Cultural Intersections in Later Chinese Buddhism
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: August 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 234
ISBN-13: 9780824823085
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history; Buddhism; Cultural studies; Religion; Religion - World Religions; China; Buddhism - General; Buddhism and art
Description: In a demonstration of the value of interdisciplinary, culture-based approaches, this collection of essays on "later" Chinese Buddhism takes us beyond the bedrock subjects of traditional Buddhist historiography--scriptures and commentaries, sectarian developments, lives of notable monks--to examine a wide range of extracanonical materials that illuminate cultural manifestations of Buddhism from the Song dynasty (960-1279) through the modern period. Straying from well-trodden paths, the authors often transgress the boundaries of their own disciplines: historians address architecture; art historians look to politics; a specialist in literature treats poetry that offers gendered insights into Buddhist lives. The broad-based cultural orientation of this volume is predicated on the recognition that art and religion are not closed systems requiring only minimal cross-indexing with other social or aesthetic phenomena but constituent elements in interlocking networks of practice and belief. Contributors: Terese Tse Bartholomew, Patricia Berger, T. Griffith Foulk, Beata Grant, Kenneth Hammond, Amy McNair, Daniel B. Stevenson, Marsha Weidner