Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan: Indic Roots of Mantra

Payne, Richard K. (著)

作者

Payne, Richard K. (著)

版本項

First edition

出版日期

2018

頁次

256

出版者

Bloomsbury Publishing

出版者網址

https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/home

出版地

London, England, UK [倫敦, 英格蘭, 英國]

資料類型

書籍=Book

使用語言

英文=English

附註項

Richard K. Payne is Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studiesat the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, USA. He specializes in Japanese tantric Buddhism, particularly its ritual practices, and is co-editor of Homa Variations (2016).

摘要

Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan dismantles the preconception that Buddhism is a religion of mystical silence, arguing that language is in fact central to the Buddhist tradition. By examining the use of ’extraordinary language’-evocations calling on the power of the Buddha-in Japanese Buddhist Tantra, Richard K. Payne shows that such language was not simply cultural baggage carried by Buddhist practitioners from South to East Asia. Rather, such language was a key element in the propagation of new forms of belief and practice.

In contrast to Western approaches to the philosophy of language, which are grounded in viewing language as a form of communication, this book argues that it is the Indian and East Asian philosophies of language that shed light on the use of language in meditative and ritual practices in Japan. It also illuminates why language was conceived as an effective means of progress on the path from delusion to ’awakening’.

Introduction 1–6
1. Extraordinary Language Use 7–22
2. Is Language Communication? Extraordinary Language in the Face of Philosophy of Language 23–42
3. Indic Understandings of Language—From Vedas to Tantra 43–64
4. East Asian Understandings of Language 65–76
5. Emptiness and Cosmogenesis in the Tantric Buddhism of Japan 77–90
6. The Clear Light Mantra: Religious Agency in Medieval Japanese Buddhist Ritual 91–100
7. The Authority of the Speech of the Buddha: Aural Dimensions of Epistemology 101–116
8. Dhāraṇī in the Lotus Sūtra: Indic Context for the Power of Words 117–124
9. Ajikan: Visualizing the Syllable A 125–150
10. Concluding Reflections 151–157

ISBN

9781350037267 (hc); 9781350037274 (epdf); 9781350037281 (epub); 9781350038110 (online)

DOI

10.5040/9781350038110

相關書評