Chan Buddhism in Ritual Context
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CHAN BUDDHISM IN RITUAL CONTEXT The essays in this volume attempt to place the Chan and Zen traditions in their ritual and cultural contexts, looking at various aspects heretofore largely (and unduly) ignored. In particular, they show the extent to which these traditions, despite their claim to uniqueness, were indebted to larger trends in East Asian Buddhism, such as the cults of icons, relics and the monastic robe. The book emphasises the importance of ritual for a proper understanding of this allegedly anti-ritualistic form of Buddhism. In doing so, it deconstructs the Chan/Zen ‘rhetoric of immediacy’ and its ideological underpinnings. Bernard Faure is George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University and Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies. His publications include The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism (1991), Chan Insights and Oversights: A Phenomenological Critique of the Chan/Zen Tradition (1993); Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism (1996); The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism (1997); The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality and The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity and Gender (2003). ROUTLEDGECURZON STUDIES IN ASIAN RELIGION Editorial Advisory Board Nick Allen, University of Oxford Catherine Despeux, INALCO, Paris Chris Minkowski, Cornell University Fabio Rambelli, Sapporo University, Japan Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria RoutledgeCurzon publishes a Series specifically devoted to Asian Religion, considered from a variety of perspectives: those of theology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, politics and literature. The primary objects of study will be all the religious traditions of the Indian sub-continent, Tibet, China, Japan, South- East Asia, Central Asia, and the Near and Middle East. The methodology used in the works published in the Series is either comparative or one focused on (a feature of) a specific tradition. The level of readership ranges from undergraduates to specialist scholars. The type of book varies from the introductory textbook to the scholarly monograph. Proposals or scripts for the Series will be welcomed by Jonathan Price, RoutledgeCurzon. TRADITION AND LIBERATION The Hindu Tradition in the Indian Women’s Movement Catherine A. Robinson SHINTO IN HISTORY Ways of the Kami John Breen and Mark Teeuwen BEYOND PERSONAL IDENTITY Do¯ gen, Nishida, and a Phenomenology of No-Self Gereon Kopf KRSNA: LORD OR AVATARA? The Relationship Between Krsna and Visnu Freda Matchett THE BIOGRAPHICAL TRADITION IN SUFISM The Tabaqat Genre from al-Sulami to Jami Jawid A. Mojadeddi RELIGIOUS GIVING AND THE INVENTION OF KARMA IN THERAVA¯ DA BUDDHISM James R. Egge THE DIVINE AND THE DEMONIC Supernatural Affliction and its Treatment in North India Graham Dwyer CHAN BUDDHISM IN RITUAL CONTEXT Edited by Bernard Faure CHAN BUDDHISM IN RITUAL CONTEXT Edited by Bernard Faure First published in 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Editorial Matter # 2003Bernard Faure; individual chapters # 2003 the authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Chan Buddhism in ritual context / edited by Bernard Faure. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Zen Buddhism–Rituals–History. 2. Zen Buddhism–History. I. Faure, Bernard. BQ9270.C43 2003 294.36’927’09–dc21 2002037042 ISBN 0-203-98781-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–29748–6 (Print Edition) CONTENTS List of contributors ix 1 Chan and Zen studies: the state of the field(s) 1 BERNARD FAURE 2 Imagining the portrait of a Chan master 36 WENDI ADAMEK 3 On the ritual use of Chan portraiture in medieval China 74 T. GRIFFITH FOULK AND ROBERT H. SHARF 4 A Tang dynasty Chan mummy [roushen] and a modern case of furta sacra?: investigating the contested bones of Shitou Xiqian 151 JAMES ROBSON 5 Filling the Zen shu¯ : notes on the Jisshu¯ Yo¯do¯ Ki 179 CARL BIELEFELDT 6 Quand l’habit fait le moine: the symbolism of the ka¯sa¯ya in So¯ to¯ Zen 211 BERNARD˙ FAURE 7 The enlightenment of kami and ghosts: spirit ordinations in Japanese So¯ to¯ Zen 250 WILLIAM M. BODIFORD vii CONTENTS 8 How Do¯ sho¯ ’s medicine saved Do¯ gen: medicine, Do¯ sho¯ an and Edo-period Do¯ gen biographies 266 DUNCAN RYURYUKEN¯ KEN WILLIAMS Glossary 289 Index 313 viii CONTRIBUTORS Wendi Adamek is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion, Barnard College, USA. Carl Bielefeldt is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University, California, USA. William M. Bodiford is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Culture, UCLA, USA. Bernard Faure is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University, California, USA. T. Griffith Foulk is Associate Professor at Sarah Lawrence College, USA. James Robson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University, California, USA. Robert H. Sharf is Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, USA. Duncan Ryu¯ ken Williams is Assistant Professor of Japanese Religions and Culture, Trinity College, Connecticut, USA. ix 1 CHAN AND ZEN STUDIES The state of the field(s) Bernard Faure The following comments focus on a certain number of works which, despite the vague nature of their object, can be grouped under the name Chan/Zen. I have retained, in the abundant and unequal literature relative to this domain, only the most significant contributions of the last four decades, and it goes without saying that these notes do not claim to be objective or exhaustive. As any exercise of this kind, these comments reflect the normative conceptions of their author. Brought to the attention of the sinological world by the work of the Chinese historian Hu Shi in the 1930s, Chan/Zen studies truly blossomed only after the Second World War, that is, almost half a century after the discovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts. Apart from a few exceptions, Chan/Zen has remained the territory of Japanese and American scholars. Before presenting the works of the latter, a few words about their European precursors are in order. As early as 1923, Paul Pelliot, in a seminal essay modestly entitled ‘Notes on some artists of the Six Dynasties and the Tang’, examined the background of the legend of Bodhidharma. In 1947, Paul Demie´ville published The Mirror of the Mind, in which he compared the use of the mirror metaphor in the Chinese and Western philosophical tradition. This article, which inaugurated a series of sudies on ‘subitism’ and ‘gradualism’, has exerted a profound influence on the development of Chan studies in the US. In 1949, Jacques Gernet, stimulated by Hu Shi’s works, published a translation of Shenhui’s Dialogues; then, in a rich article published in 1951, he described the eventful biography of this figure. The following year, Demie´ville published his monu- mental Le Concile de Lhasa, in which he attempted to unveil the 1 BERNARD FAURE history of the controversy over ‘subitism’, which animated the enigmatic Council of Tibet (which some scholars today localize, not in Lhasa, but in the bSam yas Monastery, while others deny that such Council ever took place). This work, divided into two parts (doctrinal and historical), is a precious source of information on early Chan, and in particular on the Northern School, to which the Chinese protagonist in the controversy, Moheyan, was heir. It is regrettable that Demie´ville did not follow up on his initial project, which was to dedicate a second volume to a study of the Chan doctrine. However, in subsequent years, he continued to give lectures at the Colle`ge de France and to publish articles on this topic. It is curious, however, that while his influence in France remained small, despite the publication in 1973 of two volumes of his collected essays on Chinese Buddhism and sinology, he was beginning to be read in Japan and in the United States. Among the repercussions of his work in France, we must nevertheless mention the publication in 1970 of a special issue of Herme`s on Chan, a second edition of which, greatly expanded (1985), includes not only the translation of basic Chan/Zen texts, but a few important articles on Chinese Chan (by Paul Demie´ville, Nicole Vandier- Nicolas and Catherine Despeux) and its influence in Tibet (Guilaine Mala). In the United States, the work of Walter Liebenthal on Shenhui (1953) and the Vajrasama¯dhi-su¯ tra, despite (or because of) its originality, is on the whole unreliable. It is only with the translation of the Platform Su¯ tra by Philip Yampolsky in 1967, accompanied by a scholarly introduction on the legend and the genesis of the Chan patriarchal tradition, that the study of Chan earned its academic credentials. Yampolsky was the first to introduce to American scholars the recent research of Yanagida Seizan – who published, the same year, his monumental study on the historical works of early Chan (Shoki zenshu¯ shisho no kenkyu¯ ). It was also the collaboration of Yanagida and Iriya Yoshitaka that allowed Ruth Fuller Sasaki and Miura Isshu¯ to edit Zen Dust, a work rich in information on Chan/Zen, but difficult to use because of its hybrid character.