Island of Guanyin: Mount Putuo and Its Gazetteers
Marcus Bingenheimer
Abstract
Island of Guanyin explores how Mount Putuo, one of the most popular Buddhist sites in China, has been depicted in a particular genre—the temple or mountain gazetteer. Guanyin (Skr. Avalokiteśvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is one of the most beloved deities of the Buddhist World. For more than a thousand years Mount Putuo has been a busy pilgrimage site, where pilgrims hope to catch a glimpse of the Bodhisattva. Over the centuries much information about Mount Putuo has been collected in a series of gazetteers. Gazetteers are compiled from texts of different genres to present an encyclope ... More
Island of Guanyin explores how Mount Putuo, one of the most popular Buddhist sites in China, has been depicted in a particular genre—the temple or mountain gazetteer. Guanyin (Skr. Avalokiteśvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is one of the most beloved deities of the Buddhist World. For more than a thousand years Mount Putuo has been a busy pilgrimage site, where pilgrims hope to catch a glimpse of the Bodhisattva. Over the centuries much information about Mount Putuo has been collected in a series of gazetteers. Gazetteers are compiled from texts of different genres to present an encyclopedic overview of a site or region. This book demonstrates how the different genres in a series of gazetteers have constructed—textualized—the sacred site of Mount Putuo in cultural memory. The book itself it structured like a gazetteer in that each chapter is dedicated to a genre that is used in gazetteers. After a chapter on prefaces and postscripts, there follow chapters on maps, miracle tales, landscape, biographies, inscriptions, poems, and travelogues. In each chapter three or four exhibits showcase important people, events, and ideas surrounding the history of Mount Putuo between the twelfth and the twentieth century.
Keywords:
Guanyin,
Avalokiteśvara,
Mount Putuo,
history of Chinese Buddhism,
textualization,
sacred site,
pilgrimage,
gazetteers,
travelogue,
regional religious history
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190456191 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190456191.001.0001 |
