Circumambulatory Reading: Revolving Sutra Libraries and Buddhist Scrolls

Abstract

This article examines the complementary theories that religious demands shape the material forms of sacred text, and that the material form of a text, in turn, affects practices and methods of reading. Exploring technologies created and adapted in East Asia for reading Mahāyāna Buddhist sutras, I argue that specific technologies -- such as the revolving sutra library, the scroll, and the DVD optical disk -- suggest a dominant notion of reading as “circumambulation.” Thus Buddhist ritual reading provides a new way of thinking about the spatial components of textual engagement, apart from traditional “linear” and “radial” models.