Miracles of Book and Body - Buddhist Textural Culture and Medieval Japan

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-520-26561-5
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 10, 288 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 238 mm, Gewicht: 554 g

Reihe: Buddhisms

Miracles of Book and Body is the first book to explore the intersection of two key genres of sacred literature in medieval Japan: sutras, or sacred Buddhist texts, and setsuwa, or “explanatory tales,” used in sermons and collected in written compilations. For most of East Asia, Buddhist sutras were written in classical Chinese and inaccessible to many devotees. How, then, did such devotees access these texts? Charlotte D. Eubanks argues that the medieval genre of “explanatory tales” illuminates the link between human body (devotee) and sacred text (sutra). Her highly original approach to understanding Buddhist textuality focuses on the sensual aspects of religious experience and also looks beyond Japan to explore pre-modern book history, practices of preaching, miracles of reading, and the Mahayana Buddhist “cult of the book.”

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eubanks, Charlotte

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Buddhismus Buddhismus: Heilige Texte & Traditionsliteratur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Note on Sutras
Note on Setsuwa
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Cult of the Book and the Culture of Text

1. The Ontology of Sutras
2. Locating Setsuwa in Performance
3. Decomposing Bodies, Composing Texts
4. Textual Transubstantiation and the Place of Memory

Conclusion: On Circumambulatory Reading

Glossary
Works Cited
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Charlotte D. Eubanks is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese, and Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University.