The Footprints of the Buddha

The Footprints of the Buddha

Author: Alexander Vovin

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9004449841

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This book deals with Chinese and Japanese inscriptions (8th century AD) about the footprints of Buddha. The language of the Japanese inscription reflects the contemporary dialect of Nara. Its writing system presents a special interest being practically monophonic.


A Waka Anthology

A Waka Anthology

Author: Edwin A. Cranston

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1998-03-01

Total Pages: 1030

ISBN-13: 9780804731577

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The Gem-Glistening Cup is the second volume of Edwin Cranston's monumental Waka Anthology which carries the story of waka, the classical tradition of Japanese poetry, from its beginnings in ancient song to the sixteenth century. The present volume, which contains almost 1,600 songs and poems, covers the period from the earliest times to 784, and includes many of the finest works in the literatures as well as providing evocative glimpses of the spirit and folkways of early Japanese civilization. The texts drawn upon for the poems are the ancient chronicles Kojiki, Nihonshoki, and Shoku Nihongi; the fudoki, a set of eighth-century local gazetteers; Man'yoshu, the massive eighth-century compendium of early poetry (about one fourth of that work is included); and the Bussokuseki poems carved on a stone tablet at a temple in Nara. All poems are presented in facing romanization and translation.


Relics of the Buddha

Relics of the Buddha

Author: John S. Strong

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0691188114

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Buddhism is popularly seen as a religion stressing the truth of impermanence. How, then, to account for the long-standing veneration, in Asian Buddhist communities, of bone fragments, hair, teeth, and other bodily bits said to come from the historic Buddha? Early European and American scholars of religion, influenced by a characteristic Protestant bias against relic worship, declared such practices to be superstitious and fraudulent, and far from the true essence of Buddhism. John Strong's book, by contrast, argues that relic veneration has played a serious and integral role in Buddhist traditions in South and Southeast Asia-and that it is in no way foreign to Buddhism. The book is structured around the life story of the Buddha, starting with traditions about relics of previous buddhas and relics from the past lives of the Buddha Sakyamuni. It then considers the death of the Buddha, the collection of his bodily relics after his cremation, and stories of their spread to different parts of Asia. The book ends with a consideration of the legend of the future parinirvana (extinction) of the relics prior to the advent of the next Buddha, Maitreya. Throughout, the author does not hesitate to explore the many versions of these legends and to relate them to their ritual, doctrinal, artistic, and social contexts.


A Warbler's Song in the Dusk

A Warbler's Song in the Dusk

Author: Paula Doe

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0520327616

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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.


Fragments of Rainbows

Fragments of Rainbows

Author: Amy Vladeck Heinrich

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780231054287

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Why do smokers claim that the first cigarette of the day is the best? What is the biological basis behind some heavy drinkers' belief that the "hair-of-the-dog" method alleviates the effects of a hangover? Why does marijuana seem to affect ones problem-solving capacity? Intoxicating Minds is, in the author's words, "a grand excavation of drug myth." Neither extolling nor condemning drug use, it is a story of scientific and artistic achievement, war and greed, empires and religions, and lessons for the future. Ciaran Regan looks at each class of drugs, describing the historical evolution of their use, explaining how they work within the brain's neurophysiology, and outlining the basic pharmacology of those substances. From a consideration of the effect of stimulants, such as caffeine and nicotine, and the reasons and consequences of their sudden popularity in the seventeenth century, the book moves to a discussion of more modern stimulants, such as cocaine and ecstasy. In addition, Regan explains how we process memory, the nature of thought disorders, and therapies for treating depression and schizophrenia. Regan then considers psychedelic drugs and their perceived mystical properties and traces the history of placebos to ancient civilizations. Finally, Intoxicating Minds considers the physical consequences of our co-evolution with drugs -- how they have altered our very being -- and offers a glimpse of the brave new world of drug therapies.


Man’yōshū (Book 15)

Man’yōshū (Book 15)

Author:

Publisher: Global Oriental

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 900421299X

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This new translation, the lifework of the author, is fully academically oriented. Given that it is the largest Japanese poetic anthology and thus the most important compendium of Japanese culture of the Asuka period (AD 592–710) and most of the Nara period (AD 710–784), it is very much more than a work of literature, which has been the single focus of previous translations by Pierson and Suga.Thus, in this translation the author has sought to present the Man’yōshῡ to the reader preserving as far as possible the flavour, sounds and semantics of the original poems. The result is a more literate but true translation. In addition, because the realia of the Man’yōshῡ are mostly alien to both Westerners and modern Japanese, the text contains appropriate commentaries that illuminate the context. Also unique to this new version is the appearance of the original text, kana transliterations, romanization and glossing with morphemic analysis for the benefit of specialists and students of Old Japanese. The entire translation will consist of 20 volumes, paralleling the original twenty books. The first to be published is volume 15 (announced here) one of six books written mostly in phonographic script. The author argues that the importance of book 15 lies in the fact that it contains a large number of Western Old Japanese grammatical forms and constructions that are not attested in any other Western Old Japanese text, but are extremely important in understanding this language, thereby providing a valuable foundation for all the other Man’yōshῡ texts, including those written in semantographic text. The publication sequence and anticipated dates of the remaining volumes will be announced at a future date.


Hope and the Longing for Utopia

Hope and the Longing for Utopia

Author: Daniel Boscaljon

Publisher: James Clarke & Company

Published: 2015-02-26

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0227903900

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At present the battle over who defines our future is being waged most publicly by secular and religious fundamentalists. 'Hope and the Longing for Utopia' offers an alternative position, disclosing a conceptual path toward potential worlds that resist a limited view of human potential and the gift of religion. In addition to outlining the value of embracing unknown potentialities, these twelve interdisciplinary essays explore why it has become crucial that we commit to hoping for values that resist traditional ideological commitments. Contextualized by contemporary writing on utopia, and drawing from a wealth of times and cultures ranging from Calvin's Geneva to early twentieth-century Japanese children's stories to Hollywood cinema, theseessays cumulatively disclose the fundamental importance of resisting tantalizing certainties while considering the importance of the unknown and unknowable. Beginning with a set of four essays outlining the importance of hope and utopia as diagnostic concepts, and following with four concrete examples, the collection ends with a set of essays that provide theological speculations on the need to embrace finitude and limitations in a world increasingly enframed by secularizing impulses. Overall, this book discloses how hope and utopia illuminate ways to think past simplified wishes for the future.


Inscribed Objects and the Development of Literature in Early Japan

Inscribed Objects and the Development of Literature in Early Japan

Author: Joshua Frydman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-06-26

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9004527788

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The introduction of writing enables new forms of literature, but these can be invisible in works that survive as manuscripts. Through looking at inscriptions of poetry on garbage and as graffiti, we can glimpse how literature spread along with writing. This study uses these lesser-studied sources, including inscriptions on pottery, architecture, and especially wooden tablets known as mokkan, to uncover how poetry, and literature more broadly, was used, shared and thrown away in early Japan. Through looking at these disposable and informal sources, we explore the development of early Japanese literature, and even propose parallels to similar developments in other societies across space and time.