Buddhism and Empire
Buddhism and Empire

Author: Michael Walter

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-06-24

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9047429281

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This book convincingly reassesses the role of political institutions in the introduction of Buddhism under the Tibetan Empire (c. 620-842), showing how relationships formed in the Imperial period underlie many of the unique characteristics of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Taking original sources as a point of departure, the author persuasively argues that later sources hitherto used for the history of early Tibetan Buddhism in fact project later ideas backward, thus distorting our view of its enculturation. Following the pattern of Buddhism’s spread elsewhere in Asia, the early Tibetan imperial court realized how useful normative Buddhist concepts were. This work clearly shows that, while some beliefs and practices per se changed after the Tibetan Empire, the model of socio-political-religious leadership developed in that earlier period survived its demise and still constitutes a significant element in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist religious culture.

Empire of the Dharma
Empire of the Dharma

Author: Hwansoo Ilmee Kim

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780674065758

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Kim explores the dynamic relationship between Korean and Japanese Buddhists in the years leading up to the Japanese annexation of Korea. Conventional narratives portray Korean Buddhists as complicit in the religious annexation of the peninsula, but this view fails to account for the diverse visions, interests, and strategies that drove both sides.

The Political and Religious Culture of Early Tibet
The Political and Religious Culture of Early Tibet

Author: Michael L. Walter

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9786612401329

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This book convincingly reassesses the role of political institutions in the introduction of Buddhism under the Tibetan Empire (c. 620-842), showing how relationships formed in the Imperial period underlie many of the unique characteristics of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Taking original sources as a point of departure, the author persuasively argues that later sources hitherto used for the history of early Tibetan Buddhism in fact project later ideas backward, thus distorting our view of its enculturation. Following the pattern of Buddhism's spread elsewhere in Asia, the early Tibetan imperial court realized how useful normative Buddhist concepts were. This work clearly shows that, while some beliefs and practices per se changed after the Tibetan Empire, the model of socio-political-religious leadership developed in that earlier period survived its demise and still constitutes a significant element in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist religious culture.

The Korean Buddhist Empire
The Korean Buddhist Empire

Author: Hwansoo Ilmee Kim

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1684175925

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"In the first part of the twentieth century, Korean Buddhists, despite living under colonial rule, reconfigured sacred objects, festivals, urban temples, propagation—and even their own identities—to modernize and elevate Korean Buddhism. By focusing on six case studies, this book highlights the centrality of transnational relationships in the transformation of colonial Korean Buddhism.Hwansoo Ilmee Kim examines how Korean, Japanese, and other Buddhists operating in colonial Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Manchuria, and beyond participated in and were significantly influenced by transnational forces, even as Buddhists of Korea and other parts of Asia were motivated by nationalist and sectarian interests. More broadly, the cases explored in the The Korean Buddhist Empire reveal that, while Japanese Buddhism exerted the most influence, Korean Buddhism was (as Japanese Buddhism was itself) deeply influenced by developments in China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Europe, and the United States, as well as by Christianity."

Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism
Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

Author: April D. Hughes

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2021-05-31

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0824888707

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Although scholars have long assumed that early Chinese political authority was rooted in Confucianism, rulership in the medieval period was not bound by a single dominant tradition. To acquire power, emperors deployed objects and figures derived from a range of traditions imbued with religious and political significance. Author April D. Hughes demonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690–705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581–604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule. During periods of upheaval caused by the decline of the Dharma, worldly saviors arrived on earth to quell chaos and to rule and liberate their subjects simultaneously. By incorporating these figures into the imperial system, sovereigns were able to depict themselves both as monarchs and as buddhas or bodhisattvas in uncertain times. In this inventive and original work, Hughes traces worldly saviors—in particular Maitreya Buddha and Prince Moonlight—as they appeared in apocalyptic scriptures from Dunhuang, claims to the throne made by various rebel leaders, and textual interpretations and assertions by Yang Jian and Wu Zhao. Yang Jian associated himself with Prince Moonlight and took on the persona of a Wheel-Turning King whose offerings to the Buddha were not flowers and incense but weapons of war to reunite a long-fragmented empire and revitalize the Dharma. Wu Zhao was associated with several different worldly savior figures. In addition, she saw herself as the incarnation of a Wheel-Turning King for whom it was said the Seven Treasures manifested as material representations of his right to rule. Wu Zhao duly had the Seven Treasures created and put on display whenever she held audiences at court. The worldly savior figure allowed rulers to inhabit the highest role in the religious realm along with the supreme role in the political sphere. This incorporation transformed notions of Chinese imperial sovereignty, and associating rulers with a buddha or bodhisattva continued long after the close of the medieval period.

Faith and Empire
Faith and Empire

Author: Karl Debreczeny

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780692194607

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"This catalog is published in conjunction with the exhibition Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, organized and presented by the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, February 1-July 15, 2019, and curated by Karl Debreczeny, Senior Curator, Collections and Research, with the assistance of Lizzie Doorly"--Colophon.

Empire of Emptiness
Empire of Emptiness

Author: Patricia Berger

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2003-01-31

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0824862368

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Imperial Manchu support and patronage of Buddhism, particularly in Mongolia and Tibet, has often been dismissed as cynical political manipulation. Empire of Emptiness questions this generalization by taking a fresh look at the huge outpouring of Buddhist painting, sculpture, and decorative arts Qing court artists produced for distribution throughout the empire. It examines some of the Buddhist underpinnings of the Qing view of rulership and shows just how central images were in the carefully reasoned rhetoric the court directed toward its Buddhist allies in inner Asia. The multilingual, culturally fluid Qing emperors put an extraordinary range of visual styles into practice--Chinese, Tibetan, Nepalese, and even the European Baroque brought to the court by Jesuit artists. Their pictorial, sculptural, and architectural projects escape easy analysis and raise questions about the difference between verbal and pictorial description, the ways in which overt and covert meaning could be embedded in images through juxtaposition and collage, and the collection and criticism of paintings and calligraphy that were intended as supports for practice and not initially as works of art.

Empire of the Dharma
Empire of the Dharma

Author: Hwansoo Ilmee Kim

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 1684175208

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"Empire of the Dharma explores the dynamic relationship between Korean and Japanese Buddhists in the years leading up to the Japanese annexation of Korea. Conventional narratives cast this relationship in politicized terms, with Korean Buddhists portrayed as complicit in the “religious annexation” of the peninsula. However, this view fails to account for the diverse visions, interests, and strategies that drove both sides. Hwansoo Ilmee Kim complicates this politicized account of religious interchange by reexamining the “alliance” forged in 1910 between the Japanese Soto sect and the Korean Wonjong order. The author argues that their ties involved not so much political ideology as mutual benefit. Both wished to strengthen Buddhism’s precarious position within Korean society and curb Christianity’s growing influence. Korean Buddhist monastics sought to leverage Japanese resources as a way of advancing themselves and their temples, and missionaries of Japanese Buddhist sects competed with one another to dominate Buddhism on the peninsula. This strategic alliance pushed both sides to confront new ideas about the place of religion in modern society and framed the way that many Korean and Japanese Buddhists came to think about the future of their shared religion."

The Irish Buddhist
The Irish Buddhist

Author: Alicia Turner

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 019007308X

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""The Irish Buddhist tells the story of a poor Irishman who worked his way across America as a migrant worker, became one of the very first Western Buddhist monks, and traveled the length and breadth of Asia, from Burma and present-day Thailand to China and Japan, and from India and Sri Lanka to Singapore and Australia. Defying racial boundaries, he scandalized the colonial establishment of the 1900s. As a Buddhist monk, he energetically challenged the values and power of the British empire. U Dhammaloka was a radical celebrity who rallied Buddhists across Asia, set up schools, and argued down Christian missionaries - often using western atheist arguments. He was tried for sedition, tracked by police and intelligence services, and died at least twice. His early years and final days are shrouded in mystery despite his adept use of mass media. His story illuminates the forgotten margins and interstices of imperial power, the complexities of class, ethnicity and religious belonging in colonial Asia, and the fluidity of identity in the high Victorian period. Too often, the story of the pan-Asian Buddhist revival movement and Buddhism's remaking as a world religion has been told "from above," highlighting scholarly writers, middle-class reformers and ecclesiastical hierarchies. By contrast, Dhammaloka's adventures "from below" highlight the changing and contested meanings of Buddhism in colonial Asia. They offer a window into the worlds of ethnic minorities and diasporas, transnational networks, poor whites, and social movements, all developing different visions of Buddhist and post-imperial modernities. ""--

A History of Indian Buddhism
A History of Indian Buddhism

Author: Akira Hirakawa

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9788120809550

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This comprehensive and detailed survey of the first six centuries of Indian Buddhism sums up the results of a lifetime of research and reflection by one of Japan's most renowned scholars of Buddhism.