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Returning to the Founder: Śākyamuni Devotion in Early Medieval Japan and Japanese Buddhist Conceptions of History
Author Thompson, Luke Noel (撰)
Date2017
Pages306
PublisherColumbia University
Publisher Url https://www.columbia.edu/
LocationNew York, NY, US [紐約, 紐約州, 美國]
Content type博碩士論文=Thesis and Dissertation
Language英文=English
Degreedoctor
InstitutionColumbia University
DepartmentEast Asian Languages and Cultures
AdvisorComo, Michael I.
Publication year2017
KeywordBuddhist literature; Japanese; Mahayana Buddhism; Japanese – Religion; History; Asians; Gautama Buddha
AbstractThis dissertation examines Japanese conceptions of and devotional attitudes toward Śākyamuni (the historical Buddha) during the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. It focuses in particular on a new interest in Śākyamuni that arose in the twelfth century, and argues that this interest was a response to two developments: the appearance of the belief that the world had entered Buddhism’s final age, and the increasingly acute sense that Japan existed at the periphery of the Buddhist world. These two developments evoked in some clerics a sense of distance from the origins of Buddhism and a feeling of helplessness since the final age was a time when soteriological progress was thought to be particularly difficult. Japanese Buddhists were thus faced with a problem: how to proceed given these disadvantageous circumstances? Some clerics found comfort in theories about the Buddha Amida’s ability to take humans away from this world to his pure land, while others turned instead to the Mahāyāna Buddhist idea that humans are born enlightened (and thus need not worry about their personal salvation after all). The monks and texts at the center of my research instead looked to Śākyamuni in an attempt to reconnect with the source of the Buddhist tradition, thereby countering the inevitable decline of Buddhism by linking themselves to, and in some cases recreating, the imagined golden age that Śākyamuni and his Indian environs represented.
Table of contentsList of illustrations iv
Acknowledgements v
Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Śākyamuni in Early Japanese Buddhism 21
Śākyamuni-of-narrative: the hagiographical buddha 26
Śākyamuni-of-doctrine: the eternal buddha 39
Changing views of history 51
The Śākyamuni of Seiryōji 56
Śākyamuni in the Konjaku monogatari shū 65
Conclusion 68

Chapter 2 Jōkei and the Hikekyō 70
The Hikekyō 76
Previous scholarship on the Hikekyō 84
The influence of the Hikekyō on Jōkei’s conception of Śākyamuni: ties to the Buddhist past 86 Jōkei and Amida 90
Aspects of the Hikekyō emphasized by Jōkei and what what this tells us about Jōkei’s conception of Śākyamuni 97
Śākyamuni’s jātaka: Samdrareṇu (J. Hōkai) and his 500 vows 98
Śākyamuni’s uniqueness: his character and position within the Buddhist pantheon and our relationship to him 101
The influence of the Hikekyō on Jōkei’s conception of relics: ties to the present and the Buddhist future 107
Relics in the Hikekyō 108
Jōkei’s understanding of relics 114
Jōkei’s reading of the Hikekyō and that work’s influence on his understanding of the nature and soteriological role of relics 118
Conclusion 124

Chapter 3 Hōkei, his 500 Vows and Śākyamuni as a daimyōjin: The Reception of the Hikekyō between the Tenth and Thirteenth Centuries 128
Three different receptions of the Hikekyō 131
Hōkai and his 500 vows 134
The Shaka nyorai gohyaku daigan (kyō) 135
The Shaka nyorai shaku 144
Śākyamuni as a daimyōjin 150
Myōjin, myōjin, and daimyōjin 153
Origin of the sixteen-character phrase 155
Relationship between buddhas and kami 161
Chūsei shinwa, Chūsei Nihongi 164
The rise of Pure Land Buddhism, and the turn to the other world 169
Conclusion 173

Chapter 4 Vulture Peak in Japan: Importing the Sacred Past into the Defiled Present 175
Vulture Peak: In India and in Japan 182
Views of Vulture Peak and Śākyamuni as being elsewhere 187
Rebirth in Śākyamuni’s pure land 188
Views of Vulture Peak and Śākyamuni as being here in Japan 197
Jōkei and Mt. Kasagi 199
Thirteen-tiered pagoda 200
Conclusion 208

Conclusion 217

Works Cited 227
Appendices 257
Appendix 1: Table of quotes from and references to the Hikekyō 258
Appendix 2: Translation of Jōkei’s Gongu ryōzen kōshiki (1196) 269
Appendix 3: Translation of Jōkei’s Kasagidera jūsanjūtō kuyō ganmon (1198) 288
Appendix 4: Translation of Jōkei’s Tōshōdaiji Shaka nenbutsu gammon (1202) 295
Appendix 5: Translation of tale from Chūkōsen (by 1152) 304
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.7916/D8QZ2GN8
Hits727
Created date2021.12.11
Modified date2021.12.11



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