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Ritualized Writing - Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (Paperback)
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Ritualized Writing - Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (Paperback)
Series: Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism
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Ritualized Writing takes readers into the fascinating world of
Japanese Buddhist manuscript cultures. Using archival sources that
have received scant attention in English, primarily documents from
an eighth-century Japanese scriptorium and colophons from sutra
manuscripts, Bryan D. Lowe uncovers the ways in which the
transcription of Buddhist scripture was a highly ritualized
endeavor. He takes a ground-level approach by emphasizing the
activities and beliefs of a wide range of individuals, including
scribes, provincial patrons, and royals, to reassess the meaning of
scripture and reevaluate scholarly narratives of Japanese Buddhist
history. Copying scripture is a central Buddhist practice and one
that thrived in East Asia. Despite this, there are no other books
dedicated to the topic. This work demonstrates that patrons and
scribes treated sutras differently from other modes of writing.
Scribes purified their bodies prior to transcription. Patrons held
dedicatory ceremonies on days of abstinence, when prayers were
pronounced and sutras were recited. Transcribing sutras helped
scribes and patrons alike realize this- and other-worldly ambitions
and cultivate themselves in accord with Buddhist norms. Sutra
copying thus functioned as a form of ritualized writing, a
strategic practice that set apart scripture as uniquely efficacious
and venerable. Lowe employs this notion of ritualized writing to
challenge historical narratives about ancient Japan (late seventh
through early ninth centuries), a period when sutra copying
flourished. He contends that Buddhist practice fulfilled a variety
of social, political, and spiritual roles beyond ideological
justification. Moreover, he demonstrates the inadequacy of
state-folk dichotomies for understanding the social groups,
institutions, and individual beliefs and practices of ancient
Japanese Buddhism, highlighting instead common organizations across
social class and using models that reveal shared concerns among
believers from diverse social backgrounds. Ritualized Writing makes
broader contributions to the study of ritual and scripture by
introducing the notion of scriptural cultures, an analytic tool
that denotes a series of dynamic relationships and practices
involving texts that have been strategically set apart or
ritualized. Scripture, Lowe concludes, is at once a category
created by humans and a body of texts that transforms individuals
and social organizations who come into contact with it.
General
Imprint: |
University of Hawaii Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism |
Release date: |
October 2022 |
Authors: |
Bryan D Lowe
• Robert E. Buswell Jr
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Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Format: |
Paperback
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Pages: |
292 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8248-9547-1 |
Categories: |
Books
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LSN: |
0-8248-9547-9 |
Barcode: |
9780824895471 |
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