Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism

Emptiness, Power and the question of Origin

Joseph Walser (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

288 Seiten

2018
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-138-95555-4 (ISBN)

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Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to a problem that some have called the holy grail of Buddhist studies: the problem of the “origins” of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In a work that contributes both to a general theory of religion and power for religious studies as well as to the problem of the origin of a Buddhist movement, Walser argues that that it is the neglect of political and social power in the scholarly imagination of the history of Buddhism that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions about Mahāyāna Buddhism, offering a fascinating new take on its genealogy that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was “Mahāyāna.” In situating such concepts in their political and social contexts across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia.

This text will be will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of Buddhism, religious studies, history and philosophy.

Joseph Walser is Associate Professor of Religion at Tufts University, USA.

Acknowledgements

Part I: Genealogies of Mahāyāna

Introduction: On Origins and Genealogies

Mahāyāna in Retrospect: From My House to the Dalai Lama (looking back from 2017 – 1930)

Assessing the Essence

Tibet as Buddhist: Tracing the Lines of Power

Emptiness and the Analytic of Power

Inculcating Dispositions to Authority: the Kālacakra

Mahāyāna in the Republic, Mahāyāna in the Empire: Tracing “Religion” from Republican China to the Early Qing Dynasty (1920’s – 1723)

Religion vs. Superstition in 20th Century East Asia

The Fin de Siècle Turning Point

The Qing Imperium and the Usefulness of Mahāyāna

The Yonghegong Temple in Beijing and the Political Work of Monuments

Emperor Qianlong: the Tantric Initiate and the Tantric State

Tantra, Emptiness and the Reincarnate Emperor/Lama, or why it’s never too late to have a venerable past.

Yongzheng Emperor and the Great Ming Debate

The Image of Emptiness across the Landscape of Power (China: 11th Cent. B.C.E – 15th Cent. C.E.)

The Ancestor Image

The Image of Emptiness: Di, Space and the Celestial Pole

The Image of the Earth and control of the cults

Exorcism and the State: When possession is nine-tenths

Religion in the Service of Taxation

Buddhist Exorcism and the Heart of Mahāyāna

Conclusion

Buddha Veda: an Indian Genealogy of Emptiness (20th century – 6th century CE.)

Emptiness and Power in Orissa: From Mahima Dharma Sampradāya to Jagannātha of Puri

Buddhism and Brahmanism in Maitrīpa (ca. 1010-1097 CE)

Bhāviveka’s 6th Century Mahāyāna

Bhāviveka, Mahāyāna and Yogācāra

Bhāviveka, Mahāyāna and Brahmanism

Preliminary Conclusion

Part II: The Genealogy of the Perfection of Wisdom

What did the text of the Perfection of Wisdom look like?

The Versions

The Quest for the Ur-Sūtra

The Core Pericope

The Ending

Subhūti’s Non-Apprehension

The Mindlessness Section

The Message of the Original Perfection of Wisdom

Mahāyāna

Bodhisattvas

What’s missing?

Mahāyāna Sūtra as Palimpsest: Discerning Traces of the Tripiṭaka

Beyond "origin" as mere event

Heteroglossia and Textual Rationale

Intertextuality and Adaptation in Buddhist Literature

The Non-Apprehension section and its Intertexts

Sermon on Selflessness?

Nominalism?

Cessation of Cognition

Selflessness… but differently

The Perfected as Untraceable

Fearlessness

Abhidharma echoes

Conclusion: The Perfection of Wisdom

Palimpsest Part Two: Brahmanical Writings on the Tripiṭaka

The Importance of Incoherence

The Context of Abhidharma Literature?

The Context of Other Schools?

The Context of Luminous Thought and Varieties of Unaware Thought

The Context of Acitta Neither Existing nor Not Existing as Anti-Brahmanical Dependent Origination

The Context of Absence of Mental Construction (avikalpa)

Nirvikapla

Brahmanical Intertexts and their Implications

Placing Early Mahāyāna

Placing the Perfection of Wisdom in the Early Mahāyāna Suite

Mañjuśrī’s Inquiry Concerning the Office of the Bodhisattva

Placing the Early Perfection of Wisdom

Mistaken Sounds

Subhūti’s Araṇavihāra: Preaching or Penetration?

Emptiness, Brahmin Nuns, Tulkus and the Power of Possession

Putting it together

Conclusion

On Sites and Stakes: Meditation on Emptiness and Imperial Aspirations

Shifting Contexts, Shifting Interpretations

The Uṇṇābhabrāhmaṇasutta and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanișad on cosmic foundations

The Horse Sacrifice

Piling the Fire Altar and Legitimation Regress

Buddhist Brahmins

On Power and Reproduction

Sovereign Echoes: on Manhood and Celibacy; On thrones and Crowns

Buddhist Brahmodya as court debates

The Mahāyāna Genealogy from The Vedas to the Sutras to Tantra to Zen

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	09.09.2018
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	571 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Buddhismus
ISBN-10	1-138-95555-8 / 1138955558
ISBN-13	978-1-138-95555-4 / 9781138955554
Zustand	Neuware