In this article, I consult commentarial and bibliographical texts from the early Tang dynasty to better understand the history of the Heart Sutra. As in a palimpsest, there appears to be another, earlier his- tory partially preserved beneath the text of the received history. This early layer says that the Heart Sutra was composed in China, prob- ably by Xuanzang. He combined a selection of popular extracts from the Large Prajñāpāramitā sūtra with a dhāraṇī to produce a “condensed sutra.” Even before the death of Xuanzang, this earlier history was being effaced and replaced by elements of the received history. It appears that both the Sanskrit text and the translation attributed to Kumārajīva were knowing forgeries produced to make the new his- tory plausible.
Category: Series Four Volume 1
Death Ritual Polemics: Bo dong Paṇ chen and Go rams pa on the Funerary Practices of the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana tantra
The Sarvadurgatipariśodhana tantra (SDP) has informed Tibetan Buddhist funerary practices since it was first translated into Tibetan in the late eighth century. One of its most influential interpreters was the Sa skya pa hierarch Rje btsun Grags pa rgyal mtshan (1147– 1216), whose Light Rays for the Benefit of Others: The Rituals of Sarvavid offers detailed instructions for performing the…
Review: Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts
Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts: An Anthology. Edited by Georgios T. Halkias and Richard K. Payne. University of Hawaii Press, 2019. 808 pages. $85.00 (hardcover). ISBN 9780824873097. Edward Arnold Columbia University Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts may be one of the few edited collections offering heterogeneity as its organizing principle, doubtless due to the well founded…
Review: Seeking Śākyamuni
Seeking Śākyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism. By Richard M. Jaffe. University of Chicago Press, 2019. 320 pages. $32.50 (paperback). ISBN 9780226391151. Hillary Langberg Bard College For readers familiar with the turmoil associated with the transition to modernity for both Japanese Buddhism and Japan as a nation-state, Richard Jaffe’s recent monograph provides a wealth of richly-detailed…
Review: Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation
Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation: A Buddhist Approach. Edited by László Zsolnai. London & New York: Springer, 2011. vii + 213 pages. Includes general bibliography, “about the authors,” and index. $159.99 (hardcover and softcover), $119.00 (eBook). ISBN 97848193103. Richard K. Payne Institute of Buddhist Studies This is a collection of ten essays: an introduction and conclusion by the editor, and…
Review: The Fifth Corner of Four
The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 208 pages. $60.00 (hardcover). ISBN 9780198758716. Matthew T. Kapstein École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, and the University of Chicago The author of The Fifth Corner of Four, Graham Priest, is well known to contemporary students of logic,…
Review: Guardians of the Buddha’s Home
Guardians of the Buddha’s Home. By Jessica Starling. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019. 200 pages. $62.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780824866921. Matthew Hayes University of California, Los Angeles In Guardians of the Buddha’s Home, Jessica Starling decenters our view of modern Jōdo Shinshū practice by calling into question the primacy of “orthodox” roles, physical spaces, and relationships, often occupied and defined…
Self-Referential Passages in Mahāyāna Sutra Literature
This study explores self-referential passages in Mahāyāna sutra literature. It argues that these passages serve to mediate a reader or listener’s approach to a text in much the same manner as paratexts mediate one’s approach to a text through external or adjacent devices such as commentaries; these passages, rather than being paratextual and outside of a text, are rather within the body of the text itself. This study explicates the types of self-referential passages in Mahāyāna literature, including encouragement to practice and propagate the text; turning it into a book; preserving the text; statements regard- ing the text’s benefits; identification of the text with other qualities or principles; the qualifications required for obtaining the text; and passages for the entrustment of the text. After noting the relative absence of such passages outside of Mahāyāna literature, it is argued that such passages reveal that for some of the adherents of the disparate early Mahāyāna, textuality was a medium of unprecedented value and utility in promoting novel texts and doctrines.
Chinese Models for Chōgen’s Pure Land Buddhist Network
The medieval Japanese monk Chōgen 重源 (1121–1206), who sojourned at several prominent religious institutions in China during the Southern Song, used his knowledge of Chinese religious social organizations to assist with the reconstruction of Tōdaiji 東大寺 after its destruction in the Gempei 源平 Civil War. Chōgen modeled the Buddhist societies at his bessho 別所 “satellite temples,” located on estates that raised funds and provided raw materials for the Tōdaiji reconstruction, upon the Pure Land societies that financed Tiantai 天 台 temples in Ningbo 寧波 and Hangzhou 杭州. Both types of societies formed as responses to catastrophes, encouraged diverse memberships of lay disciples and monastics, constituted geographical networks, and relied on a two-tiered structure. Also, Chōgen developed Amidabutsu 阿弥陀仏 affiliation names similar in structure and function to those used by the “People of the Way” (daomin 道民) and other lay religious groups in southern China. These names created a collective identity for Chōgen’s devotees and established Chōgen’s place within a lineage of important Tōdaiji persons with the help of the Hishō 祕鈔, written by a Chōgen disciple. Chōgen’s use of religious social models from China were crucial for his fundraising and leader- ship of the managers, architects, sculptors, and workmen who helped rebuild Tōdaiji.