Major Topics in East Asian Civilization

Questions on the Reading

Week 8
Questions on the Reading for week 8
Tuesday: Sources of Chinese Tradition, pp. 529-535, 568-586
*Religions of China in Practice, pp. 390-396
Sources of Korean Tradition, pp. 310-313, 382-388
   
Thursday: Sources of Chinese Tradition, pp. 652-666, 678-714, 721-731, 842-851).
 

Introduction to "Recovery of the Dao: The Way to Order in the Late Empire."

In the final decades of the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) the imperial court gradually diminished its patronage of Buddhist clergy, monasteries, and sacred sites. As in Kamakura Japan, Buddhist beliefs and practices retained its broad support on the local level. But the emperors of the Song dynasty (960-1279), and of all subsequent dynasties, accorded foremost importance to Confucian ritual, Confucian texts, and Confucian scholarship.

The growth of an empire-wide market economy and the concomitant improvements in infrastructure (roads, waterways, ship-building, et cetera) resulted in increasing urbanization, economic activity, and geographical and social mobility, while the spread of printing (invented in the eighth century) and the recruitment of government officials through a standardized examination system required the standardization of the texts and interpretations of the sacred Confucian canon. These circumstances, so different from those of the Zhou dynasty, inspired renewed debates about the nature of the Dao and about the relationship between the present and the past, between Song times and legendary Antiquity.

   
Gilt Bronze Pagoda
Height 53.5
Tang Dynasty, seventh to eighth century CE
From the pagoda of the Famen Monastery at Fufeng, Shaanxi Provence
Famensi Muesum, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
 
Like the buildings in Tang depictions of Buddhist Pure Lands (paradises), the model rises on terraces from a lotus pool. On each of the four sides, steps and bridges, guarded by paired lions on columns, provide access across the pool to the main terrace and the four locked doors. Standing in front of the windows, two lokapalas (Heavenly Kings) guard the main entrance. Slender columns support the projecting eaves and tiled roof. The mast that crowns the pagoda has six canopies (chattras), a seventh of distinctive, umbrella-like form, and, successively, a ring or halo, crescent moon and jewel, and a lotus bud finial. In architectural form and detail, this is a work of the early or High Tang dynasty, seventh to eighth century BCE, reflecting Pure Land Buddhism, with no hint of any Esoteric elements. The motif of a crescent moon and jewel, in particular, which ultimately derives from the crowns of Sassanian kings, appears frequently in the headdresses of Early and High Tang bodhisattvas in the cave-temples at Dunhuang. Nevertheless, the workmanship of the small parcel-gilt silver coffin contained within the pagoda, which in turn held a fingerbone relic, is similar to that of the many objects made much later, around the time of the final dedication in 874.
 
 
Parcel-gilt silver casket with the Four Guardian Kings
Height 23.5, width 20
Tang Dynasty, ninth century CE
From the pagoda of the Famen Monastery at Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
Famensi Museum, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
   
 
Multiple containers made of valuable materials were invariably used to hold relics (which could be just tiny, glassy grains). In the case of the Famen Monastery, where the relic was held to be from the true body of Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, the containers had to be even more impressive. Placed towards the rear of the innermost chamber, this is the second of a set of eight nesting caskets. Only fragments remain of the outermost casket, which is made of sandalwood carved with figures of devotees and figures from Buddhist Pure Lands, including the Pure Land of the West of Buddha Amitabha--the Buddha of Boundless Light and the focus of Pure Land worship. It was apparently surrounded by a wooden railing with carved balusters topped by gilt lotus buds, similar to the railing surrounding the gilt bronz stupa.

The second to the seventh caskets were lowered into each other by means of lengths of silk, remnants of which remained in their original positions when the objects were discovered. Each casket was fastened by a paddlock, with the appropriate key still in place. All share the same square shape with chamfered lid but are decorated in different ways. Each side of this, the second casket, shows one of the Four Guardian Kings. The third casket is of plain silver. Next are two caskets decorated with figural designs: the fourth with preaching scenes of four Buddhas, each associated with one of the four directions; the fifth illustrates Esoteric deities. The sixth and seventh caskets have no figural designs, but are encrusted with pearls and semiprecious stones. Finally, the eighth container, a mere two inches in height, is not a casket but a tiny single-story pagoda fashioned out of solid gold; the relic fingerbone rested on a silver post.
 
Questions
  1. How do Chinese and Korean Neo-Confucian authors view Buddhism? How do Chinese and korean Buddhist authors defend Buddhism against their criticism?

  2. How do the authors represented in this week's readings understand "Chineseness"? How do they imagine "Chineseness" and how do they understand its transmission, its continuity? How do they understand the relationship between the present and the past?

  3. What are the central concerns of Tang- and Song-dynasty "Neo-Confucianism"? How do these concerns differ from the preoccupations of Warring States and Han-dynasty "Confucianism"? Where lie the disagreements between Neo-Confucians themselves?