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Keywords = Buddhist clerics

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17 pages, 2128 KiB  
Article
Ritual Practices and Material Culture: The Provenance and Transformation of Stūpas in Medieval China
by Wen Sun
Religions 2023, 14(7), 945; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070945 - 23 Jul 2023
Viewed by 2661
Abstract
This paper examines how Chinese people perceived and accepted Buddhist stūpas in medieval China. Doctrinal and ritualistic developments can potentially contribute to the emergence of new ritual objects. Ideological connotations of stūpas witnessed a transition associated with the transformation of the stūpa cult [...] Read more.
This paper examines how Chinese people perceived and accepted Buddhist stūpas in medieval China. Doctrinal and ritualistic developments can potentially contribute to the emergence of new ritual objects. Ideological connotations of stūpas witnessed a transition associated with the transformation of the stūpa cult in China. Stūpa burial became progressively accessible to ordinary clerics and laypeople who showed sympathy with Buddhism. The similarity between stūpas and tombs in terms of funerary function largely determined people’s interpretations of stūpas in the early medieval period. However, tombs cannot be the precise manifestation of stūpas in medieval China. Stūpas evolved into multidimensional meanings in medieval China. The perceptions of stūpas witnessed an ongoing process of reconstruction, which reveals how cultural transmission and transformation work throughout history. Full article
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16 pages, 830 KiB  
Article
Female Practitioners’ Religious Lives: The First Generation of Female Wŏn Buddhist Clerics
by Sung Ha Yun
Religions 2023, 14(5), 637; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050637 - 10 May 2023
Viewed by 2233
Abstract
For Korean women, the Japanese colonial period was a transitional period in which Confucian patriarchal culture still prevailed, but some options for a social identity outside the home as “new women” were beginning to emerge. In this era, Sot’aesan, the founder of Wŏn [...] Read more.
For Korean women, the Japanese colonial period was a transitional period in which Confucian patriarchal culture still prevailed, but some options for a social identity outside the home as “new women” were beginning to emerge. In this era, Sot’aesan, the founder of Wŏn Buddhism, put forward the teaching of “equal rights for men and women” as one of the core doctrines of Wŏn Buddhism and opened the way for many women to find their true selves through Buddhist teachings and practices. This path was that of becoming a kyomu (Wŏn Buddhist ordained clerics). By analyzing the biographies of the first 146 female kyomus, this paper sheds light on how these devotees were transformed from women with no identities outside the home into Buddhist masters or mothers of the world. Full article
23 pages, 1520 KiB  
Article
Rainmakers for the Cosmopolitan Empire: A Historical and Religious Study of 18th Century Tibetan Rainmaking Rituals in the Qing Dynasty
by Hanung Kim
Religions 2020, 11(12), 630; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120630 - 24 Nov 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6304
Abstract
Although Tibetan rainmaking rituals speak of important aspects of both history and religion, scholars thus far have paid only biased attention to the rituals and performative aspects rather than the abundant textual materials available. To address that issue, this article analyzes a single [...] Read more.
Although Tibetan rainmaking rituals speak of important aspects of both history and religion, scholars thus far have paid only biased attention to the rituals and performative aspects rather than the abundant textual materials available. To address that issue, this article analyzes a single textual manual on Tibetan rainmaking rituals to learn the significance of rainmaking in late Imperial Chinese history. The article begins with a historical overview of the importance of Tibetan rainmaking activities for the polities of China proper and clearly demonstrates the potential for studying these ritual activities using textual analysis. Then it focuses on one Tibetan rainmaking manual from the 18th century and its author, Sumpa Khenpo, to illustrate that potential. In addition to the author’s autobiographical accounts of the prominence of weather rituals in the Inner Asian territory of Qing China, a detailed outline of Sumpa Khenpo’s rainmaking manual indicates that the developmental aspects of popular weather rituals closely agreed with the successful dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism in regions where Tibetan Buddhist clerics were active. As an indicator of late Imperial Chinese history, this function of Tibetan rainmaking rituals is a good barometer of the successful operation of a cosmopolitan empire, a facilitator of which was Tibetan Buddhism, in the 18th century during the High Qing era. Full article
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14 pages, 741 KiB  
Article
Texts and Ritual: Buddhist Scriptural Tradition of the Stūpa Cult and the Transformation of Stūpa Burial in the Chinese Buddhist Canon
by Wen Sun
Religions 2019, 10(12), 658; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10120658 - 4 Dec 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5370
Abstract
Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras and Chinese Buddhist literature demonstrate how stūpas became acknowledged in medieval China and how clerics and laypeople perceived and worshiped them. Early Buddhist sūtras mentioned stūpas, which symbolize the presence of the Buddha and the truth of [...] Read more.
Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras and Chinese Buddhist literature demonstrate how stūpas became acknowledged in medieval China and how clerics and laypeople perceived and worshiped them. Early Buddhist sūtras mentioned stūpas, which symbolize the presence of the Buddha and the truth of the dharma. Buddhist canonical texts attach great significance to the stūpa cult, providing instructions regarding who was entitled to have them, what they should look like in connection with the occupants’ Buddhist identities, and how people should worship them. However, the canonical limitations on stūpa burial for ordinary monks and prohibitions of non-Buddhist stūpas changed progressively in medieval China. Stūpas appeared to be erected for ordinary monks and the laity in the Tang dynasty. This paper aims to outline the Buddhist scriptural tradition of the stūpa cult and its changes in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, which serves as the doctrinal basis for understanding the significance of funerary stūpas and the primordial archetype for the formation of a widely accepted Buddhist funeral ritual in Tang China. Full article
13 pages, 659 KiB  
Article
Discourses on Religious Violence in Premodern Japan
by Mikael Adolphson
Religions 2018, 9(5), 149; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9050149 - 6 May 2018
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4158
Abstract
This article asks what religious violence is and why it is relevant. It questions common assumptions by focusing on how monastic violence unfolded in premodern Japan. It argues that there was nothing that set this particular form of violence apart in terms of [...] Read more.
This article asks what religious violence is and why it is relevant. It questions common assumptions by focusing on how monastic violence unfolded in premodern Japan. It argues that there was nothing that set this particular form of violence apart in terms of what the clerics fought for, their ideological justification, who fought, or how they fought. Although myths prevail on the largely fictive figure of the sōhei, or “monk-warriors,” closer scrutiny indicates that their depiction first emerged as a coherent literary concept in the early Tokugawa period. Regarding the ideological framework in which incidents of so-called monastic violence took place, the paper demonstrates that the individuals involved in such conflicts—including the clerics—cannot be dissociated from their own socio-historical context. This is because the medieval Japanese setting was based on rules of cooperation that also implied competition among various elites. The paper further complicates our understanding by showing that the central issue is not why specific violent events involving clerics occurred, but rather what constituted the mental framework—or mentalité—of the age, and how it allowed religious institutions to play such a prominent role. Full article
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