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For the Love of Dogs: Finding Compassion in a Time of Famine in Pali Buddhist Stories |
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Author |
Granoff, Phyllis (著)
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Source |
Religions
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Volume | v.10 n.3 |
Date | 2019.03 |
Publisher | MDIP |
Publisher Url |
https://www.mdpi.com/
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Location | Basel, Switzerland [巴塞爾, 瑞士] |
Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
Language | 英文=English |
Keyword | dogs; Buddhism; famine; merit |
Abstract | This paper focuses on stories from the 13th century Rasavāhinī in which feeding a starving dog is described as an act of great merit, equal even to the care of a monk or the Buddha. It begins with a reevaluation of passages from Buddhist texts that have been taken by scholars as evidence of pan- Buddhist concern for taking care of animals. It argues that they have been over-read and that the Rasavāhinī stories are distinctive. The setting in which these acts occur, a catastrophic famine, helps us to understand the transformation of the despised dog into an object of compassion. In such dire circumstances, when humans themselves behave like animals, compassion for a starving dog is both a new recognition of a fundamental shared kinship between human and animal and a gesture of recovering lost humanity. |
Table of contents | 1. Introduction 2. The Merits of Feeding Animals: Reexamining the Evidence 3. Dogs as a Field of Merit 4. Charity in a Time of Famine 5. Conclusions
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ISSN | 20771444 (E) |
DOI | 10.3390/rel10030183 |
Hits | 96 |
Created date | 2021.11.12 |
Modified date | 2023.06.19 |
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