Monks, Rulers, and Literati The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism

by Welter, Albert

• ISBN13: 9780195175219
• ISBN10: 0195175212
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Chan (Zen in Japanese) school began when, in seventh-century China, a small religious community gathered around a Buddhist monk named Hongren. Over the centuries, Chan Buddhism grew from an obscure movement to an officially recognized and eventually dominant form of Buddhism in China andthroughout East Asia. It has reached international popularity, its teachings disseminated across cultures far and wide. In Monks, Rulers, and Literati, Albert Welter presents, for the first time in a comprehensive fashion in a Western work, the story of the rise of Chan, a story which has been obscured by myths about Zen. Zen apologists in the twentieth century, Welter argues, sold the world on the story of Zen as atranscendental spiritualism untainted by political and institutional involvements. In fact, Welter shows that the opposite is true: relationships between Chan monks and political rulers were crucial to Chan's success. The book concentrates on an important but neglected period of Chan history, the10th and 11th centuries, when monks and rulers created the so-called Chan "golden age" and the classic principles of Chan identity. Placing Chan's ascendancy into historical context, Welter analyzes the social and political factors that facilitated Chan's success as a movement. He then examineshow this success was represented in the Chan narrative and the aims of those who shaped it. Monks, Rulers, and Literati recovers a critical period of Zen's past, deepening our understanding of how the movement came to flourish. Welter's groundbreaking work is not only the most comprehensive history of the dominant strand of East Asian Buddhism, but also an important corrective to many ofthe stereotypes about Zen.

Author Biography

Albert Welter is Professor of Asian Religions at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. He is the author of The Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds: A Study of Yung-Ming Yen-Shou and the Wan-Shan T'ung-Kuei Chi (1994).

Table of Contents

A Note on the Transcription of Chinese Terms and Names	xi
Part I: Introduction and Background
The Historical and Geographical Context of Chan's Official Acceptance	3	(22)
Official Recognition of Chan Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty	25	(16)
Part II: Factional Motives and Literati Influences in the Creation of Chan Narratives
Chan Transmission Records and Factional Motives in the Tang Dynasty	41	(18)
Chan Transmission and Factional Motives in the Patriarch's Hall Anthology (Zutang ji)	59	(56)
Chan Transmission and Factional Motives in the Jingde [Era] Transmission of the Lamp (Jingde Chuandeng lu)	115	(46)
Literati Influences on the Compilation of Chan Records: The Jingde [Era] Transmission of the Lamp and the Tiansheng [Era] Expanded Lamp Record	161	(48)
Literati Interpretations of Chan Buddhim in Early Song China	209	(12)
Abbreviations	221	(2)
Notes	223	(54)
Character Glossary	277	(18)
Bibliography	295	(20)
Index	315