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Against Harmony traces the history of progressive and radical experiments in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice from the mid-Meiji period through the early Shōwa period (1885–1935), when historical events coalesced to eliminate all such experiments. It is a work of both intellectual history and of critical, comparative thought. Perhaps the two best representations of progressive Buddhism during this period were the New Buddhist Fellowship (1899–1915) and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism (1931–1936). Both were nonsectarian, lay movements comprising young men with education in classical Buddhist texts as well as Western literature, philosophy, and religion. Their work effectively collapses commonly held distinctions between religion, philosophy, ethics, politics, and economics. Unlike many others of their day, these “New Buddhists” did not regard the novel forces of modernization as problematic and disruptive, but rather, as an opportunity to explore and expand the possibilities of the dharma. Moreover, these and similar Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired movements experimented with novel, alternative forms of modernity, rooted in variations on what might be called “dharmic materialism.” In short, they did not simply inherit or mimic the dominant Western model(s). For this reason, their work remains of relevance in the early twenty-first century.

Anarchy in the Pure Land investigates the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement spearheaded by Taixu as an avenue through which to consider the formation of alternative modernities. The cult presents an apparent anomaly: It shows precisely the kind of concern for ritual, supernatural beings, and the afterlife that much scholarship contends the reformers rejected in the name of “modernity.” This book shows that rather than a concession to tradition, the reimagining of ideas and practices associated with Maitreya was an important site for formulating a Buddhist vision of modernity. To make sense of this it develops a new perspective on alternative modernities by drawing on Charles Taylor’s notion of moral frameworks, arguing that the cult of Maitreya represents an attempt to articulate a new constellation of values that integrates novel understandings of the good clustered around modern visions of utopia with the central Buddhist value of Buddhahood. Part I traces the roots of this constellation to Taixu’s youthful career as an anarchist. Part II examines its articulation in the “Maitreya School’s” theology and the cult’s development from its inception to World War II. Part III examines its subsequent decline and its contemporary legacy within and beyond orthodox Buddhism.

The Buddha Party is an analysis of Chinese propaganda discourses that attempt to define Tibetan Buddhist belief and sway opinion within the country and abroad. Much of this is at odds with historical facts and is deliberately misleading, but it is widely believed by Han Chinese. It profoundly affects how China’s leaders interact with their counterparts in other countries because most of them appear to deeply believe the official line regarding Tibet, which resonates with Han notions of themselves as China’s most advanced nationality and as a benevolent race that liberates and culturally uplifts minority peoples. The government’s “patriotic education” campaign is a core focus of the book: it forces monks and nuns to participate in propaganda sessions and repeat official dogma, and it is part of a larger campaign to transform China’s religions into “patriotic” systems that endorse Communist Party policies. The book analyzes the core tenets of the official version of Tibetan Buddhism and how these are being received by their intended audience, as well as strategies of resistance. It employs propaganda theory to contextualize the discursive strategies of China’s information apparatus and demonstrates how messages that resonate with Han Chinese fail to persuade Tibetans and other minorities.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of tremendous religious efflorescence in Tibet, a period when Tibetans gained their own voice, crafting intellectual and spiritual traditions that were uniquely Tibetan. This book is a study of the life and work of Rog Bande Sherab (1166–1244). Rogben, as he is known, studied under some of the greatest teachers of his day. An itinerant scholar and yogi, he devoted his life to collecting important textual cycles and meditation techniques. Rogben’s most important work, The Lamp of the Teachings, the work translated in these pages, cuts across the genres of history, doctrinal studies, and doxography. It is also one of the earliest philosophically robust explanations of the “nine vehicle” system of the Ancient or Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. This book is the first scholarly study of Rog Bande Sherab, a pivotal figure in both the Pacification (Zhiche) and Ancient (Nyingma) traditions of Tibet, and one of the most original thinkers in Tibetan intellectual history.

This volume comprises fifteen chapters dedicated to the study of Buddhism among various Mongolian ethnic groups: Khalkha, Oirats/Dzungars/Kalmyks, and Buryats. It presents historical figures that were influential in the development of Buddhism in Mongolia, contemporary Buddhist monastic and lay practices in Outer and Inner Mongolia and in Buryatia, and uniquely Mongolian artistic and literary Buddhist expressions. The book brings to light some of the unique historical and cultural elements of Mongolian Buddhism and its rich heritage. Although the book is not exhaustive in covering all areas of Mongolian Buddhism, it brings together for the first time a multidisciplinary discussion of various aspects of Buddhism in Mongolia: historical, anthropological, ethnographic, art historical, and literary. It takes into consideration regional and ethnic differences that have shaped Buddhism among various Mongolian ethnic groups. Since the time that Buddhism penetrated the Mongolian steppes and deserts, it underwent a series of transformations, adapting itself to the pastoral and nomadic culture of the Mongols and to different social and political realities. The book delineates some of the transformations that Mongolian Buddhism underwent during different historical periods, while retaining its unique Mongolian features. It offers a window into the interplay between social, political, religious, and cultural factors in the shaping of Buddhism among Mongols.

This book examines the historical contexts and substantive reasons giving rise to Buddhist nationalism and aggressive attacks on Muslim communities in Sri Lanka. While the rise of Buddhist nationalism in general is analyzed and explained, the specific role, methods, and character of the militant Bodu Bala Sena (BBS: “Army of Buddhist Power”) Movement are scrutinized in particular. Whereas the motivations for attacking Muslims may be deep seated economically, elements of religious culture (ritual and symbol) are often seen as catalysts or venues for explosive acts of violence. Chapters address Sinhala/Muslim relations over the past including the impact of colonialism and modernization on both the cultures and the ways in which Muslim identity has been constructed over the past 100 years involving castes, Islamic Tamils, Moors, and Sri Lanka’s “Muslims.” The authors also discuss the involvement of Buddhist monks in the political arena in Sri Lanka and Buddhist Nationalism, in particular that of the BBS’s business or capitalist in orientation and their perceived Muslim manipulation of economic forces. The BBS is further examined regarding its Anti-Muslim campaigns and how it started, is structured, and how it articulates its messages of hatred for Muslims. Confrontations including the violence in Aluthgama and the religiosity of Devanagala are topics as well as the undeniable religious contribution to this violence.

For many people, the concept of Buddhist violence is an oxymoron. The image of a Buddhist monk holding a handgun or the view of a militarized Buddhist monastery challenges our popular images of Buddhism. However, these sights actually exist in southern Thailand. One of the lesser known but longest running conflicts of Southeast Asia is in Thailand’s southernmost provinces. Among the various causes of the conflict is religious division. Although Thailand’s population is 92% Buddhist, over 85% of the people in the southernmost provinces are Muslim. Since 2004, the Thai government has imposed martial law over the three provinces in this territory and fought with a grassroots militant Malay Muslim insurgency. Buddhist Fury examines five different Buddhist dimensions of the conflict and places them within a global context. Through fieldwork conducted in the conflict area, the book follows the southern Thai Buddhist monks and their practices in Thailand’s deep south. Many Buddhist practices remain unchanged. Buddhist monks continue to chant, counsel the laity, and accrue merit. Yet at the same time, some monks zealously advocate Buddhist nationalism, act as covert military officers, and equip themselves with guns. The book examines the methods by which religion alters the nature of the conflict and the dangers inherent in this transformation.

This book centers on narratives about female renunciation in Buddhism as well as the construction of gender and renunciant identity in the study of Buddhist nuns. Focusing on research about Buddhist nuns from Sri Lanka and including conversations with Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist nuns from around the world, the book raises important theoretical questions about the applicability of modern liberal ideas of “empowerment,” “agency,” “autonomy,” “freedom,” and “resistance” in the translation of the lives of Buddhist nuns. It engages canonical Buddhist texts and contemporary religious practices as it considers the construction of the female renunciant as a modern “third-world” subject and questions the idea that the higher ordination of Sri Lankan nuns has been the outcome of a feminist “movement.” By reflecting on colonialist readings of nuns’ lives and on debates about their higher ordination, this book not only asks new questions about the politics of representation regarding the lives of female renunciants but also makes a case for a more nuanced and sensitive reading of their practices. On the basis of extensive long-term field research, the book breaks new ground by proposing that key Buddhist concepts such as dukkha and samsāra, the everyday renunciant practices of nuns, and the upasampadā (higher ordination) itself cannot be subsumed under liberal feminist paradigms, and it argues that the idea of an “authentic” Theravada upasampadā for bhikkhunīs is inseparable from claims about specific ideas of monastic seniority and power.

This book examines five poetic works by Alagiyavanna Mukaveṭi to describe how Buddhism in Sri Lanka was shaped and transformed by the encounters with Portuguese colonizers and missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By following the written works of a renowned Buddhist poet from his position in the court of a powerful Sinhala king through the cultural upheavals of warfare and the expansion of colonial rule and finally to his eventual conversion to Catholicism and his employment under the Portuguese crown, this book uses the poetry of a single author to reflect on how Sinhala verse fashioned new visions of power and religious identity when many of the traditional Buddhist institutions were disappearing and in retreat. The volume traces the development of Alagiyavanna’s poetry as a medium for celebrating the fame of rulers, devotion to the Buddha and the Dharma, morality and truth in the Buddha’s religion, and finally the glories of Portuguese rule in Sri Lanka. Employing an interdisciplinary approach that combines Buddhist studies, history, literary criticism, and postcolonial studies, the author constructs a picture of the effects of colonialism on Buddhist literature and culture at an early juncture in the history of the encounter between Asia and Europe.

History in the Soviet Union was a political project. From the Soviet perspective, Buryats, an indigenous Siberian ethnic group, were a “backward” nationality that was carried along on the inexorable march toward the Communist utopian future. When the Soviet Union ended, the Soviet version of history lost its power and Buryats, like other Siberian indigenous peoples, were able to revive religious and cultural traditions that had been suppressed by the Soviet state. In the process, they also recovered knowledge about the past that the Soviet Union had silenced. Borrowing the analytic lens of the chronotope from Bakhtin, this book argues that rituals have chronotopes which situate people within time and space. As they revived rituals, post-Soviet Buryats encountered new historical information and traditional ways of being in time that enabled them to reimagine the Buryat past and what it means to be Buryat. Through the temporal perspective of a reincarnating Buddhist monk, Dashi-Dorzho Etigelov, Buddhists come to see the Soviet period as a test on the path of dharma. Shamanic practitioners, in contrast, renegotiate their relationship to the past by speaking to their ancestors through the bodies of shamans. By comparing the versions of history that are produced in Buddhist, shamanic, and civic rituals, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets offers a new lens for analyzing ritual, a new perspective on how an indigenous people grapples with a history of state repression, and an innovative approach to the ethnographic study of how people know about the past.

Between 1850 and 1966, tens of thousands of Buddhist sacred sites were destroyed in China, victims of targeted destruction, accidental damage, or simply neglect. Yet hundreds if not thousands of these sites were also reconstructed during this period, events that required charismatic leadership, the reconstitution of the religious community, extensive fundraising, investments of labor and materials, and the support of local elites. This book explores the history of Chinese Buddhist monastery reconstruction from the end of the Imperial period, through the Republic of China, and into the first seventeen years of the People’s Republic. For each time period, a general overview of reconstruction activity provides the context for more detailed study of a few focus sites. Over this century of history, the nature and significance of reconstructing Buddhist monasteries changes drastically, mirroring broader changes in Chinese society. Yet this book argues that change has always been in the nature of religious communities such as Buddhist monasteries, and that reconstruction, rather than a return to the past, represents innovative and adaptive change. In this way, it helps us understand the broader significance of the Buddhist “revival” in China during this era itself as a creative reconstruction of religion upon longstanding foundations.

Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty provides an innovative, critical textual and literary analysis, in light of Song dynasty (960–1279) Chinese cultural and intellectual historical trends, of the Blue Cliff Record (C. Biyanlu, J. Hekiganroku), the seminal Chan/Zen Buddhist collection of commentaries on one hundred gongan/kōan cases long celebrated for its intricate and articulate interpretative methods. Compiled by Yuanwu Keqin (1063–1135) in 1128, the Blue Cliff Record is considered a classic of East Asian literature for creatively integrating prose and verse as well as hybrid or capping-phrase (zhuoyu) interpretations of puzzling and perplexing cases, originally selected nearly a century before with verse comments (songgu) added by Xuedou Chonggxian (980–1052), through employing a variety of rhetorical devices culled from both classic and vernacular Chinese literary sources and styles. The spiritual vision expressed in the Blue Cliff Record, apparently originally known as the Blue Cliff Collection (C. Biyanji, J. Hekiganshū) with the title undergoing a change in Edo period Japan, is based on what I refer to as the principle of “uncertainty,” which indicates a resourceful approach to discourse that is characterized by fundamental ambiguity and purposeful inconclusiveness. This approach places full responsibility for attaining self-realization on the individual trainee, who through engaging multiple rhetorical perspectives without fixation or limitation gains spontaneous liberation from intellectual fetters and emotional attachments. What the authors try to reveal are not definitive explications or solutions for enigmatic gongan cases, but a way of exploring and making an assessment of various viewpoints that serves as a model for self-reliance and self-realization. In numerous examples throughout the work, highly stylized remarks seek to upend dramatically or reverse radically staid and stereotypical opinions via a Chan adept’s symbolic ability to “overturn a trainee’s meditation seat and chase the great assembly” or more expansively to “reverse the flow of the great seas, topple Mount Sumeru [the mythical cosmic Buddhist summit], and scatter the white clouds.”

Buddhist ethical views have much in common with certain modern ethical theories, and contain many insights relevant to contemporary moral problems. This book examines the theoretical structure of the normative views found in a number of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts. Teachings from all three major traditions of Buddhism, the Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, are considered. Although Buddhist philosophy is quite diverse, and these traditions differ in their ethical perspectives, they can all be understood as versions of a general moral outlook known as welfarist consequentialism. Buddhist versions of consequentialism regard virtue as an intrinsic component of the good life. They range from the cautious indirect approach of the Theravāda, which focuses on following rules that lead to the welfare of many, to the bold and often shocking direct approach of the Vajrayāna. Buddhists can respond convincingly to certain often-discussed criticisms of consequentialism, including several powerful arguments due to Kant. Buddhist texts offer an interesting approach to the problem of the demands of morality. These texts also contain a powerful critique of what we would identify as the concept of free will, a critique which leads to a hard determinist view of human action. This view supports Buddhist values of compassion, nonviolence and forgiveness, and leads to a more humane approach to the justification of punishment.

This book explores the role of ritual in the collapse of Nepal’s Hindu monarchy. Ritual had sustained the monarchy for more than two centuries, creating a social position for the king independent of his roles in practical governance. In the early twenty-first century, however, ritual proved unable to uphold kingship in rapidly changing circumstances, and the last king of Nepal left Narayanhiti Palace in June 2008. This book begins by providing an overview of the politics of Nepal’s Shah dynasty, from the eighteenth century through the twenty-first century. It then analyzes Nepali royal rituals according to two different categories: succession rituals (designed to transfer the office of kingship from one officeholder to the next, based upon the wider royal traditions of South Asia) and reinforcement rituals (routine rituals, primarily drawn from Hinduism, that constantly reproduced a king’s status during his tenure in office). It argues first that in 2001 the royal succession rituals were unable to fully transfer the office from King Birendra to King Gyanendra, based on the extreme irregularity of the circumstances. It then explains the ways that, following a national uprising in 2006, King Gyanendra’s opponents attacked his reinforcement rituals, interrupting the annual reproduction of his status and denying him his social identity as king. The result was that Nepal’s monarchy halted without any damage to the last monarch himself.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the diverse writings of Dōgen (1200-1253), the founder of Sōtō (C. Ts’ao-tung) Zen Buddhism in Japan. Dōgen is especially known for introducing to Japanese Buddhism many of the texts and practices that he discovered in China. The context of Dōgen’s travels to and reflections on China are reconstructed by means of a critical look at traditional sources both by and about Dōgen. While many studies emphasize the unique features of Dōgen’s Japanese influences versus traditional Chinese models, this book calls attention to the fusion of Chinese and Japanese elements in Dōgen’s religious vision. It reveals many new materials and insights into Dōgen’s main writings, including the multiple editions of the Shōbōgenzō, and how and when this seminal text was created by Dōgen and edited and interpreted by his disciples. This book provides the reader with a comprehensive approach to the master’s life works and an understanding of the overall career trajectory of one of the most important figures in the history of Buddhism and Asian religious thought.

The Vigrahavyāvartanī is a short work by the second-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna. In this text, which is written in a lively question-and-answer style he addresses a number of objections (coming both from Buddhists and from non-Buddhists) which have been put forward against his theory of emptiness discussed in his main work, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. The Vigrahavyāvartanī is especially noteworthy for its treatment of topics which Nāgārjuna does not much discuss elsewhere, in particular questions of epistemology and the philosophy of language. The purpose of this book is to unlock the philosophical contents of the texts by providing a comprehensive commentary on Nāgārjuna’s arguments as well as a somewhat more general discussion of the philosophical points these raise. It is divided into three sections: the introduction, the translation, and the commentary. The introduction discusses the history of the text and gives a survey of the presently available editions and translations. I then address the question of the authenticity of the Vigrahavyāvartanī, discussing in detail some of the arguments put forward in the secondary literature which attempt to show that the text was not composed by Nāgārjuna. This is followed by some notes on the peculiar structure of the Vigrahavyāvartanī. Here I also explain why I chose to arrange the text differently in the translation and in the commentary. The introduction is concluded by a synopsis which gives a brief survey of the contents of the ten sections into which I have divided the text. The translation is based on the most recent edition of the Sanskrit text (Yonezawa 2008). All explanatory notes, discussions of variant readings and so forth have been left to the commentary. The commentary contains the entire text of the Vigrahavyāvartanī, though in an arrangement which differs from the one followed in the translation. My remarks on a specific section of the text usually follow this section directly, distinguished by a different typeface. The commentary divides Nāgārjuna’s text into ten main thematic units: (1) The status of the theory of emptiness; (2) Epistemology; (3) Intrinsically good things; (4) Names without objects; (5) Extrinsic substances; (6) Negation and existence; (7) The mirage analogy; (8) Emptiness and reasons; (9) Negation and temporal relations; (10) Conclusion

In this book scholars of Buddhism from both sides of the Pacific explore the life and thought of Zen Master Dōgen (1200–1253), the founder of the Japanese Soto sect. Through both textual and historical analysis, the volume shows Dōgen in context of the Chinese Chan tradition that influenced him and demonstrates the tremendous, lasting impact he had on Buddhist thought and culture in Japan. The chapters provide critical new insight into Dōgen's writings. Special attention is given to the Shobogenzo and several of its fascicles, which express Dōgen's views on such practices and rituals as using supranormal powers (jinzu), reading the sutras (kankin), diligent training in zazen meditation (shikan taza), and the koan realized in everyday life (genjokoan). The book also analyzes the historical significance of this seminal figure: for instance, Dōgen's methods of appropriating Chan sources and his role relative to that of his Japanese Zen predecessor Eisai, considered the founder of the Rinzai sect, who preceded Dōgen in traveling to China.

This volume explores diverse aspects of the life and teachings of Zen master Dōgen (1200–1253), the founder of the Sōtō Zen sect (or Sōtōshū) in early Kamakura-era Japan. In addition chapters examine the ritual and institutional history of the Sōtō school, such as the role of Eiheiji monastery, established by Dōgen, as well as various kinds of rites and precepts performed there and at other temples during various periods of history. All of the contributors to this volume studied at or maintain strong scholarly connections with Komazawa University, known as the Sōtōshū Daigaku until the name was officially changed in 1925. Koma-dai, as it is also referred, houses the largest faculty of Buddhist studies in Japan that focuses its research on both the thought and institutional development of Dōgen and Sōtō Zen, along with numerous additional topics in the history of Buddhist studies.

This book explores the creation and recreation of Buddhist saints through narratives, poetry, art, ritual, and even dream visions. Looking at the cultural and literary history of the well-known Indian Buddhist poet saint Saraha, known as the Great Brahmin, this book argues that we should view Saraha not as the founder of a tradition, but rather as its product. The book shows how images, tales, and teachings of Saraha were transmitted, transformed, and created by members of diverse Buddhist traditions in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Mongolia. The result is that there is not one Great Brahmin, but many. More broadly, the book argues that the immense importance of saints for Buddhism is best understood by looking at the creative adaptations of such figures that perpetuated their fame, for it is there that these saints come to life.

This book explores the previously unavailable religious biography of the fourteenth-century Tibetan female saint Sönam Peldren (Tib: bsod nams dpal ‘dren, 1328–1372, tentative). Purportedly illiterate and religiously and politically unaffiliated, Sönam Peldren was a nomadic woman whose claims of being a “naturally liberated” emanation of the female deity Dorjé Pakmo initially elicited shock and scorn in her nomadic community. A miraculous death and her husband Rinchen Pel’s biography of her life, however, transformed her communal memory from ridicule to adoration. Sönam Peldren’s ensuing cultural legacy served as an inspiration and legitimizing referent for female Tibetan Buddhist practitioners from at least the fifteenth century in Tibet to the present. The book has two primary and interrelated goals. First, it studies Sönam Peldren’s Life as a piece of literature, seeking to understand how the hagiographical agendas of the text’s authors as well as the dictates of Tibetan literature genres such as religious biography (Tib: rnam thar, or “namtar”) and songs of realization (Tib: mgur, or “gur”) shaped the written record of Sonam Peldren’s life. Second, this study considers both the Life of Sönam Peldren and her posthumous religious legacy as pieces of Tibetan social history. The work maintains that the phenomenon of Sönam Peldren’s sainthood can provide insights into the gendered, communal, and textual machinations of saint production in the Tibetan Buddhist context.