Protecting the Dharma through Calligraphy in Tang China
Protecting the Dharma through Calligraphy in Tang China

Author: Pietro De Laurentis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 1000488640

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This is a study of the earliest and finest collated inscription in the history of Chinese calligraphy, the Ji Wang shengjiao xu 集王聖教序 (Preface to the Sacred Teaching Scriptures Translated by Xuanzang in Wang Xizhi’s Collated Characters), which was erected on January 1, 673. The stele records the two texts written by the Tang emperors Taizong (599–649) and Gaozong (628–683) in honor of the monk Xuanzang (d. 664) and the Buddhist scripture Xin jing (Heart Sutra), collated in the semi-cursive characters of the great master of Chinese calligraphy, Wang Xizhi (303–361). It is thus a Buddhist inscription that combines Buddhist authority, political power, and artistic charm in one single monument. The present book reconstructs the multifaceted context in which the stele was devised, aiming at highlighting the specific role calligraphy played in the propagation and protection of Buddhism in medieval China.

Protecting the Dharma Through Calligraphy in Tang China
Protecting the Dharma Through Calligraphy in Tang China

Author: Pietro De Laurentis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9781003230472

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"This is a study of the earliest and finest collated inscription in the history of Chinese calligraphy, the Ji Wang shengjiao xu (Preface to the Sacred Teaching Scriptures Translated by Xuanzang in Wang Xizhi's Collated Characters), which was erected on January 1, 673. The stele records the two texts written by the Tang emperors Taizong (599-649) and Gaozong (628-683) in honor of the monk Xuanzang (d. 664) and the Buddhist scripture Xin jing (Heart Sutra), collated in the semi-cursive characters of the great master of Chinese calligraphy, Wang Xizhi (303-361). It is thus a Buddhist inscription that combines Buddhist authority, political power, and artistic charm in one single monument. The present book reconstructs the multifaceted context in which the stele was devised, aiming at highlighting the specific role calligraphy played in the propagation and protection of Buddhism in medieval China"--

Diamond Sutra Narratives
Diamond Sutra Narratives

Author: Chiew Hui Ho

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-07-08

Total Pages: 534

ISBN-13: 9004406727

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Contextualizing the sutra within a milieu of intense religious and cultural experimentation, this volume unravels the sudden rise of Diamond Sutra devotion in the Tang dynasty against the backdrop of a range of social, political, and literary activities. Through the translation and exploration of a substantial body of narratives extolling the efficacy of the sutra, it explores the complex social history of lay Buddhism by focusing on how the laity might have conceived of the sutra and devoted themselves to it. Corroborated by various sources, it reveals the cult’s effect on medieval Chinese religiosity in the activities of an empowered laity, who modified and produced parasutraic texts, prompting the monastic establishment to accommodate to the changes they brought about.

The Landscape of Words
The Landscape of Words

Author: Robert E. Harrist

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13:

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This is the first study in a Western language devoted to one of the most visually distinctive features of the landscape in China--moya or moya shike, texts carved into granite boulders and cliffs that are part of the natural terrain at thousands of sites of historic or scenic interest. These inscriptions, carved in large, bold characters, served as a vast repository of texts produced continuously for over two thousand years and constitue an important form of public art. Focusing on the period prior to the eighth century C.E., Harrist demonstrates that the significance of the inscriptions depends on the interaction of words with topography, so that the medium of the written work has transformed geological formations into landscapes of ideological and religious significance.

Introducing World Religions
Introducing World Religions

Author: Victoria Kennick Urubshurow

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13:

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A fully comprehensive and new approach to the study of the world's religions which uses a dramatic metaphor to bring the subject alive and to explore players (key figures), the script (foundational texts) and performance (religious practice).