This book offers a unique historical documentation of the development of the ambitious religious entrepreneurism by leaders of the Early Rain church (and later Western China Presbytery leadership), in an effort to gain social influence in China through local institution-building and global public image management. It unravels the social processes of how this Christian community with a public image of defending religious freedom in China was undermined by an internal loss of moral authority. Based on publicly available texts from Chinese social media that aren't readily available in the West as well as in-depth interviews, it is framed by existing scholarship in social theories of the public sphere, charismatic domination in social transition, and the role of power in organizational behaviour. These churches' stories show how Christianity, which has long been politically marginalized in communist China, has not only adapted and challenged the socio-political status quo, but how it was also ironically shaped by the political culture. This is an insightful and critical ethnographic study of one of modern China's most famous house churches. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Religion in China as well as those working in Religious Studies, Asian studies, Chinese studies, and Mission Studies more generally.

This book provides an overview of religion in Japan, from ancient times to the present. It also emphasizes the cultural and attitudinal manifestations of religion in Japan, withough neglecting dates and places.

At the time Aum Shinrikyõ emerged, most Japanese assumed that they lived in one of the most well-ordered of societies, a model that had much to offer the chaotic Western world. This assumption was shaken on March 20, 1995 when the deadly nerve gas sarin was released on the Tokyo subway system. Since that incident, the "Aum Affai" has had widespread repercussions and shaken the Japanese psyche in a serious way. This volume provides a window onto contemporary Japanese society by considering the various reactions and responses to this crisis precipitated by this deviant religious movement.

This is the first book to examine extensively the religious aspects of Chinese alchemy. Its main focus is the relation of alchemy to the Daoist traditions of the early medieval period (third to sixth centuries). It shows how alchemy contributed to and was tightly integrated into the elaborate body of doctrines and practices that Daoists built at that time, from which Daoism as we know it today evolved. The book also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. It contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available for the first time in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical corpus.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshukyo) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex and dual relationship between media and new religions is investigated by looking at the tensions groups face between the need for visibility and the risks of facing attacks and criticism through media. Indeed media and new technologies have been extensively used by religious groups not only to spread their messages and to try to reach a wider audience, but also to promote themselves as a highly modern and up-to-date form of religion appropriate for a modern technological age. In 1980s and early 1990s some movements, such as Agonshu , Kofuku no Kagaku, and Aum Shinrikyo came into prominence especially via the use of media (initially publications, but also ritual broadcasts, advertising campaigns, and public media events). This created new modes of ritual engagement and new ways of interactions between leaders and members. The aim of this book is to develop and illustrate particular key issues in the wider new religions and media nexus by using specific movements as examples. In particular, the analysis of the interaction between media and new religions will focus primarily on three case studies predominantly during the first period of development of the groups.

.,."this fascinating book provides the reader with a new and vivid description of a number of prototypes of temple oracles in China and beyond."--Journal of Chinese Religions
"This work will undoubtedly achieve for the Chinese temple oracle the recognition it deserves in histories of divination. More importantly, as Strickmann demonstrates, the study of such divination sequences has a great deal to tell us of the history of the book, the study of morality books, and the history of cultural contact." --Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Indiana University

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Islamic Orient studies the travel accounts of four British travelers during the nineteenth century. Through a critical analysis of these works, the author examines and questions Edward Said's concept of "Orientalism" and "Orientalist" discourse: his argument that the orientalist view had such a strong influence on westerners that they invariably perceived the orient through the lens of orientalism. On the contrary, the author argues, no single factor had an overwhelming influence on them. She shows that westerners often struggled with their own conceptions of the orient, and being away for long periods from their homelands, were in fact able to stand between cultures and view them both as insiders and outsiders. The literary devices used to examine these writings are structure, characterization, satire, landscape description, and word choice, as also the social and political milieu of the writers. The major influences in the author's analysis are Said, Foucault, Abdel-Malek and Marie Louise Pratt.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshukyo) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex and dual relationship between media and new religions is investigated by looking at the tensions groups face between the need for visibility and the risks of facing attacks and criticism through media. Indeed media and new technologies have been extensively used by religious groups not only to spread their messages and to try to reach a wider audience, but also to promote themselves as a highly modern and up-to-date form of religion appropriate for a modern technological age. In 1980s and early 1990s some movements, such as Agonshu , Kofuku no Kagaku, and Aum Shinrikyo came into prominence especially via the use of media (initially publications, but also ritual broadcasts, advertising campaigns, and public media events). This created new modes of ritual engagement and new ways of interactions between leaders and members. The aim of this book is to develop and illustrate particular key issues in the wider new religions and media nexus by using specific movements as examples. In particular, the analysis of the interaction between media and new religions will focus primarily on three case studies predominantly during the first period of development of the groups.

An excellent and very timely update on an area seeing many recent developments.

Since the 1960s virtually every part of the world has seen the arrival and establishment of Japanese new religious movements, a process that has followed quickly on the heels of the most active period of Japanese economic expansion overseas. This book examines the nature and extent of this religious expansion outside Japan.

This is a richly-illustrated study of 'The Oracles of the Three Shrines', the name given to a hanging scroll depicting three important Japanese shrine-deities and their respective oracle texts. The scroll has evolved continuously in Japan for 600 years, so different examples of it offer a series of 'windows' on developments in Japanese religious belief and practice.

Like the industrial revolution before it, the information technology revolution appears to be creating a new ruling class, a new economy and a new society. Information technology is also transforming military operations and warfare. A vast literature on the revolution in military affairs (or "RMA") cites the important (indeed, dominant) role of information technology in enabling a new military revolution. This volume challenges conventional wisdom not by claiming that information's impact on military operations is not "positive" or "transformative" but by claiming its impact is not "new". Previous periods of military revolution can also be characterized as information revolutions. Through the close examination of six case studies of military transformation during the industrial age, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how the employment of emerging information systems was critical to realizing a major boost in military effectiveness. The most successful adaptations to the new environment were made by the most skillful users of information. This volume draws upon the expertise of leading military historians, political scientists and defense practitioners to craft a set of original essays that provide the first retrospective examination of how information affects the process of military revolution. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

The Western image of Tibet as a sacred land is in many ways a mythical construction. But the Tibetans themselves have traditionally mapped out their land in terms of areas of sacred space, and pilgrimage, ensuring a high degree of mobility within all classes of Tibetan society. Pilgrims travelled to local, regional, and national centres throughout recorded Tibetan history. In recent years, pilgrimage has resumed in areas where it had been forbidden by the Chinese authorities, and has now become one of the most prominent religious expressions of Tibetan national identity. In this major new work, leading scholars of Asian pilgrimage traditions discuss historical and contemporary aspects of pilgrimage within the Tibetan cultural world. Myths and legends, material conditions, textual sources, a modern pilgrim's impressions, political and economic influences, biographies and contemporary developments - all these and many other issues are examined here. The result is an informative and often entertaining work which contributes greatly to our knowledge of the history and culture of Tibet as well as the wider issues of religious power and practice.

First published in 2001, Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor was written to bring together both the previously unpublished and published results of fieldwork in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan and to put them into an historical, political, and theoretical context. The book presents Chinese popular religion as a distinctive institution and describes its content as an 'imperial metaphor'. In doing so, it explores a wide range of topics, including both official and local cults, local festivals, Daoism, Ang Gong, the politics of religion, and political ritual.

Jeffrey Broughton here offers a study and partial translation of Core Texts of the Son Approach (Sonmun ch'waryo), an anthology of texts foundational to Korean Son (Chan/Zen) Buddhism. Core Texts of the Son Approach provides a convenient entree to two fundamental themes of Korean Son: Son vis-a-vis the doctrinal teachings of Buddhism (in which Son is shown to be superior) and the huatou (i.e., phrase; Korean hwadu) method of practice-work originally popularized by the Song dynasty Chinese Chan master Dahui Zonggao. This method consists of "raising to awareness" or "keeping an eye on" the phrase, usually No (Korean mu). No mental operation whatsoever is to be performed upon the phrase. One lifts the phrase to awareness constantly, when doing "quiet" cross-legged sitting as well as when immersed in the "noisiness" of everyday life. Core Texts of the Son Approach, which was published in Korea during the first decade of the twentieth century (the identity of the compiler is not known for certain), contains eight Chan texts by Chinese authors (two translated here) and seven Son texts by Korean authors (three translated here), showing the organic relationship between the parent Chinese tradition and its Korean inheritor. The set of translations in this volume will give readers access to some of the key texts of the Korean branch of this influential East Asian school of Buddhism.

Japanese Religions on the Internet draws attention to how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Its intention is to contribute to wider discussions about religion and the Internet by providing an important example - based on one of the Internet's most prominent languages - of how new media technologies are being used and are impacting on religion in the East-Asian context, while also developing further our understandings of religion in a technologically advanced country. Scholars studying the relationship of religion and the Internet can no longer work on prevailing notions that have thus far characterised the field, such as the assumption that the Internet is a Western-centric phenomenon and that studies of English-language sites relating to religion can provide a viable model for wider analyses of the topic. Despite this growing amount of research on religion and the Internet, comparatively little has focused on non-Western cultures. The general field of study relating to religion and the Internet has paid scant attention to Asian contexts. The field needs a full-length and comprehensive study that focuses on the Japanese religious world and the Internet, not merely to redress the imbalances of the field thus far, but also because such studies will be central to the emerging field of the study of religion and the Internet in future. They will provide important means of developing new theories, constructing new paradigms and understanding the underlying dynamics of this new media form.

Hagiographies or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints, bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting place for myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the 'lives of saints' were read during liturgical celebrations and the texts themselves were treated as sacred objects. In Japan, it was believed that those who read the biographies of lofty monks would acquire merit. Since hagiographies were written or compiled by 'believers', the line between fantasy and reality was often obscured. This study of the bodhisattva Gyoki - regarded as the monk who started the largest social welfare movement in Japan - illustrates how Japanese Buddhist hagiographers chose to regard a single monk's charitable activities as a miraculous achievement that shaped the course of Japanese history.

Through a cultural analysis of the symbols of death - flesh, blood, bones, souls, time numbers, food and money - Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore throws light upon the Chinese perception of death and how they cope with its eventuality. In the seeming mass of religious rituals and beliefs, it suggests that there is an underlying logic to the rituals. This in turn leads Kiong to examine the interrelationship between death and the socioeconomic value system of China as a whole.

Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons. The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.

These are questions to which oriental thinkers have given a wide range of philosophical answers that are intellectually and imaginatively stimulating. Thirty-Five Oriental Philosophers is a succinctly informative introduction to the thought of thirty-five important figures in the Chinese, Indian, Arab, Japanese and Tibetan philosophical traditions. Thinkers covered include founders such as Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha and Muhammed, as well as influential modern figures such as Gandhi, Mao Tse-Tung, Suzuki and Nishida. The book is divided into sections, in which an introduction to the tradition it covers precedes the essays on its individual philosophers. Notes, further reading lists, and cross-references provide the student with a clear route to further study. There is a glossary of key terms at the end of the book.

What enables women to hold firm in their beliefs in the face of long years of hostile persecution by the Communist party/state? How do women withstand daily discrimination and prolonged hardship under a Communist regime which held rejection of religious beliefs and practices as a patriotic duty? Through the use of archival and ethnographic sources and of rich life testimonies, this book provides a rare glimpse into how women came to find solace and happiness in the flourishing, female-dominated traditions of local Islamic women's mosques, Daoist nunneries and Catholic convents in China. These women passionately ? often against unimaginable odds ? defended sites of prayer, education and congregation as their spiritual home and their promise of heaven, but also as their rightful claim to equal entitlements with men.

A brilliant cross-cultural Arabic interpretation of a key text of yoga philosophy The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is the foundational text of yoga philosophy to this day and is still used by millions of yoga practitioners and students worldwide. Written in a question-and-answer format, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali deals with the theory and practice of yoga and the psychological question of the liberation of the soul from attachments. This book is a new edition and translation into English of the Arabic translation and commentary on this text by the brilliant eleventh-century polymath al-Biruni. Given the many historical variants of the Yoga Sutras, his Kitab Batanjali is important for yoga studies as the earliest translation of the Sanskrit text. It is also of unique value as an Arabic text within Islamic studies, given the intellectual and philosophical challenges that faced the medieval Muslim reader when presented with the intricacy of composition, interpretation, and allusion that permeates this translation. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

China looks back on a long history of religious diversity. Though not entirely free from conflicts, it was comparatively much more peaceful than the religious history of the West. What were the reasons? Was it a strong control exercised by the ruling authorities? Was it the powerful ideal of harmony extended to the religious realm? Was it a different sense of religious identity? How translates this heritage into contemporary China, its current politics and its most recent discussions after the liberalization of religions in the 1980s? This volume offers fresh insights by renowned scholars and specialists in the field.

This exciting new book is a detailed examination of pilgrimages in Japan, including the meanings of travel, transformation, and the discovery of identity through encounters with the sacred, in a variety of interesting dimensions in both historical and contemporary Japanese culture, linked by the unifying theme of a spiritual quest. Several fascinating new approaches to traditional forms of pilgrimage are put forward by a wide range of specialists in anthropology, religion and cultural studies, who set Japanese pilgrimage in a wider comparative perspective. They apply models of pilgrimage to quests for vocational fulfilment, examining cases as diverse as the civil service, painting and poetry, and present ethnographies of contemporary reconstructions of old spiritual quests, as conflicting (and sometimes global) demands impinge on the time and space of would-be pilgrims.