Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions

Andreeva, Anna; Steavu, Dominic

doi:10.1163/9789004306523_002

Cited by 4 publications

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“…At other times, of course, it has not had the same definitive role and has instead constituted one of several different, not infrequently antagonistic, institutions within a society. In contrast to both of these, the conception of Buddhism in terms of an individual quest for transcendence has marginalized the importance of understandings of language and other aspects of Buddhism as a culture, such as medicine (Gyatso 2015) and embryology (Andreeva and Steavu 2016), astronomy and astrology (Kotyk 2017), and other cultural technologies. Second, this challenges the rather widely shared understanding that practice and doctrine, or theory and method, exist in isolation from one another.…”

Section: Question Thesis and Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan

Payne

2017

Religions

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Abstract:The question motivating this essay is how tantric Buddhist practitioners in Japan understood language such as to believe that mantra, dhāran .ī , and related forms are efficacious. "Extraordinary language" is introduced as a cover term for these several similar language uses found in tantric Buddhist practices in Japan. The essay proceeds to a critical examination of Anglo-American philosophy of language to determine whether the concepts, categories, and concerns of that field can contribute to the analysis and understanding of extraordinary language. However, that philosophy of language does not contribute to this analysis, as it is constrained by its continuing focus on its founding concepts, dating particularly from the work of Frege. Comparing it to Indic thought regarding language reveals a distinct mismatch, further indicating the limiting character of the philosophy of language. The analysis then turns to examine two other explanations of tantric language use found in religious studies literature: magical language and performative language. These also, however, prove to be unhelpful. While the essay is primarily critical, one candidate for future constructive study is historical pragmatics, as suggested by Ronald Davidson. The central place of extraordinary language indicates that Indic reflections on the nature of language informed tantric Buddhist practice in Japan and are not simply cultural baggage.

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Section: Question Thesis and Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan

Payne

2017

Religions

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Water, Cosmos, and Body

Lee¹

2022

Monumenta Serica

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Cosmology and Embryology in Medieval Japan

Andreeva

2022

The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies

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This chapter considers the process and impact of adopting South and East Asian embryological notions and descriptions of fetal life into the cosmological accounts and ritual sources from early and medieval Japan. A plethora of different terms describing the stages of a fetus developing in the mother’s womb was known in both India and China, where they came to be adopted in the earliest medical or religious writings, produced by Buddhists, Daoists, and medical practitioners. In Japan, these terms were transmitted via the Buddhist, medical, and literary sources arriving from Sui and Tang China and became adopted into a variety of cosmological, medical, and religious sources produced by Japanese historical actors. Of particular importance were the rituals practiced in the esoteric temple milieu of the Tendai, Shingon, and Zen schools in medieval Japan, where the embryological concepts were used to introduce new ways of soteriological thinking and action.

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Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan

On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan

Water, Cosmos, and Body

Cosmology and Embryology in Medieval Japan

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