Explaining Conception to Women?

Abstract Recent findings by Japanese and Western scholars specializing in Buddhism have cast light on a variety of theories of conception and gestation that were known within the religious and cultural milieu of medieval Japan. In the early fourteenth century, these ideas about the origins of life and the human body were incorporated not only into the esoteric Buddhist rituals and theological treatises that shaped the religious landscape of medieval Japan, but also into medico-religious writings focusing on women’s health. This article discusses the theories of conception and gestation seen in the Encyclopedia of Childbirth (Sanshō ruijūshō 産生類聚抄, ca. 1318), a hand-written manuscript preserved at Kanazawa Bunko, one of Japan’s surviving medieval temple archives. This manuscript is a rare source on women’s health from medieval Japan, which describes the issues of conception, infertility, and childbirth from the Buddhist and medical perspective. It explains conception through the ideas found in certain Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist treatises such as the Daodijing 道地経 (one of the extant translations of the Yogācārabhūmi) and Jushe lun 俱舎論 (Skt. Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, Jpn. Kusharon), Buddhist scriptures, as well as Japanese Buddhist and medical treatises, including a collection attributed to the Tendai monk Annen 安然 (841–889?) and Tanba Yasuyori’s 丹波康頼 (912–995) Essentials of Medicine (Ishinpō 醫心方, ca. 984).

Download Full-text

Embryology in Buddhist Thought

Buddhism ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195393521-0228 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Andreeva

Keyword(s):

Human Body ◽

Filial Piety ◽

In Utero ◽

Origins Of Life ◽

Human Being ◽

Women's Bodies ◽

Cultural Contexts ◽

General Overview ◽

China And Japan ◽

Medical Treatises

Ideas about the origins of life and the development of the human body in utero have been part of Buddhist discourse since the time of its inception. Inheriting some of the notions seen also in the Jain, Puraṇic, and Āyurvedic sources, Buddhist embryological thought was linked inextricably with the idea of death and rebirth. The questions of how the consciousness emerges and what residues are left over after an individual’s death to continue the cycle of transmigration, or how the human being precisely develops in the mother’s womb, constituted the vital avenues of inquiry for Buddhist thinkers and practitioners. Thus, numerous descriptions of conception and embryological growth appeared in the Buddhist sutras, religious commentaries, and medico-religious manuals, but their perception and use varied according to the cultural and historical contexts. In locations as diverse as India, Thailand, Cambodia, Tibet, China, and Japan, the embryological descriptions were linked to the ideas of suffering, karmic debt, and filial piety; in some cases, the schematic models of fetal gestation were used as a template for ritual or spiritual progress or in tantric practices of self-cultivation. Such descriptions appeared also in medical treatises and, to a much lesser degree, vernacular Buddhist rituals related to women’s bodies and women’s health. The general overview below will introduce scholarly writings that have made prominent forays into this topic within specific cultural contexts or those that examine in depth the notions critical for understanding the embryological motifs embedded in Buddhist thought.

Download Full-text