Buddhism and Iconoclasm in East Asia

A History

Professor Fabio Rambelli, Eric Reinders (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

256 Seiten

2014
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-4725-2595-6 (ISBN)

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This is a cross-cultural study of the multifaceted relations between Buddhism, its materiality, and instances of religious violence and destruction in East Asia, which remains a vast and still largely unexplored field of inquiry. Material objects are extremely important not just for Buddhist practice, but also for the conceptualization of Buddhist doctrines; yet, Buddhism developed ambivalent attitudes towards such need for objects, and an awareness that even the most sacred objects could be destroyed.

After outlining Buddhist attitudes towards materiality and its vulnerability, the authors propose a different and more inclusive definition of iconoclasm-a notion that is normally not employed in discussions of East Asian religions. Case studies of religious destruction in East Asia are presented, together with a new theoretical framework drawn from semiotics and cultural studies, to address more general issues related to cultural value, sacredness, and destruction, in an attempt to understand instances in which the status and the meaning of the sacred in any given culture is questioned, contested, and ultimately denied, and how religious institutions react to those challenges.

Fabio Rambelli is Professor and International Shinto Foundation Chair of Shinto Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, and Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Eric Reinders is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion, at Emory University, USA.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Part I: Stuff: Materiality and Fragility of Dharma
1. Buddhist Objects, Buddhist Bodies-An Outline
Part II: Histories: Instances of Religious Destruction in East Asia
2. Iconoclasm and Religious Violence in Japan: Practices and Rationalizations Fabio Rambelli
3. Shattered on the Rock of Ages: Western Iconoclasm and Chinese Modernity Eric Reinders
4. Ways of Not Seeing: Cultural Redefinition and Iconoclasm
Part III: Theories: Rethinking the Relations Between the Sacred and Destruction
5. Orders of Destruction: Iconoclasm, Semioclasm, Hieroclasm
Conclusion: Destruction and Cultural Systems

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	27.3.2014
Zusatzinfo	10 bw illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	386 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Buddhismus
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-4725-2595-7 / 1472525957
ISBN-13	978-1-4725-2595-6 / 9781472525956
Zustand	Neuware