japan and ends with an examination of the influence of feminism and demographic changes on religious practices during the “lost decades” of the post-1990 era. By viewing Japanese religious history through the eyes of women, Women in Japanese Religions presents a new narrative that offers strikingly different vistas of Japan’s pluralistic traditions than the received accounts that foreground male religious figures and male-dominated institutions.

The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism

Author : David Edward Shaner
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780887060618
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (66 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism by : David Edward Shaner

Download or read book The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism written by David Edward Shaner and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1985-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a pioneering study, David Shaner uses the resources of phenomenology to penetrate Buddhist philosophy in terms of Kūkai and Dōgen. In addition to this original and rigorous methodology, his work offers insights into some fundamental difficulties intrinsic to comparative studies. The problem of the relation between body and mind is a prime example. Shaner's observations shed a brilliant light on these traditional antinomies as they may be resolved or, more accurately, dissolved when seen in their appropriate contexts. In addressing these issues, the study also contributes to the understanding of common features that underlie the various doctrines of Japanese Buddhism. This work will appeal to both East and West phenomenologists, philosophers interested in the mind-body problem, scholars of comparative philosophy, and students of Japanese philosophy and religion.

The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy

Author : Gereon Kopf
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9048129249
Total Pages : 737 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy by : Gereon Kopf

Download or read book The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy written by Gereon Kopf and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume introduces the central themes in and the main figures of Japanese Buddhist philosophy. It will have two sections, one that discusses general topics relevant to Japanese Buddhist philosophy and one that reads the work of the main Japanese Buddhist philosophers in the context of comparative philosophy. It combines basic information with cutting edge scholarship considering recent publications in Japanese, Chinese, English, and other European languages. As such, it will be an invaluable tool for professors teaching courses in Asian and global philosophy, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the people generally interested in philosophy and/or Buddhism.

The Japanese Buddhist World Map

Author : D. Max Moerman
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824890051
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis The Japanese Buddhist World Map by : D. Max Moerman

Download or read book The Japanese Buddhist World Map written by D. Max Moerman and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries Japanese monks created hundreds of maps to construct and locate their place in a Buddhist world. This expansively illustrated volume is the first to explore the largely unknown archive of Japanese Buddhist world maps and analyze their production, reproduction, and reception. In examining these fascinating sources of visual and material culture, author D. Max Moerman argues for an alternative history of Japanese Buddhism—one that compels us to recognize the role of the Buddhist geographic imaginary in a culture that encompassed multiple cartographic and cosmological world views. The contents and contexts of Japanese Buddhist world maps reveal the ambivalent and shifting position of Japan in the Buddhist world, its encounter and negotiation with foreign ideas and technologies, and the possibilities for a global history of Buddhism and science. Moerman’s visual and intellectual history traces the multiple trajectories of Japanese Buddhist world maps, beginning with the earliest extant Japanese map of the world: a painting by a fourteenth-century Japanese monk charting the cosmology and geography of India and Central Asia based on an account written by a seventh-century Chinese pilgrim-monk. He goes on to discuss the cartographic inclusion and marginal position of Japan, the culture of the copy and the power of replication in Japanese Buddhism, and the transcultural processes of engagement and response to new visions of the world produced by Iberian Christians, Chinese Buddhists, and the Japanese maritime trade. Later chapters explore the transformations in the media and messages of Buddhist cartography in the age of print culture and in intellectual debates during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries over cosmology and epistemology and the polemics of Buddhist science. The Japanese Buddhist World Map offers a wholly innovative picture of Japanese Buddhism that acknowledges the possibility of multiple and heterogeneous modernities and alternative visions of Japan and the world.

Letters of the Nun Eshinni

Author : James C. Dobbins
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824828707
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (287 download)

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Book Synopsis Letters of the Nun Eshinni by : James C. Dobbins

Download or read book Letters of the Nun Eshinni written by James C. Dobbins and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eshinni (1182–1268?), a Buddhist nun and the wife of Shinran (1173–1262), the celebrated founder of the True Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhism, was largely unknown until the discovery of a collection of her letters in 1921. In this study, James C. Dobbins, a leading scholar of Pure Land Buddhism, has made creative use of these letters to shed new light on life and religion in medieval Japan. He provides a complete translation of the letters and an explication of them that reveals the character and flavor of early Shin Buddhism. Readers will come away with a new perspective on Pure Land scholarship and a vivid image of Eshinni and the world in which she lived. After situating the ideas and practices of Pure Land Buddhism in the context of the actual living conditions of thirteenth-century Japan, Dobbins examines the portrayal of women in Pure Land Buddhism, the great range of lifestyles found among medieval women and nuns, and how they constructed a meaningful religious life amid negative stereotypes. He goes on to analyze aspects of medieval religion that have been omitted in our modern-day account of Pure Land and tries to reconstruct the religious assumptions of Eshinni and Shinran in their own day. A prevailing theme that runs throughout the book is the need to look beyond idealized images of Buddhism found in doctrine to discover the religion as it was lived and practiced. Scholars and students of Buddhism, Japanese history, women’s studies, and religious studies will find much in this engaging work that is thought-provoking and insightful.