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Leading the Good Life: Peng Shaosheng's Biographical Leading the Good Life: Peng Shaosheng’s Biographical Narratives and Instructions for Buddhist Laywomen in High Qing China (1683-1796) by Hongyu Wu B.A., Sichuan Foreign Language Institute, China, 1992 M.A., Sichuan Foreign Language Institute, China, 1995 M.T.S., Harvard University Divinity School, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Hongyu Wu It was defended on April 10, 2013 and approved by Clark Chilson, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Katheryn M. Linduff, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Evelyn S. Rawski, Professor, History Adam Shear, Associate Professor, Religious Studies Committee Chair: Linda Penkower, Associate Professor, Religious Studies ii Copyright © by Hongyu Wu 2013 iii Leading the Good Life: Peng Shaosheng’s Biographical Narratives and Instructions for Buddhist Laywomen in High Qing China (1683-1796) Hongyu Wu, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2013 This dissertation is focused on the Shan nüren zhuan (Biographies of Good Women), the only collection of biographies devoted exclusively to Buddhist laywomen that crossed sectarian lines, composed by Peng Shaosheng (1740-1796), a Confucian literatus turned Buddhist layman and a leading lay voice in early modern Chinese Buddhism. The dissertation examines the life stories of these exemplary Buddhist laywomen in the High Qing (1683-1796), a period marked by social and political change that included the revival of Confucian classicism, increased visibility of women’s work, and government policies that reinforced an intrusive morality into the lives of women. Buddhism, long established as both working in tandem and sometimes in conflict with traditional Chinese values, was part of that change. Among the conspicuous features of this period in Chinese Buddhist history are the developments of independent leadership roles for the laity as distinct from the clergy and a prevailing notion of syncretism, which was reflected in the efforts of many Buddhists of the time to combine Buddhism and Confucianism. In addition, Buddhism in early modern China saw an increased focus on the proper behavior of the laity, family values and social concerns, and the religious consequences of such behavior in the form of promises of a happy afterlife, that is, rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitābha Buddha. Moreover, especially for lay society, enlightenment and rebirth in the Pure Land became fundamentally the same goal. This project examines how the biographical narratives of Buddhist laywomen were incorporated into Buddhist-Confucian debates to defend against Confucian accusations against iv Buddhism for its perceived lack of concern for social issues and morality while, at the same time, trumpeting Buddhism over Confucianism for its attention to the afterlife or rebirth in the Pure Land. The dissertation also investigates how the biographies proselytize the early modern notion of the dual cultivation of Chan meditative and Pure Land devotional practices within the Buddhist community as well as motivate male Buddhists to accelerate their own spiritual progress through the employment of gendered rhetoric. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ........................................................................................................................... VIII 1.0 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1 1.1 RESEARCH METHODS .................................................................................6 1.2 PENG SHAOSHENG’S EARLY YEARS AND CONVERSION TO BUDDHISM .................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONFUCIANISM AND BUDDHISM IN THE SONG AND MING ........................................................................................... 13 1.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM AT THE TIME OF PENG SHAOSHENG .................................................................... 22 1.5 LAY BUDDHISTS AMONG THE LITERATI IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ...................................................................................................................... 40 1.6 THE MOTIVATION FOR COMPILING THE SHAN NÜREN ZHUAN AND ITS INTENDED AUDIENCE ............................................................................... 43 1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION .................................................... 48 2.0 BUDDHIST PRACTICES AND THE WOMANLY WAY ................................... 51 2.1 THE QING MORALITY CAMPAIGN AND WOMANLY VIRTUES ....... 52 2.2 FILIAL DAUGHTERS(-IN-LAW) ................................................................ 59 2.3 BUDDHIST PRACTICES AND THE WIFELY WAY ................................. 71 vi 2.4 BUDDHIST PRACTICES AND WOMEN’S CHASTITY ........................... 78 3.0 DHARMA TEACHERS, MORAL INSTRUCTRESSES AND TALENTED WOMEN ………………………………………………………………………………………..95 3.1 CHAN LITERATURE, DHARMA TRANSMISSION AND LITERATI .... 97 3.2 MOTHERLY FIGURES AS DHARMA TEACHERS AND MORAL INSTRUCTRESSES ..................................................................................................... 102 3.3 REINFORCEMENT OR SUBVERSION OF THE ESTABLISHED SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS ORDER .......................................................................... 113 3.4 LITERARY TALENT AND ENLIGHTENMENT ..................................... 122 4.0 MIRACLES, SINCERITY AND MORALITY ................................................... 138 4.1 MIRACLES AS SYMPATHETIC RESONANCE TO VIRTUE AND DEVOTIONAL PRACTICE ........................................................................................ 144 4.2 MIRACLES AS WARNINGS AGAINST TRANSGRESSION .................. 164 4.3 MIRACLE WORKER: CONFORMER OR TRANSGRESSOR? ............. 172 5.0 THE NON-REGRESSING PATH TO REBIRTH IN THE PURE LAND ......... 183 5.1 PRACTICES LEADING TO THE PURE LAND ....................................... 189 5.2 PURE LAND AS A MORALLY PERFECT PLACE ................................. 197 5.3 WOMEN’S SOTERIOLOGICAL ISSUES AND PURE LAND BELIEF . 208 6.0 EPILOGUE ........................................................................................................... 223 GLOSSARY .......................................................................................................................... 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 258 vii PREFACE Now that I have concluded my work on this dissertation, I want to take the opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the people who have helped me and accompanied me throughout my academic struggles and triumphs. I owe my deepest gratitude to Professor Linda Penkower. As an international graduate student, I am lucky to have had Professor Penkower as my advisor. Her patient, insightful and sympathetic mentorship has made my smooth transition into American academic life possible. During these years, the time and energy she has invested in guiding me at different stages of my study exceeded what a graduate student might expect from an advisor. She has been the ultimate critical reader, always pushing me to think hard and to improve; at the same time, she has also been my cheerleader, boosting my confidence when it seemed like I would never finish. I also want to express my appreciation to my committee. I am grateful to Professor Katheryn Linduff for extending to me the same generosity that she extends to her own graduate students. She excelled at using upāya (skillful means) to motivate me to complete my first draft and guided me back on the right track when I was lost in my research. I have also benefitted from the knowledge and advice of Professor Evelyn Rawski. Her seminars, generosity in sharing encyclopedic knowledge of Qing history and always timely and detailed comments on my chapters have been indispensable for the completion of this dissertation. I value the interest she has shown in my dissertation and the input she has provided. I want to thank Professor Clark viii Chilson who introduced me to scholarship on Japanese Myōkōnin den and challenged me to address issues in my dissertation that I hope will appeal to a wider audience than students of Chinese Buddhism. I also want to thank Professor Adam Shear for encouraging me to look beyond the discipline of Buddhist studies when I began this project and for his sense of humor, which made every annual meeting less “intimidating.” I am in debt to Dr. Katherine Carlitz for her help in the final stages of my dissertation project. I am also deeply grateful to Professor Hsü Cho-yün and Mrs. Hsü for extending their hospitality and a sympathetic ear to me. My research owes much to Zhang Haihui and Liu Hsü Yu-lien (Lotus) of the East Asian Library at the University of Pittsburgh. Both have provided me with invaluable assistance during the research phase of this dissertation. I also wish to thank Ellen Smith and Jean Grace, organizers of the Dissertation Boot Camp under the auspices of the Writing Center at Pitt, which contributed greatly to my dissertation writing. At Pitt, I am fortunate to have made many wonderful friends who have greatly enriched my academic life. I wish to give special thanks to Lin Lu for his unfailing friendship and support; to my
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