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The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations

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The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations Buddhist studies (Continued from front flap) Cuevas The BUDDHIST and practitioners and devotees, Bryan J. Also in the Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism series: Stone In its teachings, practices, and institu- Cuevas, John Clifford Holt, and Matthew DEAD tions, Buddhism in its varied Asian forms T. Kapstein take up the subject of the BURNING FOR THE BUDDHA has been—and continues to be—centrally “ordinary dead” and the intimate rela- self-immolation in chinese Buddhism Practices, Discourses, rePresentations concerned with death and the dead. Yet tions that often persist between them and James A. Benn surprisingly “death in Buddhism” has those still living, while Hank Glassman, received little sustained scholarly atten- No. 19: 2007, 352 pages Mark Rowe, and Jason A. Carbine shed Edited by tion. The Buddhist Dead offers the first Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8248-2992-6 light on Buddhist funerary practices and Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone comparative investigation of this topic address the physical and social locations of Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism is the first book- across the major Buddhist cultures of The BUDDHIST DEAD the Buddhist dead. length study of the theory and practice of “abandoning the body” (self-immola- India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet, and tion) in Chinese Buddhism. Although largely ignored by conventional scholar- Burma. Its individual essays, representing This important collection moves beyond ship, the acts of self-immolators (which included not only burning the body, but a range of methods, shed light on a rich the largely text- and doctrine-centered also being devoured by wild animals, drowning oneself, and self-mummifica- array of traditional Buddhist practices for approaches characterizing an earlier tion, among others) form an enduring part of the religious tradition and provide the dead and dying; the sophisticated but generation of Buddhist scholarship and a new perspective on the multifarious dimensions of Buddhist practice in China often paradoxical discourses about death expands its treatment of death to include from the early medieval period to the present time. This book examines the ha- and the dead in Buddhist texts; and the ritual, devotional, and material culture. giographical accounts of all those who made offerings of their own bodies and varied representations of the dead and the Its foundational insights are both cultur- places them in historical, social, cultural, and doctrinal context. afterlife found in Buddhist funerary art ally and historically grounded and at the and popular literature. same time offer a basis for further, com- parative conversations on death between The paradigmatic figure of the histori- scholars of Buddhism and other religious cal Buddha, his death, the symbolism of traditions. his funeral, and his relationship to the Jacket illustration: “The bodhisattva Jizò rescuing a sinner in the hells,” from impurity of the dead are treated in the the Yata Jizò engi (Kamakura period). Courtesy of Yatadera, Nara Prefecture. opening essays by John S. Strong and Gregory Schopen. The deaths of later re- Bryan J. Cuevas is associate professor Jacket design by Santos Barbasa Jr. markable adepts, following the Buddha’s of Buddhist and Tibetan studies in the model, and their significance for Buddhist Department of Religion, Florida State communities are investigated by Koichi University. Shinohara, Jacqueline I. Stone, Raoul Birnbaum, and Kurtis R. Schaeffer. A JaCqueline i. stone is professor of dramatic, often controversial category of Japanese religions in the Department of exemplary death, that of “giving up the Religion, Princeton University. body” or Buddhist suicide, is examined by James Benn and D. Max Moerman. Mov- ing from celebrated masters to ordinary (Continued on back flap) University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 20 jack mech.indd 1 3/27/07 10:00:44 AM The Buddhist Dead STUDIES IN EAST ASIAN BUDDHISM 20 The Buddhist Dead Practices, Discourses, Representations edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone A KURODA INSTITUTE BOOK University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu 8 2007 Kuroda Institute All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Buddhist dead : practices, discourses, representations / edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone. p. cm. — (Studies in East Asian Buddhism ; 20) ‘‘A Kuroda Institute book.’’ Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-3031-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8248-3031-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Death—Religious aspects—Buddhism. 2. Buddhism—Customs and practices. I. Cuevas, Bryan J., 1967– II. Stone, Jacqueline Ilyse. III. Kuroda Institute. BQ4487.B82 2007 294.30423—dc22 2006027683 The Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values is a nonprofit educational corporation founded in 1976. One of its primary objectives is to promote scholarship on the historical, philosophical, and cultural ramifications of Buddhism. In association with the University of Hawai‘i Press, the Institute also publishes Classics in East Asian Buddhism, a series devoted to the translation of significant texts in the East Asian Buddhist tradition. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Based on design by Kenneth Miyamoto Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone 1 The Buddha’s Funeral 32 John S. Strong 2 Cross-Dressing with the Dead: Asceticism, Ambivalence, and Institutional Values in an Indian Monastic Code 60 Gregory Schopen 3 The Moment of Death in Daoxuan’s Vinaya Commentary 105 Koichi Shinohara 4 The Secret Art of Dying: Esoteric Deathbed Practices in Heian Japan 134 Jacqueline I. Stone 5 The Deathbed Image of Master Hongyi 175 Raoul Birnbaum 6 Dying Like Milare´pa: Death Accounts in a Tibetan Hagiographic Tradition 208 Kurtis R. Schaeffer 7 Fire and the Sword: Some Connections between Self- Immolation and Religious Persecution in the History of Chinese Buddhism 234 James A. Benn 8 Passage to Fudaraku: Suicide and Salvation in Premodern Japanese Buddhism 266 D. Max Moerman v vi Contents 9 The Death and Return of Lady Wangzin: Visions of the Afterlife in Tibetan Buddhist Popular Literature 297 Bryan J. Cuevas 10 Gone but Not Departed: The Dead among the Living in Contemporary Buddhist Sri Lanka 326 John Clifford Holt 11 Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell: A Chinese Tale of Parental Death in Its Tibetan Transformations 345 Matthew T. Kapstein 12 Chinese Buddhist Death Ritual and the Transformation of Japanese Kinship 378 Hank Glassman 13 Grave Changes: Scattering Ashes in Contemporary Japan 405 Mark Rowe 14 Care for Buddhism: Text, Ceremony, and Religious Emotion in a Monk’s Final Journey 438 Jason A. Carbine Chinese and Korean Character Glossary 457 Japanese Character Glossary 461 Contributors 467 Index 471 Illustrations 5.1. Master Hongyi on his deathbed 176 5.2. Hongyi in 1937 177 5.3. Vinaya master Guanghua at the moment of death 188 5.4. Hongyi in 1941 191 8.1. Image of Fudaraku tokai based on Jesuit accounts 278 8.2. Nachi Pilgrimage Mandala (Nachi sankei mandara) 280 ˙ ˙ 8.3. Detail from Nachi Pilgrimage Mandala 281 ˙ ˙ 8.4. Diagram of funerary ground from Shugendo¯mujo¯yo¯shu¯ 282 8.5. Manifestation of Kannon at Nachi 288 8.6. Detail of Fudaraku bune sails from Nachi Pilgrimage Mandala 289 ˙ ˙ 12.1. Marriages among Reishi’s close relatives 383 vii Acknowledgments We wish to express our deepest appreciation to the fine scholars whose excellent contributions appear in this volume and for their patience in awaiting its publication. The essays that appear in this collection were prepared initially for a conference on ‘‘Death and Dying in Buddhist Cultures’’ held at Princeton University in May 2002. The conference was organized by the two editors and spon- sored by Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion (CSR), along with the Council on Regional Studies, the Department of Religion, the East Asian Studies Program, the Humanities Council, and the Stewart Fund for Religion. We are grateful for the generous support of these institutional centers. In particular, we would like to thank Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, and Stephen (‘‘Buzzy’’) Teiser of the CSR executive committee for their support and encouragement of the initial proposal for the conference. Moreover, the conference could not have succeeded without the gracious and tireless administrative and organizational efforts of Anita Kline, Lorraine Fuhrmann, Micah Auerback, and Paul Copp. We especially wish to thank the following individuals for their lively discussion during the three-day event and for their insightful comments, all of which helped to improve the essays included here: James Boon (Princeton), David Germano (University of Virginia), Phyllis Granoff (Yale), Yang Lu (Harvard), Reiko Ohnuma (Dart- mouth), and Liz Wilson (Miami of Ohio). Kevin Carr, now assistant professor at the University of Michigan, deserves our special praise for his fine artistic sensibilities, for designing the conference Web site and posters, and for his assistance in selecting and securing the image of the Yatadera bodhisattva Jizo¯ saving evildoers from the hells, which graces the cover of this book. We would like to thank the Nara National Museum and Yatadera for permission to use this image. A few of the essays included here, or portions thereof, represent revisions of earlier published works. We gratefully ix x Acknowledgments acknowledge permission from the University of Chicago Press, Uni- versity of Hawai‘i Press, Princeton University Press, Harvard Uni- versity Asia Center, and the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies.
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