Legislation Factors of Buddhist Monastery and Nunneries Monastic Code

2020 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 271-301
Author(s):  
Su-jin Han
Keyword(s):  
Monastic Code

scholarly journals From Medicalizing State to Sacralizing Status of Thai Buddhist Monks in Secular Space: A Case Study of the Priest Hospital

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 250525
Author(s):  
Jesada Buaban
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare System ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
Government Hospital ◽  
The Government ◽  
Modern Hospital ◽  
Monastic Code

This paper examines the sacred status of Thai Buddhist monks who have been engaging with the modern secular healthcare system, which also contrasts with their monastic traditions. It questions how modern medication has affected the sacred figure of Thai monks and what is their reaction to maintain their sacred status in such a secular space? Participant observations and informal interviews have been conducted, and data are conceptualized through the ideas of the birth of the clinic and biopower proposed by Michel Foucault. It finds that the traditional healing previously played by Thai monks has been challenged by modern medication eventually the monks also access the modern hospital. This phenomenon helps to change the idea of the cause of sickness, from demons to germs. This is interesting when some Buddhists request the monastic code-based healthcare system and monk patients’ zone. This paper argues that such an effort aims to maintain the sacred status of monks, who are perceived as holy persons and should not be seen by laypeople especially when they are in sickness, pain, and sorrow, which portray their ordinary human natures. Therefore, zoning management in the government hospital is needed to sacralize the monks’ status.

The Valley of Dantig and the myth of exile and return

2015 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-491
Author(s):  
Imre Galambos ◽  
Sam van Schaik
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
Central Tibet ◽  
Monastic Code

AbstractThe valley of Dantig in Amdo plays a central role in Tibetan Buddhist historical literature as the place where the monastic code was maintained during the tenth century after the dissolution of the monasteries in central Tibet. This article shows that a manuscript (now kept at the British Library) carried by a Chinese pilgrim monk through this region in the 960s, which mentions Dantig, is the only direct documentary evidence of Tibetan monastic culture in this region at this time. The authors also show how the nameDantig, which has been previously unexplained, derives from theSudāna Sūtra, a Buddhist narrative of exile and return that is directly relevant to the aspirations of the refugee monks from central Tibet who settled in the region.

Non-Conceptuality, Critical Reasoning and Religious Experience: Some Tibetan Buddhist Discussions

1992 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 189-210
Author(s):  
Paul Williams
Keyword(s):  
Exact Nature ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Doctrinal Development ◽  
Monastic Education ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Monastic Code ◽  
Different Levels

The Dalai Lama is fond of quoting a verse attributed to the Buddha to the effect that as the wise examine carefully gold by burning, cutting and polishing it, so the Buddha's followers should embrace his words after examining them critically and not just out of respect for the Master. A role for critical thought has been accepted by all Buddhists, although during two and a half millennia of sophisticated doctrinal development the exact nature, role and range of critical thought has been extensively debated. In general doctrinal difference in Buddhism has been seen as perfectly acceptable, reflecting different levels of understanding and therefore different stages on the path to enlightenment. Buddhism has tended not to look to or expect doctrinal orthodoxy, although there has always been a much stronger impetus towards orthopraxy, and common (largely monastic) code and behaviour has perhaps played a comparable role in Buddhism to common belief and creed in some other religions. Nevertheless an acceptability of doctrinal divergence has not lessened the energy and vigour devoted to lengthy and sometimes fiercely polemical debate between teachers and schools. This was nowhere more so than in Tibet, where doctrinal debates—sometimes lasting all night—to the present day form the central part of a monastic education in most of the largest Tibetan monastic universities.

Conversion to Chastity: A Buddhist Catalyst in Early Imperial China

NAN Nü ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-56
Author(s):  
Keung Lo Yuet
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Biological Condition ◽  
Physical Body ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imperial China ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Monastic Code

AbstractThis paper traces the history of the notion of female chastity (zhen) in China from pre-Qin to the mid-imperial era and argues that, prior to the arrival of Buddhism in China, the idea of female “chastity” was concerned not so much with physical virginity as the dutiful fulfillment of wifely obligations as stipulated by the Confucian marriage rites. A woman's chastity was determined by her moral rectitude rather than by her biological condition. The understanding of the physical body as a sacrosanct entity that must be defended against defilement and violation emerged under the influence of Buddhist notions of the uncontaminated body, the pious observance of the Buddhist monastic code, and the performance of religious charity that became popular in early imperial China. Based on a critical analysis of a wide array of Confucian canonical texts, dynastic histories, Indian Buddhist scriptures, biographies of Chinese monks and nuns, the monastic code, and Chinese Buddhist encyclopedias, this paper delineates the gradual process by which the Buddhist concept of the “pure body” became fully assimilated into the indigenous Chinese notion of female “rectitude” and the notion of female chastity finally acquired an ontological identity around the end of the sixth century.

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