Bushidō has had many different lives in many different places around the world. These transformations and afterlives constitute valuable witnesses that offer competing narratives of Japan’s modern ...development and of its changing roles in the world. Beyond Japan they speak to the multiple ways that the country both inspires and (sometimes) displeases other nations. These lives and afterlives also serve to illustrate the myriad ways that intersections of the local and translocal, the past and present, refract perspectives. Bushidō is not unique in its ability to assume divergent connotations and implications in accordance with the contours of the frame within which it is placed. Its elusiveness exemplifies the amorphous characteristics of our global world’s nomadic lexicon.
This anthology reflects a range of Japanese religions in their complex, sometimes conflicting, diversity. In the tradition of the Princeton Readings in Religions series, the collection presents ...documents (legends and miracle tales, hagiographies, ritual prayers and ceremonies, sermons, reform treatises, doctrinal tracts, historical and ethnographic writings), most of which have been translated for the first time here, that serve to illuminate the mosaic of Japanese religions in practice. George Tanabe provides a lucid introduction to the "patterned confusion" of Japan's religious practices. He has ordered the anthology's forty-five readings under the categories of "Ethical Practices, " "Ritual Practices, " and "Institutional Practices, " moving beyond the traditional classifications of chronology, religious traditions (Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, etc.), and sects, and illuminating the actual orientation of people who engage in religious practices. Within the anthology's three broad categories, subdivisions address the topics of social values, clerical and lay precepts, gods, spirits, rituals of realization, faith, court and emperor, sectarian founders, wizards, and heroes, orthopraxis and orthodoxy, and special places. Dating from the eighth through the twentieth centuries, the documents are revealed to be open to various and evolving interpretations, their meanings dependent not only on how they are placed in context but also on how individual researchers read them. Each text is preceded by an introductory explanation of the text's essence, written by its translator. Instructors and students will find these explications useful starting points for their encounters with the varied worlds of practice within which the texts interact with readers and changing contexts. Religions of Japan in Practice is a compendium of relationships between great minds and ordinary people, abstruse theories and mundane acts, natural and supernatural powers, altruism and self- interest, disappointment and hope, quiescence and war. It is an indispensable sourcebook for scholars, students, and general readers seeking engagement with the fertile "ordered disorder" of religious practice in Japan.
Le maître zen Dōgen (1200-1253) est connu et célébré pour ses méthodes innovantes de relecture et de reformulation de la littérature bouddhique chinoise. Un examen plus approfondi des généalogies ...textuelles de ses travaux révèle de multiples couches de transformation textuelle. Ils démontrent que Dōgen participait à une culture dynamique de relecture et de reformulation des textes reçus.
Dōgen (1200-1253) occupies a prominent place in the history of Japanese religions as the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. This essay examines the religious rituals and historical ...vicissitudes that helped elevate Dōgen to his present position of prominence. It uses the example of Dōgen to illustrate how new historical identities are constructed in response to social imperatives and institutional struggles. It argues that we cannot fully understand Japanese religions in general and Sōtō Zen in particular unless we become more sensitive to the ways that these historical, social, and institutional factors shape our received images of the past.
Le présent article examine une divinité appelée Matara 摩多羅 qui était à l'origine puissante, mais dont le culte a été réprimé avant de tomber dans l'oubli. Les précédentes études sur cette divinité ...ayant été influencées par cette répression, elles ont mis l'accent sur son caractère soi-disant hétérogène, « combinatoire », peu orthodoxe ou déviant. Après une brève revue des théories les plus remarquables de ces précédentes études, nous introduisons les ouvrages d'un prélat Tendai de l'époque Edo, Jōin 乘因 (1682-1739), qui avait reçu une initiation complète sur les secrets de Matara. Jōin présente Matara comme le roi des rêves, jouant un rôle essentiel dans les pratiques orthodoxes de méditation du bouddhisme de l'Asie orientale. L'exposé de Jōin nous aide à situer ce rôle dans son contexte. Il ne s'agit pas de « pratiques orthodoxes de méditation » dans les spectacles populaires et dans le folklore. Join explique également pourquoi Matara en vint à apparaître comme le dieu de la souveraineté pour la famille Tokugawa et pour Tenkai 大海, le maître bouddhiste qui avait établi, selon les rites du Sannō ichijitsu shintō 山王ー實神道, le culte de Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1542-1616) à Nikkō 日光 en tant que Tōshō Daigongen 東照大權現. Suivant cette explication, Jōin identifie le droit divin de gouvernement comme relevant du « shintō » et affirme que seul ce dernier (et non le bouddhisme) est capable d'assurer la paix et la prospérité du royaume.
Going Forth Stanley Weinstein
2005, 20050131
eBook
In its role as a scriptural charter, vinaya has justified widely dissimilar approaches to religious life as Buddhist orders in different times and places have interpreted it in contradictory ways. In ...the resulting tension between scripture and practice, certain kinds of ceremonial issues (such as those involving lineage, seniority, initiation, purification, repentance, visualization, vows, ordination) acquire profound social, psychological, doctrinal, and soteriological significance in Buddhism. Going Forth focuses on these issues over a wide sweep of history-from early fifth-century China to modern Japan-to provide readers with a rich overview of the intersection of doctrinal, ritual, and institutional concerns in the development of East Asian Buddhist practices.
Despite the crucial importance of vinaya, especially for understanding Buddhism in East Asia, very little scholarship in Western languages exists on this fascinating topic. The essays presented here, written by senior scholars in the field, go beyond the timeworn method of relying on prescriptive accounts in the scriptures to describe what imaginary Buddhists must have done (or do). Rather, they address how actual people responded to local social and cultural imperatives by reading scripture in innovative ways to give new life to tradition. They place real people, practices, and institutions at the center of each account, revealing both diversity and unity, continuity and transformation, in Buddhist customs. The result is a well-integrated, accessible work-relevant for Buddhist studies, but with wider implications for anyone interested in East Asian cultural heritage.
Contributors: T. H. Barrett, William Bodiford, David W. Chappell, James C. Dobbins, Daniel A. Getz, Paul Groner, John R. McRae, Morten Schlütter, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Yifa.
Dreams of Buddhism (Buppō yume monogatari)was written by a Japanese Buddhist monk known as Chidó sometime during the latter half of the thirteenth century. Little is known about Chidó other than his ...name and the contents of several short treatises attributed to him. He seems to have enjoyed renown as a master of Shingon Esoteric practices. Only one of his works,Ten Causes of Favorable Dreams(Kōmu jūiri), was dated, and this only with the vague notation: “During the Kōan Era” (i.e., 1278–1287). Other works attributed to h im include Proper Mental Attitude during Illness (Byôchu yôjinshô), The
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