The Formation Of Ch An Ideology In China And Korea

This book is a translation and study of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra and an examination of its broad implications for the development of East Asian Buddhism. The Vajrasamadhi-Sutra was traditionally assumed to have been translated from Sanskrit, but some modern scholars, principally in Japan, have proposed that it is instead an indigenous Chinese composition. In contrast to both of these views, Robert Buswell maintains it was written in Korea around A.D. 685 by a Korean adept affiliated with the East Mountain school of the nascent Chinese Ch'an tradition. He thus considers it to be the oldest work of Korean Ch'an (or Son, which in Japan became known as the Zen school), and the second-oldest work of the sinitic Ch'an tradition as a whole. Buswell makes his case for the scripture's dating, authorship, and provenance by placing the sutra in the context of Buddhist doctrinal writings and early Ch'an literature in China and Korea. This approach leads him to an extensive analysis of the origins of Ch'an ideology in both countries and of the principal trends in the sinicization of Buddhism. Buddhism has typically been studied in terms of independent national traditions, but Buswell maintains that the history of religion in China, Korea, and Japan should be treated as a whole. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Soon after the inception of Buddhism in the sixth or fifth century B.C.E., the Buddha ordered his small band of monks to wander forth for the welfare and weal of the many, a command that initiated one of the greatest missionary movements in world religious history. But this account of a monolithic missionary movement spreading outward from the Buddhist homeland of India across the Asian continent is just one part of the story. The case of East Asian Buddhism suggests another tale, one in which the dominant eastward current of diffusion creates important eddies, or countercurrents, of influence that redound back toward the center. These countercurrents have had significant, even profound, impact on neighboring traditions. In East Asia perhaps the most important countercurrent of influence came from Korea, the focus of this volume. Chapters examine the role played by the Paekche kingdom in introducing Buddhist material culture (especially monastic architecture) to Japan and the impact of Korean scholiasts on the creation of several distinctive features that eventually came to characterize Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. The lives and intellectual importance of the monks Sungnang (fl. ca. 490) and Wonch’uk (613–696) are reassessed, bringing to light their role in the development of early intellectual schools within Chinese Buddhism. Later chapters discuss the influential teachings of the semi-legendary master Musang (684–762), the patriarch of two of the earliest schools of Ch’an; the work of a dozen or so Korean monks active in the Chinese T’ient’ai tradition; and the Huiyin monastery.

One of the most important and celebrated works of premodern Korean prose fiction, Kŭmo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle) is a collection of five tales of the strange artfully written in literary Chinese by Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493). Kim was a major intellectual and poet of the early Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897), and this book is widely recognized as marking the beginning of classical fiction in Korea. The present volume features an extensive study of Kim and the Kŭmo sinhwa, followed by a copiously annotated, complete English translation of the tales from the oldest extant edition. The translation captures the vivaciousness of the original, while the annotations reveal the work’s complexity, unraveling the deep and diverse intertextual connections between the Kŭmo sinhwa and preceding works of Chinese and Korean literature and philosophy. The Kŭmo sinhwa can thus be read and appreciated as a hybrid work that is both distinctly Korean and Sino-centric East Asian. A translator’s introduction discusses this hybridity in detail, as well as the unusual life and tumultuous times of Kim Sisŭp; the Kŭmo sinhwa’s creation and its translation and transformation in early modern Japan and twentieth-century (especially North) Korea and beyond; and its characteristics as a work of dissent. Tales of the Strange by a Korean Confucian Monk will be welcomed by Korean and East Asian studies scholars and students, yet the body of the work—stories of strange affairs, fantastic realms, seductive ghosts, and majestic but eerie beings from the netherworld—will be enjoyed by academics and non-specialist readers alike.

This volume makes available in English the seminal treatises in Korea's greatest interreligious debate of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. On Mind, Material Force, and Principle and An Array of Critiques of Buddhism by Confucian statesman Chŏng Tojŏn (1342–1398) and Exposition of Orthodoxy by Sŏn monk Kihwa (1376–1433) are presented here with extensive annotation. A substantial introduction provides a summary and analysis of the philosophical positions of both Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism as well as a germane history of the interactions between these two traditions in East Asia, offering insight into religious tensions that persist to this day. Translator A. Charles Muller shows how, from the time Confucianism and Buddhism met in China, these thought systems existed, along with Daoism, in a competing relationship that featured significant mutual influence. A confrontative situation eventually developed in China, wherein Confucian leaders began to criticize Buddhism. During the late-Koryŏ and early-Chosŏn periods in Korea, the Neo-Confucian polemic became the driving force in the movement to oust Buddhism from its position as Korea's state religion. In his essays, Chŏng drew together the gamut of arguments that had been made against Buddhism throughout its long history in Korea. Kihwa's essay met Neo-Confucian contentions with an articulate Buddhist response. Thus, in a rare moment in the history of religions, a true philosophical debate ensued. This debate was made possible based upon the two religions' shared philosophical paradigm: essence-function (ch'e-yong). This traditional East Asian way of interpreting society, events, phenomena, human beings, and the world understands all things to have both essence and function, two contrasting yet wholly contiguous and mutually containing components. All three East Asian traditions took this as their underlying philosophical paradigm, and it is through this paradigm that they evaluated and criticized each other's doctrines and practices. Specialists in philosophy, religion, and Korean studies will appreciate Muller's exploration of this pivotal moment in Korean intellectual history. Because it includes a broad overview of the interactive history of East Asian religions, this book can also serve as a general introduction to East Asian philosophical thought.

-- Wm. Theodore de Bary

Centered on the practice of seeking rebirth in the Pure Land paradise Sukhāvatī, the Amitābha cult has been the dominant form of Buddhism in Korea since the middle of the Silla period (ca. 300–935). In Aspiring to Enlightenment, Richard McBride combines analyses of scriptural, exegetical, hagiographical, epigraphical, art historical, and literary materials to provide an episodic account of the cult in Silla times and its rise in an East Asian context through the mutually interconnected perspectives of doctrine and practice. McBride demonstrates that the Pure Land tradition emerging in Korea in the seventh and eighth centuries was vibrant and collaborative and that Silla monk-scholars actively participated in a shared, international Buddhist discourse. Monks such as the exegete par excellence Wŏnhyo and the Yogācāra proponent Kyŏnghŭng did not belong to a specific sect or school, but like their colleagues in China, they participated in a broadly inclusive doctrinal tradition. He examines scholarly debates surrounding the cults of Maitreya and Amitābha, the practice of buddhānusmṛti, the recollection of Amitābha, the “ten recollections” within the larger Mahāyāna context of the bodhisattva’s path of practice, the emerging Huayan intellectual tradition, and the influential interpretations of medieval Chinese Pure Land proponents Tanluan and Shandao. Finally, his work illuminates the legacy of the Silla Pure Land tradition, revealing how the writings of Silla monks continued to be of great value to Japanese monks for several centuries. With its fresh and comprehensive approach to the study of Pure Land Buddhism, Aspiring to Enlightenment is important for not only students and scholars of Korean history and religion and East Asian Buddhism, but also those interested in the complex relationship between doctrinal writings and devotional practice “on the ground.”

Koans are enigmatic spiritual formulas used for religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Arguing that our understanding of the koan tradition has been severely limited, contributors to this collection examine previously unrecognized factors in the formation of this tradition, and highlight the rich complexity and diversity of koan practice and literature.

A study of the Northern Song Chan monk Qisong and his writings on Chan lineage, this book offers new arguments about Buddhist patriarchs, challenges assumptions about Chan masters, and provides insight into the interactions of Buddhists and the imperial court.