Prolegomenon for Fazang’s Essay on the Golden Lion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21597822 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicholaos Jones (0000-0003-4928-5089, University of Alabama in Huntsville, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 48-63 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal for the History of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0960-8788 • E-ISSN: 1469-3526 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09608788.2024.2373131 |
| OpenAlex | W4401616912 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Fazang is a seminal figure for the tradition of Huayan Buddhism. Essay on the Golden Lion is the most widely translated into English of his writings. Yet systematic English-language scholarship on Fazang’s Essay is relatively sparse. Scholars agree that the central focus of the Essay is the relation between principle and thing — a relation akin to the one between emptiness and form and, according to Fazang, also akin to the relation between the golden substance of a lion statue and the statue itself. Scholars disagree about what principle is. They also disagree about how Fazang conceptualizes the relation between principle and thing. This paper develops a novel interpretation for Fazang's conception of the principle-thing relation. The methodology involves situating Fazang's metaphor of the golden lion in relation to prior efforts, by Chinese Buddhists, to conceptualize the emptiness-form relation and using theoretical considerations, from some of Fazang’s other writings, to interpret various remarks Fazang makes about his metaphor of the golden lion
Art · Art history · Buddhism · Emptiness · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Scholarship · Statue · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Law · Philosophy
Philosophic Classics
A History of Chinese Philosophy. Volume II. The Period of Classical Learning (from the Second Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.)
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
The Three-Nature Doctrine and Its Interpretation in Hua-Yen Buddhism
A History of Chinese Philosophy. Volume II
The Early Prajna Schools, Especially "Hsin-Wu," Reconsidered
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |