Monastic Lives and Buddhist Textual Traditions in China and Beyond

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue explores new perspectives on Chinese Buddhism through a focus on textual traditions, monastic life, and regional connectivity across East Asia and Eastern Eurasia. As Chinese Buddhist texts circulated across broad networks—both within the Sinosphere and beyond—they underwent processes of adaptation, transformation, and reinterpretation. Similarly, the lives of Buddhist monastics in China were shaped by textual, institutional, and transregional forces that intersected in complex and locally distinctive ways.

The study of Chinese Buddhism today requires attention to be focused not only on canonical texts and major institutions but also on understudied sources and contexts. Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the value of philological, bibliographic, and historical approaches to illuminating the transmission of texts and ideas across time and space. Meanwhile, new materials—such as inscriptions, archival documents, manuscripts, and regional editions—have brought to light lesser-known aspects of Buddhist life, literature, and practice.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the multilayered nature of Chinese Buddhist traditions by encouraging contributions that engage closely with textual and historical sources while also attending to regional and transnational dynamics. We especially welcome studies that examine how Buddhist texts—both canonical and non-canonical—have been transmitted, transformed, and interpreted across diverse historical contexts, geographic regions, and textual media in East Asia and Eastern Eurasia. In addition, we invite contributions that shed light on the lived experiences of Buddhist communities through biography, ritual, and material culture—including genres such as biography, hagiography, and miracle tales.

Topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Monastic lives, including narrative accounts, religious practices, and institutional structures;
• Buddhist textual traditions, with attention to philological, bibliographic, and historical approaches;
• The transmission and transformation of Chinese-language Buddhist texts, both canonical and non-canonical;
• Buddhist manuscript culture, including the study of Chinese and Japanese manuscript traditions;
• Buddhist biography and hagiography, as sources for religious life and memory;
• Buddhist miracle tales, and their role in local belief, transmission, and devotional practice.

We welcome original research articles and critical reviews from scholars working in all relevant fields. It is our hope that this Special Issue will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic interplay between Buddhist texts, practices, and communities across the historical and cultural landscapes of East Asia and Eastern Eurasia.

Prof. Dr. Limei Chi
Dr. Zhiyuan Chen
Prof. Dr. Dewei Zhang
Guest Editors

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• monastic lives
• Buddhist textual traditions
• transmission and transformation of Buddhist texts
• Buddhist manuscript culture
• Buddhist biography and hagiography
• Buddhist miracle tales