The making of a savior bodhisattva : Dizang in medieval China / Zhiru
- Bib ID:
- 4317747
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Ng, Zhiru, 1964-
- Online Version:
- Table of contents only
Broken link? let us search Trove , the Wayback Machine , or Google for you.
- Description:
-
- Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, c2007
- xiii, 305 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
- ISBN:
-
- 9780824830458
- 0824830458
- Series:
- Studies in East Asian Buddhism ; no. 21.
- Summary:
-
"In modern Chinese Buddhism, Dizang is especially popular as the sovereign of the underworld. Often represented as a monk wearing a royal crown, Dizang helps the deceased faithful navigate the complex underworld bureaucracy, avert the punitive terrors of hell, and arrive at the happy realm of rebirth. The author is concerned with the formative period of this important Buddhist deity, before his underworldly aspect eclipses his connections to other religious expressions and at a time when the art, mythology, practices, and texts of his cult were still replete with possibilities. She begins by problematizing the reigning model of Dizang, one that proposes an evolution of gradual sinicization and increasing vulgarization of a relatively unknown Indian bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha, into a Chinese deity of the underworld. Such a model, the author argues, obscures the many-faceted personality and iconography of Dizang.
Rejecting it, she deploys a broad array of materials (art, epigraphy, ritual texts, scripture, and narrative literature) to recomplexity Dizang and restore (as much as possible from the fragmented historical sources) what this figure meant to Chinese Buddhists from the sixth to tenth centuries."--BOOK JACKET.
- Full contents:
-
- Introduction : problems and perspectives
- Pt. 1. Early images : the bodhisattva of this defiled world
- 1. Early scriptural representations : texts and contexts
- 2. Cultic beginnings reconsidered
- Pt. 2. Multiple images : this world, hell, and pure land
- 3. Indigenous and accretionary scriptures
- 4. Art and epigraphy
- 5. Narrative literature
- Conclusion : reassessing Dizang, lord of the underworld
- App 1. The Scripture on the ten wheels : reevaluating the traditional dating
- App 2. Antecedents of Dizang? : Ksitigarbha in India and Central Asia
- App 3. Translations of scriptures.
- Notes:
-
- "A Kuroda Institute book."
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-294) and index.
- Subject:
- Kṣitigarbha (Buddhist deity) -- Cult -- China -- History
- Other authors/contributors:
- Kuroda Institute
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
You may copy under some circumstances, for example you may copy a portion for research or study. Order a copy through Copies Direct to the extent allowed under fair dealing. Contact us for further information about copying.
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary, dramatic or musical work
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 2007
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
Request this item
Request this item to view in the Library’s reading room.