Many Biographies – Multiple Individualities: the Identities of the Chinese Buddhist Monk Xuanzang
Max Deeg Many biographies – multiple individualities: the identities of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang 1 Introduction What is usually called the school of Buddhist Illusionism or Idealism (or, as others prefer to call it, Phenomenology),1 Yogācāra (Chin. Yujia-xing 瑜伽行) or Vijñānavāda (Weishi-zong 唯識宗), argues that all phenomena experienced as real are just projections of the mind (Skt. citta, Chin. xin 心) or consciousness (Skt. vijñāna, Chin. shi 識) and have no ultimate and intrinsic reality (Skt. asvab- hāva, Chin. wu(zi)xing 無(自)性).2 In this chapter, I will extend and apply this very simplified description of Yogācāra to the question of (religious) individuality and individualisation. The argument I will offer is that processes of individualisation, those ascribed to individuals and groups as well as those described by others in biographical (or auto-biographical) narratives, are always (and only) imagined (Skt. prajñaptimātra, Chin. weijiashe 唯仮設) and are not, thus, historically and/ or ontologically real or ‘true’. I assume that the individual under discussion, the Chinese monk and East Asian Yogācāra master par excellence Xuanzang 玄奘 (600/602–664), would fully agree with such a statement. In this paper I focus on two things: first, on the ways in which individualis- ation is projected – or, according to my chosen terminology, ‘functionalised’ – in the historical sources in the form of narratives about one specific individual; and second, on how this form of individualisation is dependent on specific social and cultural contexts,
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