Search Results (16)

During the Chosŏn period (1392–1910) and the colonial period (1910–1945), in Korean Buddhism, Buddhist monks’ and nuns’ monastic experiences were influenced not only by the existing social norms but also by the androcentric monastic regulations, such as the eight “heavy rules”. Despite the androcentric monastic rules and misogynist aspects of practice, Buddhist nuns invariably strived to increase their visibility in monastic communities and secure their position by adopting the existing social norms or customary law; in this way, they challenged male-centered monasticism. To examine Korean Buddhist nuns in the Chosŏn and the colonial periods, this study used secondary scholarship as well as primary sources, such as the story of Queen Chŏngsun, a colonial government document, and a related civil case, to present the various ways in which Buddhist nuns consolidated their position, including coopting the practice of property succession from a master-nun to a disciple-nun and receiving official recognition of the abbess position from the colonial government. Full article

The Daoist monasteries, which were first popularized in southern China in the late fifth century, reflected major changes in the structure of medieval Daoism. From the perspective of comparative religious history, the rise of Daoist monasteries bears some similarity to the monasticisms that came into being in the Christian and Buddhist traditions; all three originated in hermitic and ascetic practices. However, Daoist monasticism did not naturally stem from the hermetic Daoism tradition; instead, it underwent a two-stage process of “grafting” in terms of its spiritual beliefs and values. The first stage saw the emergence of Daoist scriptures in the Jin and Song periods; in particular, the Lingbao scriptures, which transformed and distilled the tradition of hermetic Daoism practiced in the mountains and invested hermitic practice with a more complete and sacrosanct doctrinal foundation. The second saw the Southern Dynasties’ Celestial Masters order embrace and experiment with the beliefs and values within the Lingbao scriptures; this process introduced the inherent communitarian nature of the Celestial Masters into the development of Daoist monasticism and resulted in the large-scale transformation of religious practice among the Celestial Masters of the period. This change of direction among the Celestial Masters order in the Jin and Song periods toward mountain-based practice led to the establishment of Daoist monasticism, but also to a loss of purity therein. Full article

Mount Wutai, China’s earliest Buddhist center, dating to the Han Dynasty’s first century (206 BCE–220 CE), boasts over a hundred monasteries, numerous monuments, and ruins, drawing global pilgrims and travelers. Over its long history, as the geographical focus of imperial support shifted, the ideological underpinnings for structuring the monastic habitation on Mount Wutai also underwent a transformation, consequently altering the pilgrimage paths, monasteries, and mountain gates. However, there remains a paucity of understanding regarding these changes. This paper aims to map out the representative dynamic pilgrimage routines influenced by geo-capital shifts and to reveal the changeable Buddhist ideology of monasticism on Mount Wutai. Through archival studies on ancient transcripts and maps, the interpretation selects the three most significant periods in the development of Buddhism in Mount Wutai: the Northern Wei (386–534 CE), the Sui Tang (581–907 CE), and the Qing Dynasty (1630–1912 CE). The article indicates that Mount Wutai’s monastic strategies have transformed significantly, progressing from free monasticism to the Mañjuśrī maṇḍala mode and ultimately adopting a predominant Tibetan Buddhist character. These changes were driven by shifting Buddhist ideologies and heritage, with pilgrimages and monastic construction responding to these shifts. Full article

This paper relies on the dataset “Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism” (Ver. 2021-06). The focus is on the period between c. 1570 and 1700 CE. We argue that the actor who was most influential for institutional Buddhism in the 17th century was not one of the “four great monks of the late Ming” but rather Miyun Yuanwu 密雲圓悟 (1566–1642). The network illustrates how Miyun’s Tiantong branch 天童派 of the Linji School became the dominant Chan lineage in China and beyond. The main results of this study are: (1) the data corroborate the assumption that (at least) monastic Buddhism declined between c. 1420 and 1570. (2) The network view de-emphasizes the importance of the ‘four famous late Ming eminent monks’ for the development of 17th-century Buddhist monasticism. (3) The data align well with a suggestion by Jiang Wu to distinguish two different stages in the development of late Ming Buddhism. The first is characterized by the “late Ming revival,” led by figures such as Yunqi Zhuhong, Zibo Zhenke, and Hanshan Deqing; the second phase is the organization of orthopraxy around the Chan lineage discourse dominated by Miyun Yuanwu and his students. (4) For the 17th century, the network data clearly shows the centrality of Miyun Yuanwu and his network. Full article

When monastics of the Indic North and Northwest around the turn of the Common Era made the decision to introduce art into monasteries, current cultural assumptions regarding the aesthetic experience of such objects, which were axiomatically negated by Buddhist ideology, led to certain confrontations in law and praxis and an attempt to resolve these within certain monastic legal codes (vinaya) redacted during this period. Tracing the historical relation between monasticism and art in this context, this paper focuses on two such uneasy relations. The first deals with an opposition between the worldly aesthetics of pleasure associated with art and fashion and the aesthetics of asceticism as a representation of monasticism’s renunciate ideal. The second considers the aesthetics of fear associated with images of deities, the rejection of such objects as mere signs, and the resulting acts of theft and iconoclasm enacted upon them. It will show that resolution to both was sought in a particular semiotic which negated the aesthetic experience of such objects and rendered them signs with a significance that accorded with Buddhist ideology. Yet the solution remained incomplete, with issues arising when the same ideology was applied to monasticism’s own representation in the art of monasteries, stūpas and Buddha-images. Full article

A major challenge in the historical study of female monasticism in Thailand is the paucity of texts written by or about Thai Buddhist female practitioners prior to 1950. Biographical and autobiographical texts and other substantial Buddhist texts authored by Thai female practitioners emerged arguably only in the 20th century and are generally relatively rare, with only few notable exceptions. In this paper, I will utilize some of the earliest available Thai texts that allow more detailed insights into female monasticism and soteriological teaching and practice, the creation of female monastic spaces and the interrelationships between male and female monastics. Thus, I will examine sets of monastic training rules that, even though based on Pali canonical precepts and teachings, were created in the early 20th century. In addition to monastic code texts and the narratives of foundation stories, other important sources for my study include the biographies of monastic and female lay practitioners, important benefactors of female monastic communities and prominent male monastic supporters of female monastic and spiritual practice. I will also draw on sermon texts by female and male monastics. Here, I will focus only on the lives of those individuals and histories of female monastic communities that I regard as representative of larger issues, trends and challenges in the history of female monasticism in 20th century Thai Buddhism. Given the scarcity of sources, the present study cannot aspire to provide comprehensive accounts of the history of female monastic communities in Thailand and their interrelationships. Nor will I be able to reconstruct exhaustively the history of their monastic codes of rules. However, based on the sources that are available I will trace the history of attempts to create a blueprint for the organisation of Thai Buddhist female coenobitic monasticism. Full article

This paper focuses on ordination procedures specific to women in Chinese Buddhism, and on the positions adopted by bhikṣuṇīs regarding the procedures’ asymmetrical nature in contemporary China. Dual ordinations, according to which aspiring bhikṣuṇīs must present themselves in front of both an assembly of fully ordained nuns and of monks in order to be “properly” ordained, were restored by Longlian (隆莲 1909–2006) in 1982. Śikṣamāṇā ordinations, which postulate that women should train for an additional two years before receiving full ordination when their male counterparts do not have to, have also become increasingly common since the 1980s. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2015 and today, both on-site and online, this paper asks whether asymmetry should be considered similar to subordination with regard to ordination procedures. It looks into Rurui’s (如瑞, 1957–) position on the matter, as Longlian’s student and one of the most influential bhikṣuṇī of her generation. While recent survey data will be useful in addressing the issue of representation, qualitative data will question the role of vertical networks in perpetuating a teacher’s legacy, ultimately leaving us to wonder if asymmetry might not be actively sought after by contemporary Chinese Buddhist bhikṣuṇīs in order to improve their status. Full article

In the past, Tibetan nuns had no access to formal monastic education and thus could not obtain the two main diplomas and titles that are common in Tibetan Buddhism: the khenpo (mkhan po) degree in the more practice-oriented Nyingmapa school and the geshe (dge bshes) degree in the scholastic curriculum of the Gelukpa school; this essay traces the introduction of the Gelukpa study program in different nunneries based in India and Nepal in recent times; it addresses the question of gender asymmetry by showing the different hurdles that had to be overcome and the solutions, which have been found to allow nuns to become geshemas—the female form of geshe. Finally, I propose the first glimpse into the impact that the opening of higher Buddhist education to nuns has had and what this means for the future of the position of women in the religious sphere, as well as for Tibetan monasticism more generally. Full article

It is in the nineteenth century that the üg genre of Mongolian literature became a favorite literary form for Mongolian writers. Most works written in this genre are didactic teachings on compassion for domestic animals, the ills of the transient nature of saṃsāra, and a critique of misconduct among Buddhist monastic communities in Mongolia. Through the words of anthropomorphized animals or even of inanimate objects, the authors of the works belonging to the üg genre expressed their social concerns and criticism of their society. One of such authors was a Mongolian monk scholar of the nineteenth century by name Agvaanhaidav (Tib: Ngag dbang mkhas grub), who in his works of the üg genre strongly advocated the development and preservation of the spirit of Mahāyāna Buddhism in Mongolia, and of the Geluk monasticism and scholarship in particular. Full article

This article explores how two influential 8th-century Indian philosophers, Śaṅkara and Kamalaśīla, treat the threefold scheme of learning, reasoning, and meditation in their spiritual path philosophies. They have differing institutional and ontological commitments: the former, who helped establish Advaita Vedānta as the religious philosophy of an elite Hindu monastic tradition, affirms an unchanging “self” (ātman) identical to the “world-essence” (brahman); the latter, who played a significant role in the development of Buddhist monasticism in Tibet, denies both self and essence. Yet, they share a concern with questions of truth and the means by which someone could gain access to it, such as what, if anything, meditation contributes to knowledge and its acquisition. By exploring their answers to this and related questions, including how discursive and conceptual practices like learning, reasoning, and meditation could generate nonconceptual knowledge or knowledge of the nonconceptual, this essay shows the difficulty of separating “philosophical” problems of truth from those related to self-transformation or “spirituality,” as Michel Foucault defines the terms. It also reassesses, as a framework for comparison, the well-known contrast between “gradual” and “sudden” approaches to the achievement of liberating knowledge and highlights them as tensions we still struggle to resolve today. Full article

Buddhist texts generally prohibit the killing or harming of any sentient being. However, while such a ban may seem straightforward, it becomes much more complex when annoying or dangerous animals are involved. This paper focuses on one such animal—the rat. These rodents feature prominently in monastics’ daily lives, so it should come as no surprise that both Indian and Chinese Buddhist masters pay attention to them. In the first part of the paper, we investigate the problems that rats can cause, how monastics deal with them, and what the authors-compilers of Buddhist vinaya (disciplinary) texts have to say about them. In the second part, we focus on how Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667)—one of the most prominent vinaya masters of the early Tang Dynasty—interprets the vinaya guidelines and their implementation in Chinese monasteries. As we will see, he raises a number of potential issues with regard to strict adherence to the Buddhist principles of no killing and no harming, and so reveals some of the problematic realities that he felt monastics faced in seventh century China. Full article

This article examines the regulation of religious life in the late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries), focusing comparatively on Catholic monastic communities in pre-Reformation England and Buddhist monasticism in early Ming China. This comparative approach to two of the most important monastic traditions across Eurasia allows us to problematize the paradigm of ideas and praxes surrounding monastic self-governance in Latin Christendom and to integrate the current scholarship on Ming regulation of religious communities by investigating the pivotal changes in imperial religious policies taking place in the early period of this dynasty. We find that monks and secular authorities at the two ends of Eurasia often shared the same concerns about the discipline of religious men and women, the administration of their properties, and the impact of these communities on society at large. Yet, the article identifies significant differences in the responses given to these concerns. Through the analysis of primary sources that have thus far been overlooked, we show how in early Ming China the imperial government imposed a strict control over the education, ordination and disciplining of Buddhist monks. This bureaucratic system was especially strengthened during the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang (r. 1368–1398), when the figure of the Monk-Official and other tools of secular regulation were introduced, and limits to property claims and economic activities of monasteries were imposed. Instead, during the same period, English monasteries benefited from the previous disentangling of the Church from secular political authorities across Europe. In fact, in late medieval England, the Benedictine tradition of self-governance and independence from the secular sphere was arguably even more marked than in the rest of the continent. Full article

This paper analyses the Japanese influence upon Taiwanese Buddhist communities during the Colonial Period. I will discuss the interplay between monasticism, education, and politics by examining the process of institutionalisation of monastics and Buddhist educational programs in Taiwan between 1895 and 1945. In accord with pertinent historical developments, this paper is divided into five sections: (1) the Sōtō Zen lineage, (2) the Rinzai Zen lineage, (3) the Pure Land (Jōdo) lineage, (4) Taiwanese monastics who studied in Japan, and (5) Taiwanese nuns. Based on the strong Japanese sectarian tradition, different sects had disparate strategies in Taiwan. The Sōtō lineage arrived first, engaged in precept ceremonies, and started up a well-run Buddhist college. The Myōshinji Sect of Rinzai took Kaiyuansi in Tainan as the main headquarters in southern Taiwan for teaching Buddhist classes as well as holding monumental precept-conferral ceremonies. As for the Pure Land lineage, they came slightly later but eventually established 37 branches across Taiwan, implementing social-educational programs actively. Finally, the nuns and monks who went abroad to study Buddhism in Japan matured and took important roles in advancing Buddhist education in Taiwan. All of these cases demonstrate a profound Japanese influence upon Taiwanese Buddhist education and monastic culture. Full article

From late January to early February 2018, the first Vinaya course in the Tibetan tradition offered in the United States to train Western nuns was held in Sravasti Abbey. Vinaya masters and senior nuns from Taiwan were invited to teach the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, which has the longest lasting bhikṣuṇī (fully ordained nun) sangha lineage in the world. During this course, almost 60 nuns from five continents, representing three different traditional backgrounds lived and studied together. Using my ethnographic work to explore this Vinaya training event, I analyze the perceived needs that have spurred Western Buddhist practitioners to form a bhikṣuṇī sangha. I show how the event demonstrates the solid transmission of an Asian Vinaya lineage to the West. I also parallel this Vinaya training event in the West to the formation of the bhikṣuṇī sangha in China in the 4th and 5th centuries, suggesting that for Buddhism in a new land, there will be much more cooperation and sharing among Buddhist nuns from different Buddhist traditions than there are among monastics in Asia where different Buddhist traditions and schools have been well-established for centuries. This Vinaya training event points to the development of the bhikṣuṇī sangha in the West being neither traditionalist nor modernist, since nuns both respect lineages from Asia, and reforms the gender hierarchy practiced in Asian Buddhism. Nuns from different traditions cooperate with each other in order to allow Buddhism to flourish in the West. Full article

This article centers on the relationship of rules (nīti) to the monastic form of life of contemporary Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka. A genealogy of scholarship focusing on the rules of Buddhist monks and nuns has led scholars to affirm a clear-cut distinction between nuns who have the higher ordination (bhikkhunῑs) and those who do not have it. However, that distinction is not self-evident, because bhikkhunῑs and other nuns lead lives that do not foreground a juridical notion of rules. The lives of nuns focus on disciplinary practices of self-restraint within a tradition of debate about their recent higher ordinations. Whether or not they are bhikkhunῑs, nuns today refer to rules in ways that are different from that which dominant Vinaya scholarship assumes. This article proposes that it is misleading to differentiate Buddhist nuns based on an enumeration of their rules and argues that nuns’ attitudes to rules say more about attempts to authorize claims to power in current debates about their ordination than about their disciplinary practice as a communal form of life. Full article