Daniel Boucher
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824828813
- eISBN:
- 9780824869274
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824828813.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the ...
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This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. The book first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is an analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sūtra's evolution. The first part looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Part 2 focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sūtra attributed to Dharmarakṣa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, the book explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. One of the signal contributions of this book is its skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. The book concludes with an annotated translation of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.Less
This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. The book first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is an analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sūtra's evolution. The first part looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Part 2 focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sūtra attributed to Dharmarakṣa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, the book explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. One of the signal contributions of this book is its skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. The book concludes with an annotated translation of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.
Daniel Boucher
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824828813
- eISBN:
- 9780824869274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824828813.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter attempts to flesh out the ascetic orientation of the Rāṣṭrapāla in more detail, in relationship both to mainstream Buddhist literature as well as to other voices within the Mahāyāna ...
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This chapter attempts to flesh out the ascetic orientation of the Rāṣṭrapāla in more detail, in relationship both to mainstream Buddhist literature as well as to other voices within the Mahāyāna fold. This orientation is expressed as a commitment to the practice of the “qualities of purification” (dhutaguṇas) within the context of a retreat to the wilderness. Despite the significance of this asceticizing strand within a number of early Mahāyāna sūtras, other texts within this literature will sharply qualify, if not outright reject, wilderness dwelling as an appropriate course of action for the bodhisattva. The chapter also looks at two instances from the antiforest camp.Less
This chapter attempts to flesh out the ascetic orientation of the Rāṣṭrapāla in more detail, in relationship both to mainstream Buddhist literature as well as to other voices within the Mahāyāna fold. This orientation is expressed as a commitment to the practice of the “qualities of purification” (dhutaguṇas) within the context of a retreat to the wilderness. Despite the significance of this asceticizing strand within a number of early Mahāyāna sūtras, other texts within this literature will sharply qualify, if not outright reject, wilderness dwelling as an appropriate course of action for the bodhisattva. The chapter also looks at two instances from the antiforest camp.
Daniel Boucher
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824828813
- eISBN:
- 9780824869274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824828813.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter discusses a critique of the authors of the Rāṣṭrapāla, which set out to defend the Buddha's Dharma against the tide of monastic laxity and wantonness to which they saw it succumbing. ...
More
This chapter discusses a critique of the authors of the Rāṣṭrapāla, which set out to defend the Buddha's Dharma against the tide of monastic laxity and wantonness to which they saw it succumbing. Accusing their monastic confrères of fawning after patrons and consorting with householders, they describe a saṅgha that had accommodated itself to its socioeconomic environment with considerable aplomb. And they were, to say the least, not very happy about this. The Rāṣṭrapāla is in many ways a Puritan tract, portraying its authors' disillusionment with what the institution of Buddhist monasticism had become in their day. Like the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reformers in the Church of England, they championed an ascetic vision, a return to the righteous times of the first disciples.Less
This chapter discusses a critique of the authors of the Rāṣṭrapāla, which set out to defend the Buddha's Dharma against the tide of monastic laxity and wantonness to which they saw it succumbing. Accusing their monastic confrères of fawning after patrons and consorting with householders, they describe a saṅgha that had accommodated itself to its socioeconomic environment with considerable aplomb. And they were, to say the least, not very happy about this. The Rāṣṭrapāla is in many ways a Puritan tract, portraying its authors' disillusionment with what the institution of Buddhist monasticism had become in their day. Like the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reformers in the Church of England, they championed an ascetic vision, a return to the righteous times of the first disciples.
