India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought
India and China dominate the Asian continent but are separated by formidable geographic barriers and language differences. For many centuries, most of the information that passed between the two lands came through Silk Route intermediaries in lieu of first-person encounters—leaving considerable room for invention. From their introduction to Indian culture in the first centuries C.E., Chinese thinkers, writers, artists, and architects imitated India within their own borders, giving Indian images and ideas new forms and adapting them to their own culture. Yet India's impact on China has not been greatly researched or well understood.

India in the Chinese Imagination takes a new look at the ways the Chinese embedded India in diverse artifacts of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life in the premodern era. Leading Asian studies scholars explore the place of Indian myths and storytelling in Chinese literature, how Chinese authors integrated Indian history into their conception of the political and religious past, and the philosophical relationships between Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. This multifaceted volume, illustrated with over a dozen works of art, reveals the depth and subtlety of the encounter between India and China, shedding light on what it means to imagine another culture—and why it matters.

Contributors: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Bernard Faure, John Kieschnick, Victor H. Mair, John R. McRae, Christine Mollier, Meir Shahar, Robert H. Sharf, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Ye Derong, Shi Zhiru.

1115313021
India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought
India and China dominate the Asian continent but are separated by formidable geographic barriers and language differences. For many centuries, most of the information that passed between the two lands came through Silk Route intermediaries in lieu of first-person encounters—leaving considerable room for invention. From their introduction to Indian culture in the first centuries C.E., Chinese thinkers, writers, artists, and architects imitated India within their own borders, giving Indian images and ideas new forms and adapting them to their own culture. Yet India's impact on China has not been greatly researched or well understood.

India in the Chinese Imagination takes a new look at the ways the Chinese embedded India in diverse artifacts of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life in the premodern era. Leading Asian studies scholars explore the place of Indian myths and storytelling in Chinese literature, how Chinese authors integrated Indian history into their conception of the political and religious past, and the philosophical relationships between Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. This multifaceted volume, illustrated with over a dozen works of art, reveals the depth and subtlety of the encounter between India and China, shedding light on what it means to imagine another culture—and why it matters.

Contributors: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Bernard Faure, John Kieschnick, Victor H. Mair, John R. McRae, Christine Mollier, Meir Shahar, Robert H. Sharf, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Ye Derong, Shi Zhiru.

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India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought

India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought

India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought

India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought

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Overview

India and China dominate the Asian continent but are separated by formidable geographic barriers and language differences. For many centuries, most of the information that passed between the two lands came through Silk Route intermediaries in lieu of first-person encounters—leaving considerable room for invention. From their introduction to Indian culture in the first centuries C.E., Chinese thinkers, writers, artists, and architects imitated India within their own borders, giving Indian images and ideas new forms and adapting them to their own culture. Yet India's impact on China has not been greatly researched or well understood.

India in the Chinese Imagination takes a new look at the ways the Chinese embedded India in diverse artifacts of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life in the premodern era. Leading Asian studies scholars explore the place of Indian myths and storytelling in Chinese literature, how Chinese authors integrated Indian history into their conception of the political and religious past, and the philosophical relationships between Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. This multifaceted volume, illustrated with over a dozen works of art, reveals the depth and subtlety of the encounter between India and China, shedding light on what it means to imagine another culture—and why it matters.

Contributors: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Bernard Faure, John Kieschnick, Victor H. Mair, John R. McRae, Christine Mollier, Meir Shahar, Robert H. Sharf, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Ye Derong, Shi Zhiru.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780812245608
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date: 01/23/2014
Series: Encounters with Asia
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

John Kieschnick is Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Professor of Buddhist Studies at Stanford Universityand the author of The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture and Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography. Meir Shahar is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Tel Aviv Universityand the author of The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts and Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Indian Mythology and the Chinese Imagination

Chapter 1 Transformation as Imagination in Medieval Popular Buddhist Literature Victor H. Mair 13

Chapter 2 Indian Mythology and the Chinese Imagination: Nezha, Nalakubara, and Krsna Meir Shahar 21

Chapter 3 Indic Influences on Chinese Mythology: King Yama and His Acolytes as Gods of Destiny Bernard Faure 46

Chapter 4 Indian Myth Transformed in a Chinese Apocryphal Text: Two Stories on the Buddha's Hidden Organ Nobuyoshi Yamabe 61

Part II India In Chinese Imaginings of the Past

Chapter 5 From Bodily Relic to Dharma Relic Stupa: Chinese Materialization of the Asoka Legend in the Wuyue Period Shi Zhiru 83

Chapter 6 "Ancestral Transmission" in Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: The Example of the Shaolin Temple Ye Derong 110

Chapter 7 The Hagiography of Bodhidharma: Reconstructing the Point of Origin of Chinese Chan Buddhism John R. McRae 125

Part III Chinese Rethinking of Indian Buddhism

Chapter 8 Is Nirvana the Same as Insentience? Chinese Straggles with an Indian Buddhist Ideal Robert H. Sharf 141

Chapter 9 Karma and the Bonds of Kinship in Medieval Daoism: Reconciling the Irreconcilable Christine Mollier 171

Chapter 10 This Foreign Religion of Ours: Lingbao Views of Buddhist Translation Stephen R. Bokenkamp 182

Glossary 199

Notes 217

Bibliography 269

List of Contributors 299

Index 301

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