Becoming Chinese Buddhas

Claims to Authority and the Making of Chan Buddhist Identity

Dados Bibliográficos

ID16501415
AutoresKevin Buckelew (0000-0002-0824-1381, Northwestern University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume105
Fascículo3-4
Páginas357-400
Data de publicação2019-11-11
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoT oung Pao (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0082-5433 • E-ISSN: 1568-5322
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15685322-10534p04
OpenAlexW2984195230
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6

According to many recent scholars, by the Song dynasty Chan Buddhists had come to identify not primarily as meditation experts—following the literal meaning of chan —but rather as full-fledged buddhas. This article pursues a deeper understanding of how, exactly, Chan Buddhists claimed to be buddhas during the eighth through eleventh centuries, a critical period in the formation of Chan identity. It also addresses the relationship between Chan Buddhists’ claims to the personal status of buddhahood, their claims to membership in lineages extending back to the Buddha, and their appeals to doctrines of universal buddhahood. Closely examining Chan Buddhists’ claims to be buddhas helps explain the tradition’s rise to virtually unrivaled elite status in Song-era Buddhist monasticism, and illuminates the emergence of new genres of Chan Buddhist literature—such as “discourse records” ( yulu )—that came to be treated with the respect previously reserved for canonical Buddhist scriptures

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Buddhism · China · Eleventh · Elite · Epistemology · Gautama Buddha · Identity (music · Literature · Meaning (existential · Meditation · Monasticism · Mysticism · Political science · Politics · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies