Organizer: Jacqueline Jingjing Zhu, University of the West, USA Discussant: Joshua Capitanio, University of the West, USA This panel will represent papers on Chinese Buddhism and its relationship with government, society and economy from the early-Tang to the Ming dynasty. Scholars will focus on topics that have previously received little attention during this period. Their topics include the construction of the Buddhist canon, the storage of the sutra--Wheeling Sutra Repository (Wheeled Canon) and its profits, the use of the term “Hinayana” in the history of Chinese Buddhism, and women’s role in Chinese Buddhism. One topic dealing with editions of the Buddhist canon constructed during the Song to Ming dynasties would shed light onto our understanding of how a Buddhist canon was planned, designed, constructed and circulated throughout the country. Another topic based on four drawings from Japan’s Gozan jissatsu zu to discusses how the Wheeled Canon played an important role in Chan monastic management, which greatly impacted the Buddhist monasteries. This topic will illustrate how the change of commercial center would cause the change of the flow of funding from both the government and common people. We have also found few records on the studies of the relations between women and Buddhism in this period. This study shows that women participated in donating for the construction of the Buddhist canon as well as daily Buddhist activities. Biographies of eminent monks recorded the mysterious images in their mothers’ dreams before and after their births. This stimulates a topic on the relations between eminent monks and their mothers and women’s social activities in Buddhism during this period.
The study starts with the Qisha Zang which was initiated probably in the fifth year of Shaoding (1232) in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 – 1279). This edition of the Buddhist canon was sponsored by the gentry class and local people. The whole project continued until the second year of Zhizhi (1322) in the Yuan Dynasty. Five years after Zhu Yuanzhang (r.1368 – 1399) ascended the throne, he invited eminent monks to start a new set of the Buddhist canon by following the format of the Qisha Zang Edition. This was called the Hongwu Southern Edition. In 1408, just a few years after the completion of this so-called Hongwu Edition, a mad monk set fire to the temple where the woodblocks were housed. Emperor Chengzu (1403 – 1424) decided to carve a new edition of the Buddhist canon based on the Hongwu Edition in Nanjing. This is called The Yongle Southern Edition. After moving the capital to Beijing, he issued a decree to construct another Buddhist canon. This is often called the Yongle Northern Edition. The Princeton University Library keeps a whole set of the Qisha Edition and an incomplete edition of the Yongle Northern Edition of Chinese Buddhist Canon. The knowledge of the impact of the Qisha Edition on the other editions of the Buddhist canon and the continuity of the construction by both the imperial court and by common folks will shed light into our understanding of the relations between Court and Buddhism, and ordinary people’s affiliation with Buddhism at the time.
This paper is based on four drawings from Japan’s Gozan jissatsu zu（五山十刹圖）. The three pictures of whole monastic structures of the “Five Mountains” in the Southern Song dynasty are Lingyin Temple靈隱寺in Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou city of Zhejiang province), Tiantong Temple 天童寺of Mingzhou (present-day Ningbo city of Zhejiang province), and Wan’nian Temple of Tiantai (present-day Tiantai county of Zhejiang province). All three temples have a Wheeling Sutra Repository Hall stationed in a prominent position in their architectural pattern of the Chan temples. The fourth one is the detailed picture of the Wheeling Sutra Repository of Jinshan Temple 金山寺 (present-day in Zhenjiang city of Jiangsu province). With other related Chinese and Japanese sources and field research, the author detects the effects and significance of the popular operation of the Wheeling Sutra Repository in the Southern Song dynasty’s monastery. The paper points out that the Wheeling Sutra Repository plays an important role in Chan’s monastic management institution and culture and profoundly affects the temple’s construction and layout pattern and organization.
Official biographies of eminent monks recorded the mysterious images in their mothers’ dreams and experiences before and after their births. This paper will study the relationship between eminent monks and their mothers and women’s social activities in Buddhism during this period. The Song dynasty is the turning point of Buddhism in Chinese history, during which women played an important role. We have found few records on the studies of the relations between women and Buddhism in this period. However, we still find some related records such as the birth of the monks and their mothers. The study shows that women participated in donating for the construction of the Buddhist canon as well as daily Buddhist activities such as visiting temples, participating in devotions, and meeting in folk clubs to study sutras.
In this paper, the author goes through the records of the Song dynasty eminent monks and their poems, letters and writings; and collects data from eminent monks and their communication and teaching with the women Buddhists. From these studies, the author reviews the women Buddhists’ development in Song dynasty, draws a draft of women Buddhists image during this period, and hopes to contribute to Song dynasty Buddhist studies from theses rarely studies angles.
The term Hinayana is a pejorative name coined by the Mahayanists to call some “non-Mahayanist schools.” This term first originated in India, and was brought to China with the translation of Mahayana Sutras and commentaries. Traditionally, the Buddhist tradition in China has been considered Mahayana, and obviously no Buddhist in China would like to be regarded as Hinayanist. However, we do see, in the history of Chinese Buddhism, that some monks were criticized as practicing Hinayana. Did the practice of Hinayana really exist in China? How did the Chinese understand this term? Were there changes of its use along the development of Buddhism in China?
This paper is in an attempt to find out the use of the term “Hinayana” in the history of Chinese Buddhism. It especially focuses on the social influences on the changes of understanding of this term among the Buddhists from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty.
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