Search Results (43)

This article reconsiders the medieval Japanese theory of the waka deity (kashinron 歌神論) through a sustained comparison of Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204) and the Tendai prelate Jien (1155–1225). Previous scholarship has tended to treat the two poets within separate analytical frames—Shunzei within Buddhist poetics, Jien within Tendai doctrinal history—leaving the structural transformation that links them largely unexamined. This study argues that Jien’s hundred-poem Sumiyoshi sequence in the Shūgyokushū can be read as enacting a systematic interiorization of the external authority structure that Shunzei articulated in the preface to the Senzai wakashū, and that this transformation can be reconstructed as a coherent religious phenomenology. Through close reading of the full hundred-poem sequence, this study proposes a heuristic sevenfold phenomenological model—Light, Voice, Wind, Wave, Knowledge, Silence, Eternity—traversed by four interlocking dimensions: the deity as soteriological consummation of the Dharma, kannō (感応, sympathetic resonance) as internal faith, hōraku (法楽) as total entrustment, and the auditory phenomenology of shinjin kōkan (神人交感). The study further proposes that this sevenfold structure can be understood as the temporal unfolding of the godai-gogyō (五大・五行) cosmology that Jien posits as inscribed in the 5-7-5-7-7 form of waka, offering a structural analogy between the pentadic grid of the verse and the experiential arc of the sequence. By grounding Jien’s kashinron in the prosodic form of waka, this study opens new methodological horizons for the comparative study of medieval poetic–religious thought. Full article

Zhang Chunyi (张纯一) was a significant thinker in modern Chinese intellectual history, but his profound ideas had long been marginalized. He demonstrated exceptional intellectual creativity in his practice of dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. His religious identity evolved from that of a Confucian scholar to a Christian, and finally to a Buddhist who advocated “Buddhicized Christianity”. This faith-based transformation constituted a theological revolution grounded in internal religious dialogue and rational reflection, ultimately heralding the construction of an original theological system of Buddhicized Christianity. With Mahayana Buddhism as its hermeneutical foundation, this system employs strategies like conceptual correspondence, the ontological internalization of mind–nature, the transference of meaning, and the harmonization of practices in order to systematically and creatively reinterpret core Christian doctrines. Not only does it provide unique historical resources for theories of interreligious dialogue, but it also profoundly reveals the internal tensions and interpretive boundaries inherent in creative transformation. The intellectual experiments and religious practices of Zhang Chunyi, drawn from a Chinese religious context, provide invaluable historical references and theoretical insights that can still inform key contemporary issues such as interreligious dialogue and multiple religious affiliations. Full article

Contrasting mainstream operational definitions of mindfulness, this article introduces the Dialectical Mandala Model of Mindfulness (DMMM), a dialectically articulated framework integrating Daoist internal alchemy and Buddhist contemplative theory. It reconceptualizes mindfulness as a multilayered developmental architecture rather than a set of techniques or cognitive skills, extending beyond cognitive adjustment to encompass the psycho-physical dynamics of qi, shen (spirit), hun (cloud-soul), and po (white-soul). Grounded in the catuṣkoṭi framework, the DMMM proposes a reconstruction of the dialectical logic underlying certain contemplative traditions through a systematic integration of the subject–object polarity, and aligns with the second stage of Kwang-Kuo Hwang’s three-step epistemological strategy for developing indigenous psychology, contributing to theory-building within cross-cultural and indigenous psychological discourse. The study combines close textual analysis with a reflexive use of autoethnographic vignettes from long-term practice, not as reports of experience themselves but as an epistemically situated resource for model construction. The DMMM formalizes a recursively unfolding developmental trajectory of mindfulness cultivation into a system of four interrelated cycles, each comprising four distinct phases. Across these phases, the developmental qualities of faith, understanding, practice, and realization function as recurrent structural principles rather than merely experiential descriptors. By articulating the internal dynamics and causal coherence of these phases, the model offers a systematic theoretical account of how spontaneous or non-discursive states may be understood as structured by a deeper dialectical logic. These four cycles provide a framework for analyzing transformations in mindfulness across stages and traditions, thereby contributing to religious studies, contemplative studies, and cross-cultural psychological theory-building. Full article

This paper explores the advocacy of Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023) for intercultural dialogue as a means of fostering peace. It does so by bringing his thought into dialogue with Martin Wight (1913–1972), an English international relations theorist whose three traditions model explored two forms of dehumanization: a radical solidarist position that dehumanizes by treating all people the same, and an extreme form of pluralism that leads us to a realist position that there is no morality except for a group’s own truth. Wight’s model is especially helpful for drawing out the tensions in Ikeda’s writings between peacebuilding processes centered on solidarism and those centered on pluralism. But, at the same time, this model benefits from a sustained conversation with Ikeda because Wight’s conceptualization of a middle path was highly Eurocentric and too state-centric. Ultimately, Wight’s model gives us a new vocabulary and the context to understand Ikeda’s advocacy, but Ikeda’s approach to intercultural dialogue, deeply rooted in Buddhist humanism and prioritizing citizen diplomacy and education, went farther than Wight in theorizing and practicing how to create a healthy middle ground between the two forms of dehumanization. When viewed together, both scholars also address the broader ambivalence in the literature about why, how and when religion(s) contribute to violence and peace by emphasizing the courage and faith needed to navigate a middle path between extremes. Full article

This paper shifts the research perspective from “Buddhist monasteries” to “monastic Buddhism,” using Nālandā Mahāvihāra as a micro-level case to illuminate the broader support mechanism of Indian Buddhist monasteries, with particular focus on the concept of “non-exhaustible endowment”. Drawing on epigraphic evidence, Vinaya texts, and Chinese pilgrims’ records, it finds that major donors supported monasteries through religious rituals, land grants, and cash investments, primarily in the form of landed property and gold and silver currency, which were designated as non-exhaustible endowments. Monasteries then engaged in agriculture, handicrafts, building industry, commerce, and lending, transforming static assets into a non-exhaustible cycle of capital that benefited both monastics and laity. Systems such as Yizhi (robe funds) and Gongfu zhi Zhuang (robe-providing estates) reveal mature financial services that not only liberated monks from economic constraints but also stimulated the cotton textile trade between India and China. The wealth possessed by monasteries was not static but perpetually engaged in a dynamic cycle of capital. Major Buddhist monasteries thus emerged as regional economic engines, which became the core value for continuous royal patronage, as well as the key incentive for their violent destruction by Turkic Muslims. However, the transformation of the religious landscape and economic network in late medieval Bihār was not a simplistic process. Faced with a changing political and religious environment over time, Sufi saints, Jain followers, Shaiva ascetics and other religious communities, each grounded in their own faiths, landholdings, commercial networks and educational systems, gradually displaced, restructured and undermined the Buddhist monastery-centered endowment mechanism, causing Buddhism to progressively lose its regional dominance as an institutionalized religion. Full article

This article argues that the reconstruction of modern knowledge in late Qing China was not merely the result of the passive importation of Western disciplinary categories, nor simply the natural collapse of the traditional Sibu 四部 system. Focusing on Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑 (1863–1924), it shows how Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhist reading traditions and classificatory logic, functioned as an indigenous epistemological resource in the reordering of knowledge. Through an analysis of Xia’s personal reading lists and handwritten catalogues, including Shengping Suoxue 生平所學 and his Handwritten Catalogue of Collected Books 手抄藏書書目, this study demonstrates that Xia organized his books in the sequence of Buddhist works, newly translated Western works, and indigenous Chinese texts. This arrangement reversed the Confucian-centered hierarchy of the Sibu system, in which the jing 經 category occupied the privileged position. By comparing Xia’s classificatory practice with those of Shen Zengzhi 沈曾植 (1850–1922), Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), Xu Weize 徐維則 (1867–1919), and Yang Renshan 楊仁山 (1837–1911), the article argues that Xia did not simply adopt Western systems of knowledge. Rather, he used Buddhist textual order, cross-sectarian Mahayana learning, and Buddhist epistemological assumptions to relativize classical authority, accommodate Western learning, and construct a new reading horizon. Buddhism in this case was not only a matter of personal faith or religious revival; it became a conceptual and classificatory tool through which modern knowledge could be made intelligible. The article therefore contributes to the study of religion and modernity by showing that the formation of modern Chinese knowledge was not a purely secular process, but a religiously mediated transformation. Full article

In the nineteenth century, the emergence of Western Buddhist studies generated sustained debate over nirvana, one of the central doctrines of Buddhism. The British Protestant missionary Joseph Edkins actively participated in this intellectual discussion and developed a distinctive interpretation of the concept. Early in his writings, Edkins largely followed the prevailing tendency in European scholarship to interpret nirvana through a philosophical framework that equated it with nihilism. However, through extensive engagement with Chinese Buddhist texts and direct interactions with Chinese Buddhists, he gradually revised this view. Approaching the issue from the perspectives of common sense and religion, Edkins argued that nirvana, as understood in Chinese Buddhism, retained a form of practical realism rather than complete annihilation. Although he ultimately rejected the idea that nirvana could provide genuine salvation, Edkins discerned the Western Heaven (Pure Land) within his own construction of a Buddhist theory of death and interpreted it as a potential preparation for Christianity. By situating Northern Buddhism within a broader biblical narrative, he sought to reconcile tensions between nirvana and other Buddhist conceptions of the afterlife, as well as the wider doctrinal tensions between Buddhism and Christianity. As an intermediary in Sino-Western intellectual exchange, Edkins’ creative interpretation of nirvana not only reflects the imprint of Western intellectual traditions but also illuminates the complex negotiations between Christianity and Buddhism, and between faith and reason, in the nineteenth-century construction of Buddhist knowledge. Full article

The Sŏkkuram principal Buddha image, created in mid-eighth-century Unified Silla, was conceived as a replication of the Bodhgayā Mahābodhi enlightenment image, intentionally reproducing its precise dimensions, even as its sculptural style reflects Tang Chinese influence rather than Indian prototypes. Soon after its creation, it came to function as a canonical prototype for Buddhist sculptural production in late Unified Silla. This paper examines the replications and transformations the Sŏkkuram image generated as a canonical prototype through the early Koryŏ period. The stone seated Buddha from An’gye-ri, Kyŏngju, is identified as a faithful replication, notably reproducing even the distinctive pentagonal pillar sockets—a feature unattested elsewhere in Unified Silla. A survey of the broader Sŏkkuram lineage reveals a wide spectrum: from stylistically close replications to images retaining only the formal type, and from iconographic transmission to transformations extending the bhūmisparśamudrā to Medicine Buddha imagery—produced across diverse social strata. The paper repositions the Sŏkkuram Buddha not as an isolated masterwork but as a normative prototype of an enduring sculptural tradition. This breadth and persistence—spanning stone, iron, and dry lacquer over several centuries—suggests an authority exceeding artistic prestige, raising the possibility the image was perceived as possessed of numinous power. Full article

In modern China, the introduction of Science from the West posed a significant challenge to Chinese Buddhism, which was already in a state of decline. The intellectual currents of the New Culture Movement (1915–1923) and the subsequent anti-religious movement, which initially targeted Christianity but expanded to include all religions, subjected Buddhism to severe criticism and pressure for reform. In response, Buddhist intellectuals developed the idea of “Buddhism being scientific” as a defensive strategy. On the one hand, they direct parallels between Buddhist concepts, such as the microscopic world described in scriptures, and modern scientific discoveries like microbiology and the theory of relativity, aiming to demonstrate Buddhism’s empirical validity and superiority. On the other hand, they argued that Buddhism could supplement the shortcomings of science, particularly in addressing spiritual and moral needs, thus positioning it as a necessary complement to a purely materialistic worldview. Under the dominant influence of the scientific paradigm, Buddhism underwent a profound academic transformation. Its teachings were systematically integrated into modern disciplinary frameworks, such as Buddhist history, philosophy, and psychology, shifting from a primarily faith-based practice to an object of scholarly study. This scientization process stripped many traditional elements of their sacred character, reinterpreting them through a rational lens and ultimately redirecting the course of modern Chinese Buddhism. Full article

Buddhist Sunday schools were modeled on the Christian Sunday school, a form of religious education that emerged in late eighteenth-century Britain to provide literacy and moral instruction for impoverished children. Following the Meiji Restoration, Japanese Buddhism institutionalized Buddhist Sunday schools (佛敎日曜學校) for children’s moral cultivation by adapting Christian methodologies, expanding them nationwide during the 1920s and 1930s through standardized curricula. In Korea, Buddhist Sunday schools were introduced from the 1920s onward in response to the expansion of propagation centers (p’ogyo-dang, 布敎堂), the growing demand for youth propagation, and the exclusion of religious education from public schools under the Japanese colonial system. This article examines the comprehensive educational vision and operational principles of these schools—integrating graded administration, teacher qualifications, worship, and recreational activities for children—with a focus on “佛敎 日曜學校案” [Proposals for Buddhist Sunday Schools] written by Ra Un-hyang (羅雲鄕) in 1940. It further analyzes the nationwide distribution of these schools in 1940, identifying limitations such as financial precariousness, personnel shortages, and a lack of societal recognition. Nevertheless, Buddhist Sunday schools represent a significant historical milestone, as they served as a practical site where the popularization of modern Buddhism was realized and as a strategic effort for the cultivation of children and youth as future religious adherents. Full article

This article explores how interfaith dialogue, especially involving non-Christian views and interpretations of Jesus, has transformed contemporary understandings of Christology. It also contends how and why such challenges and developments can further reform and expand what is meant by the Church and salvation (ecclesiology and soteriology). To do so, it first highlights three perspectives towards the other that seem most promising for any robust interfaith Christology and why turning to non-Christians for views of Christ can be spiritually and theologically helpful, if not cathartic. To highlight this idea, it then examines some representative Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist interpretations or critiques of Christology. In doing so, the article ambitiously contends that one main aim of transforming Christology is to transform the Church. Thus, the transformation of Christology through interfaith dialogue will also transform the Church because it will transform how Christians perceive and respond to what is salvific in other faiths and revelations. Advocating for a more expansive Christology, therefore, coincides with developing a more expansive ecclesiology and soteriology. Full article

This is a preliminary report on a study of Indic precedents for Pure Land traditions. It contests anglophone scholarship that find those traditions to be predominantly East Asian constructions in discontinuity with Indian Buddhism. The first part, related to previously unpublished research, disputes a common leading point of such arguments that the expression pure land, jingtu, has no Sanskrit antecedents. The article will show that Sanskrit antecedents for jingtu are in fact abundant. The second part summarizes previously published work showing that the cosmology, soteriology, and buddhology of buddhakṣetras have explicit foundations among the heavens and devas. The third part forecasts research for Kenneth Tanaka’s “Other Power” project. ‘Other-power’ has been seen as discordant with Indian traditions, when even abhidharma sources state that, through ‘a single mind of faith in Buddha to the marrow of one’s bones, one can overcome infinite bad karma.’ The salvific power of the names of buddhas is a common concept in Indian Buddhism, declared even by Nāgārjuna. Not discounting Chinese and Japanese creative contributions and acculturation, Pure Land traditions are in strong natural continuity with Indian Buddhist thought. Full article

This study examines the Kwŏnsu-chŏngŏp-wangsaeng-ch’ŏpkyŏngdo (勸修淨業往生捷徑圖), a woodblock print created for Pure Land practice during the Chosŏn period. The print served as material evidence demonstrating how Pure Land faith developed within Chosŏn Buddhism, which consolidated various schools under the Sŏn tradition while integrating doctrinal studies and Pure Land faith. Through iconographic analysis of the transformation tableau and examination of its publication colophon, this paper explores how yŏmbul-Sŏn practice evolved from the early Chosŏn period and how this print functioned as a practical medium for daily Buddha recitation practice. The study argues that the Kwŏnsu-chŏngŏp-wangsaeng-ch’ŏpkyŏngdo represents empirical evidence of the synthesis between Sŏn meditation and Pure Land faith, demonstrating the inclusive approach of Chosŏn Buddhist masters who accepted both Mind-Only Pure Land and Western Pure Land concepts for the purpose of widespread religious instruction. Full article

The Epitaph of Yuan Nanzi reveals the complex situation of aristocratic women in Northern Dynasties, caught between Buddhist devotion and familial obligations. Though burdened by secular hardships, Yuan Nanzi devoted herself to raising her children and restoring the family’s fortunes, highlighting the pivotal role of mothers in sustaining family continuity. In later life, she developed a deep interest in Buddhist scriptures, yet due to familial resistance, she did not formally ordain as a bhikṣuṇī until the age of seventy-three. Even then, she chose to practice Buddhism at home and was eventually buried in the clan cemetery, embodying a distinct model of “faith at home.” This path of practice, which integrated religious pursuit with familial responsibilities, was not only present among bhikṣuṇīs in the Northern Dynasties but also became widespread in the Tang dynasty, reflecting Buddhism’s adaptation to traditional Chinese family-centered social structures and Confucian ideology. Full article

A unique illustrated manuscript of the Ten Kings Sutra from Dunhuang (S.3961) depicts two anomalous paths of rebirth alongside the traditional six: a path of serpents and a path of Buddhas, neither of which is found in canonical Buddhist scriptures or other illustrative paintings. This paper argues that these two paths should be understood as a symmetrical visual and rhetorical strategy designed to serve the sutra’s didactic and ritual functions within the local community. The serpent path visualizes a popular belief linking rebirth as a serpent to dying in a state of anger, functioning as a terrifying warning against the consequences of neglecting filial duties and mortuary rites. In symmetrical opposition, the Buddha path offers the ultimate promise of liberation, symbolizing the goal of rebirth in a Pure Land and eventual Buddhahood, which could be achieved by performing the very rituals the sutra promotes or by resorting to the protection of Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha. This pairing of “fear” and “faith” stands as a uniquely powerful example of the creative localization of Buddhism in late Tang and Five Dynasties Dunhuang, revealing how local communities actively synthesized elite doctrines, popular scriptures, and folk beliefs to create a potent visual narrative that addressed their pressing anxieties about afterlife judgment and liberation. Full article