What Counts as Buddhist Historiography and Why Does It Matter

This review article argues that John Kieschnick’s Buddhist Historiography in China (2022) constitutes a landmark in the field. The book covers a large swath of original sources, analyzes authorial strategies, and assesses the place of writing about the Buddhist past within the Sinocentric tradition of court-focused historiography. I point up the strengths of the book, identify its most significant chapters, and probe its interpretation of Buddhist historiography. I also suggest that, by including a broader range of genres within the ambit of Buddhist historiography, future scholarship might add perspectives that diverge from those of the centralized state and the Saṃgha

Archaeology · Art · Buddhism · China · Field (mathematics) · Historiography · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Literature · Marxist historiography · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies