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Xuanzang玄奘, the peripatetic Chinese Buddhist scholar-monk of the Tang dynasty (618-907 ce), was born into a literati family in Henan province in 600 or 602 ce. He is known by the sobriquet “Master of the Three Baskets [comprising the Buddhist Canon] .” (Skt.: Trepiṭaka; Ch.: Sanzang三藏) Xuanzang is regarded as the most prolific translator of Indic Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese—as well as the most historically significant, given that his comprehensive translations of Indic abhidharma and Yogācāra sutras and treatises (śāstras) revolutionized the study of Buddhism in East Asia. Attesting to his lasting influence on the tradition of East Asian Buddhism, all Buddhist Indic texts translated prior to Xuanzang are known as either the “ancient translations” (guyi古譯) or “the old translations” (jiuyi舊譯), while Xuanzang’s translations are termed “the new translations” (xinyi新譯). By retrieving the unalloyed teachings of abhidharma and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions from India and rendering them into fluid and readable classical Chinese, Xuanzang has left a legacy in the study of Buddhism in East Asia. Many of Xuanzang’s translations, such as the Heart Sūtra (Xinjing心經), remain the most widely used and circulated versions of these texts. Xuanzang’s long and arduous trek across the Silk Road to India is famously recorded in his travelogue entitled the Da Tang Xiyu ji (Great Tang records of the western regions). During his fourteen years in India (629–643 ce), Xuanzang collected Indic Buddhist texts hitherto not translated, studied with Buddhist masters, engaged in various religious debates, and acquired and mastered a vast and comprehensive knowledge of the Indic Buddhist texts in their original Sanskrit forms. Xuanzang returned to his native China in 645 ce to much acclaim and fanfare. Turning down a prestigious civil service appointment offered by Emperor Taizong, Xuanzang engaged in massive translation projects to render the texts he had gathered during his travels in India into Chinese. Under the lavish patronage of the second and third Tang emperors, Taizong and Gaozong, Xuanzang rose in status to become the preeminent East Asian Buddhist scholar and translator of his generation. Attracting students from Korea, Japan, and China, Xuanzang engaged the finest minds of East Asia in his translation and exegetical projects. Xuanzang has lived on in Chinese popular literary imaginary as the basis for the character Tang Sanzang 唐三藏 (Trepiṭaka of the Tang Dynasty) in the Xiyou ji西游記 (Journey to the west), one of the four great novels of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).
Secularization is a major theoretical concept with its own paradigm in different scholarly fields, including the study of religion. While there are several uses and definitions of the term, it has generally referred to a cultural process in which religious institutions lose authority and religion has declining relevance for the individual. Conceptually, “secular” has been viewed as the opposite of “religious,” and “secularism” as an ideology expressing the idea of separating state from religion. Scholars of religious studies (and scholars of Buddhism) have begun challenging this binary, suggesting processes of secularization to also reinforce the importance of the “religious” within society and culture so that religion is revitalized. Others have underlined the necessity of using the concept as relevant tool in the comparative study of religion. Secularization is typically used as an explanatory concept related to the modernization processes of the 18th–19th centuries, which was a period characterized by Enlightenment thinkers, rationality ideals, functional differentiation, and/or general disenchantment of the world. But the concept also reflects postmodern and global transformations in recent decades, which have had further effects on the continuing decrease of religious authority in some regions. Some of the elements of secularization can be traced much further back in history. Critical reflections on religious assertions, the humanization of cosmologies, and the desacralization of the world were known in early Axial religions, not least Buddhism. As a religion questioning its own epistemological assumptions, Buddhism did not, however, relativize its own institutional importance, but rather established the sangha as a religious organization balancing between monastic religiosity and criticism of (traditional) religion. The reform Buddhism of the 19th century also had elements of proto-secular Buddhism, formulated by important Buddhist figures such as Anagarika Dharmapala (b. 1864–d. 1933), Taixu (b. 1890–d. 1947) and D. T. Suzuki (b. 1870–d. 1966). Spokesmen of this “modern Buddhism” claimed that the religion was convergent with natural physics, Darwinian evolution, humanism, and individualism, seeing modernity as an inspiration for renewal and reformation. Interpretations of Buddhist ideas and practices in the light of modern ideals beyond traditional religious worldviews have been further developed in the transformation of these ideas and practices to Western settings. What has sometimes been called “secular Buddhism” is one such phenomenon, deconstructing what is seen as traditional or cultural elements while at the same time contributing new ideas and practices. Another kind of state-sanctioned and forced secularism can be seen in the policies of Communist China, where Buddhism (and all religion) was previously officially removed from society and in reality banned from the public sphere. In Japan, religious crises have forced Buddhist communities and organizations to rethink their own role in an increasingly secular society. With negative demographic developments in Buddhist Asia, new generations of Buddhists will decline in numbers, and, combined with increased individualization and decreasing religious authority, Buddhism in Asia will probably continue to experience aspects of secularization, even though the Eurocentric connotations of the concept are not directly transferable, the religious and cultural patterns in Asia are diverse, and secularization is not necessarily an irreversible development.
In the modern day, the connection between Buddhism and statecraft is readily seen in the Theravada monarchies of Southeast Asia; however, in premodern times, Buddhist kings and Buddhist methods of statecraft were commonplace across South, Central, and East Asia as well. This link between Buddhism and political leadership is rooted in two powerful legends that came out of the early tradition and which have been invoked across all of Asia. The first is that of the birth and life story of the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, who was himself a prince of a small kingdom and destined to be either a “Wheel-Turning King” (cakravartin) and universal monarch or an “Enlightened One” (buddha). Though his father preferred that he extend his birthright by becoming a universal monarch, he went on to renounce palace life, go in search of awakening, and become a buddha. Nonetheless, the mythic connection between the Buddha (otherworldly power) and the Wheel-Turning King (worldly power) remains an essential aspect of a buddha’s identity. The second legend is that of Mauryan Emperor Aśoka (r. 262–238 bce); uniting the Indian subcontinent through violent means, Aśoka is believed by the tradition to have converted to Buddhism and then become the religion’s most generous and powerful benefactor who ruled according to Buddhist law, or dharma. Across the entirety of Asia, connections between Buddhism and statecraft have taken on regionally specific forms. There is a long history of rulers in South and Southeast Asia who have sponsored Theravada Buddhism as the state religion and have sanctified their rules and their reigns through close relations with the monastic community. In the Tibetan context of the practice of Vajrayāna Buddhism, rulers themselves became identified as bodhisattvas in a system reminiscent of the divine right of kings in Europe. In East Asia, there was a Chinese-style bureaucratic governance that looked to the Buddha as an otherworldly figurehead while translating long-standing Chinese imperial systems into something that we might call “Confucian with a Buddhist inflection.” As Chinese modalities of statecraft were adopted and adapted by other polities in the East Asian cultural sphere—notably, Korea and Japan, but also Vietnam—this Chinese form of imperial Buddhism became a mainstay of East Asian life throughout the entire premodern period. Therefore, we can see various different manifestations of Buddhist statecraft in theory and practice across Asia and throughout history up until the present.
The study of Buddhism in Latin America, which had been lacking in other Western countries, has improved considerably in the last two decades. The main reason for the initial lack of attention is the numerically modest presence of Buddhists in the region. Buddhists are greatly outnumbered by members of the Catholic church and evangelical denominations, and there is a disproportionate focus by Latin American scholars who privilege topics related to Catholicism and Pentecostalism and tend to dismiss “marginal” religions including Buddhism. Furthermore, European and North American scholars of religion are often less interested in issues related to Latin America. The present bibliography reflects this lack of attention. Due to the relatively small circle of researchers interested in the field, some authors appear more than once in the listed references. Since the topic of Buddhism in Latin America is not very popular, publishing companies are not very keen to bring such scholarship to the market. To compensate for this omission, the reader of this bibliography will find, in addition to monographs, collected works, chapters, and journal articles. a number of relevant academic theses. This variety of publication formats should not distract from the central fact that not all aspects of the issue are equaly represented by the existing literature. Some Latin American countries, as well as specific Buddhist traditions and schools, are overrepresented. While there are many publications regarding Buddhism in Brazil and—to a lesser extent—in Argentina and Mexico, available material regarding other countries is scarce. The same is true for transnational and regional studies. Among the Buddhist schools, Soka Gakkai has received the greatest attention. Zen and Tibetan Buddhism have also been studied in some detail, more so than other branches. Under these conditions, this bibliography is organized according to the main thematical focuses of the selected publications. Besides overviews of the research on Buddhism in Latin America mentioned in the the opening section, Research on Buddhism in Latin America, the sources are categorized under the primary headings Historically Orientated Studies, Geographically Orientated Studies, and Systematically Orientated Studies. In several cases, the association of a publication to one of these categorizations may be ambiguous. To add an essay about Soka Gakkai in Argentina in the first decades after its appearance under Systematically Orientated Studies, for example, is arbitrary and demands from a reader, particularly one who is interested in one specific category, to be alert for complementary suggestions in other parts of the bibliography.
Motherhood is a relational concept by its very nature. Biologically, it is tied to the children a woman produces. It is tied to concepts like fertility, pregnancy, abortion, and loss. But motherhood is more than a biological fact. The way motherhood is imagined and interpreted affects women’s direct experiences socially, politically, and medically. When motherhood is limited to a biological fact, it can limit women’s lives. But as this entry will hopefully make clear, motherhood is more than that. It is also a paradigm, a metaphor, even a religious practice. Among the themes highlighted here, we will consider specific mothers first—the Buddha’s two mothers (Māyā and Mahāpajāpatī [Skt. Mahāprajāpatī]), along with other famous mothers in Buddhist narrative (such as the mother of the Buddha’s son). We will consider one of the most important doctrines related to motherhood—namely, that one must love all beings the way a mother loves her only son—and the paradox such a teaching embodies. Pollution is an important challenge presented by motherhood (with the famous Blood Pond Hell that all mothers are destined for), along with filial piety (so that sons might save their mothers instead). Buddhist literature often shatters the concept of motherhood with tales like that of Kisā Gotamī, who only achieves awakening after losing her son, and yet motherhood is also sometimes carried over into discussions of renunciation, as monastics might embody motherhood (or parenthood) despite shaved heads. Some of the themes discussed here appear in other entries of this bibliographic collection, because when we study one piece of a tradition, we inevitably find ourselves studying all of it.
Baoshan 寶山 (Treasure Mountain) is a Buddhist site in the Taihang 太行 mountain range in Henan 河南 Province; it includes neighboring Lanfengshan 嵐峰山 (Misty Peak Mountain). It is a network of cave-shrines, devotional and memorial inscriptions, reliquary niches with portrait-statues, and references to buildings and restorations. Most notably, the memorial inscriptions on Lanfengshan are the single largest extant in situ collection of records of medieval Chinese Buddhist nuns. It is claimed that Baoshan was first marked as a Buddhist place by the monk Daoping 道憑 (b. 488–d. 559). Daoping’s disciple Lingyu 靈裕 (b. 518–d. 605) won imperial recognition for the site and probably led the design and construction of the main cave-shrine. Both monks belonged to the southern branch of the Dilun 地論 (Stages treatise) lineage that began in the Northern Qi 北齊 (550–577) capital of Ye 鄴. Two rock-cut cave shrines on Baoshan and Lanfengshan constitute the devotional foci of the site, and a restored temple stands in the valley between them, in what is believed to be its original location. The site’s main cave-shrine Dazhusheng 大住聖 (Great Abiding Holy Ones) is located midway up Baoshan and about five hundred meters west and further up the valley from the restored temple. Mortuary niches for monks and laymen fan out on several levels above the cave to the east and west. An earlier, smaller cave attributed to Daoping was renamed Daliusheng 大留聖 (Great Remaining Holy Ones), establishing correspondence with Dazhusheng. It is situated partway up Langfengshan, overlooking the lower part of the valley. Mortuary niches for nuns and laywomen are carved into cliff-faces above, below, and to the east of the cave. In Lingyu’s Xu gaoseng zhuan續高僧傳 (Continued biographies of eminent monks) biography, it is said that the temple in the valley between the peaks was designated Lingquansi 靈泉寺 (Ling’s Spring/Numinous Spring Temple) in 591 by Emperor Wen of the Sui. This was meant to honor Lingyu, who that year conferred precepts on the imperial household. One of Lingyu’s disciples, the eminent monk Huixiu 慧休 (b. 547–d. 646), also had a formative influence at the site.
The period between 1990 and 2010 saw a momentous change in the way humans store information. The transition from a society that encodes its information mainly in analogue ways to one that relies mainly on digital media has far-reaching consequences for each of its subsystems, including religion and academia. The well-understood materiality of analogue media, which encode information in unique, persistent, easily addressable items, which are embedded in economic and legal arrangements, has been replaced by a regime where most information is encoded digitally. Computationally mediated, digital information can be quickly produced, changed, multiplied, and transmitted, but is always reliant on a many-layered infrastructure of network, hardware, and software standards. How is Buddhist heritage digitized and how does that impact Buddhist studies? Buddhists, from the very beginning of their tradition, have often been “early adopters” and eager to use whatever new media were available to store, manage, and transmit their cultural heritage. With the advent of writing in India, Buddhism is mentioned in the earliest examples of Indian epigraphy (the Aśokan edicts, 3rd century bce), and the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts (c. 1st century ce) are of Buddhist texts. In China, Buddhism became the first religion to make use of printing to copy their sacred scriptures. Famously, the earliest dated printed book (868 ce) is a Chinese version of the Diamond Sutra. In Buddhist studies, like in other fields of academic inquiry, researchers had to learn within a generation to digitally access and manage primary sources (see Digitization of Primary Sources) and research tools (see Digitization of Research Tools). Cyberspace has become a new frontier for research into contemporary Buddhism (see Buddhism in Cyberspace). Similar to other fields in the Humanities, the application of research methods specific to digital data (see Application of Computational Methods in Buddhist Studies), however, is still in its infancy. This article is neither a link list, nor a bibliography in the traditional sense, but an attempt to survey the landscape of initiatives and approaches toward the use of computational methods in Buddhist studies. To prevent link rot, I cite URLs only where projects are not easily findable via a simple online search for their name. Most of the resources in this article are the product of teamwork; very few are created by a single person alone. Because of this, I generally forgo mentioning individuals, focusing instead on the institutions that maintain a resource. Acronyms are only given where they are widely used.
The Buddhist texts known as Dhammapada (Pali) or Dharmapada (Sanskrit and other Indic languages), “Words/Verses of the Teaching,” are collections of wisdom verses, regarded as having been spoken by the Buddha himself. Their equivalents in Mahayanist literature are often called Udānavarga, “Collection of Inspired Utterances [of the Buddha],” effectively a synonymous term. From the large number of versions that are now known, it appears likely that each of the early Buddhist sects had a Dharmapada among its canonical texts. However these different versions are not variations of one original: “Dhammapada” or “Udānavarga” seems to have been more of an idea or template than a single text. Certain characteristics are common to all known versions: the verses are arranged in chapters, each with a key word as title, such as “Pairs,” “Flowers,” or “The Brahmin.” However, they are not necessarily the same chapters, and even when the same titles are used they are not in the same order. Versions vary widely in length, and although there is generally a great deal of overlap in their content, there are many verses that do not occur in every version, or are placed in different chapters in different versions. Some verses or sequences are shared with other canonical Buddhist texts, and indeed with Hindu and Jain texts. Although the various known versions would have belonged to different early Buddhist schools, the differences between them do not seem to reflect doctrinal disagreements. In fact, few of the verses would be controversial to any Buddhist, concerned as they are with the basics of Buddhist teaching. The style is generally simple and straightforward, and clearly aimed at a lay audience as much as at monks and nuns.
During the revolutionary period in which China moved from imperial rule to republicanism, many new political leaders deprecated all religion as superstition and urged the government to confiscate religious property for new secular use. While many traditionalist religious leaders simply sought to counter such moves, some, such as Taixu (b. 1890–d. 1947), were more progressive. Agreeing that Buddhism in China had fallen behind the times, Taixu worked and wrote to help Buddhists create new organizations and bring their teachings and practices more into line with the needs of the modern world. Perhaps more than anything else, he is known as the founder of a form of Buddhism called “Buddhism for Human Life” (rensheng fojiao) and “Buddhism for the Human Realm” (renjian fojiao), terms often rendered into English both as “Engaged Buddhism” and “Humanistic Buddhism.” Only recently have scholars begun to acknowledge that Taixu kept much of the Buddhist tradition intact even as he tried to reorient it toward engagement with contemporary social and political problems. However, his successors (Such as Sheng Yen and Thich Nhat Hanh) have moved even further away from premodern concepts and “escapist” goals in order to focus Buddhist attention on this-worldly issues such as environmental degradation, women’s issues, and human rights. Because of the increased recent attention to the more traditional elements of Taixu’s Buddhist belief and practice, those who use the items in the following bibliography for research should pay attention to the date of the material. Studies published prior to 1990 will invariably present Taixu strictly as a modernizer and declare wrongly that he opposed such things as ritualism and Pure Land devotions, and place him in opposition to another Buddhist faction labeled “traditionalist” or “conservative.” More recent studies will note his own devotion to Maitreya and aspiration for rebirth in that future buddha’s abode, his rich ritual life, and his friendly relations with many of those deemed “conservative.” To date, not many studies on Taixu have appeared, and so the following bibliography is not extensive.
A work covering the Buddha’s life titled Sugata Saurabha (The Sweet Fragrance of the Buddha) was written by Chittadhar Hridaya (b. 1906–d. 1982), 20th-century Nepal’s most famous and accomplished writer in the Tibeto-Burman language, Nepal Bhasa (Newari in Western sources; Newa in now preferred contemporary use). This long work in nineteen chapters (spanning 354 printed pages) was originally published in 1948 and reissued after the poet’s death in 1982. During the early 1940s, Hridaya was arrested by the Rana government for publishing a poem regarded as subversive; while jailed for this, he wrote this poetic masterpiece, which he had to smuggle out of prison, at times using gaps in the metal storage boxes that families provided to supply provisions for the imprisoned. Features of the text convey the richness of intention and poetic ambition in Sugata Saurabha, and the genius of Hridaya is evident in the blending of both traditional and modern-Western influences. The work is an epic in kāvya style, yet written in Newari—albeit with a vast Sanskrit vocabulary. The kāvya center of Sugata Saurabha is clear in its other core features: stanzas composed in over twenty-five classical Sanskrit meters, the elaborate forms of ornamentation in verse and word choices (alamkāra), the constant reliance on similes and tropes from the Sanskrit tradition (e.g., “lotus-like feet”), and the use of puns (śleṣa) conveying dual meanings. The poet, through many traditional conventions, also seeks to convey a deep feeling for the subject matter by evoking basic aesthetic ideals or rasas. And yet while varying the number of syllables placed in each line, according to Sanskrit rhythmic forms, Hridaya followed the Western poetic tradition of ending each couplet with rhyming suffixes, a possibility that the vowel endings of Newari and Sanskrit words facilitated. The other mark of Western influence in Sugata Saurabha is the use of punctuation and indentation to mark quotations and the ends of couplets, mixed with more traditional devanāgari forms. Hridaya’s Sugata Saurabha conveys major events in the great teacher’s life, yet simultaneously, through his treatment of characters, the description of natural spaces, and by filling in the place and ethnic details that remain unmentioned or underdeveloped in the canonical accounts, the narrative also celebrates his own Newar cultural traditions. In places, the author expresses his own views on political issues, ethical principles, literary life, gender discrimination, economic policy, and social reform. Sugata Saurabha reflects the breadth and wealth of Buddhist ideas in circulation among Newar Buddhists in the first half of the 20th century—a contending realm of Newar Mahayana incorporating tantric practices; a reformist and missionary Theravadin faction in touch with advocates in Sri Lanka and India; a more subdued presence of Tibetan Buddhism mediated by Newar Lhasa traders; and the intellectual, modernist scholarly presence of Indian scholars, particularly Rahul Sankrityayan, who mediated the Pali and Tibetan canonical sources through Hindi translations. Hridaya’s reformist influences are woven through Sugata Saurabha. First, Buddhism is about social reform, intended to reform caste prejudice and uplift the entire society. Second, meditation is at the center of Buddhist spirituality and is for everyone. And third, Buddhism is compatible with rationality; that is, behind historical legends lies a demythologized empirical truth. So Sugata Saurabha has no miracles. Among a two-millennium-long lineage of Buddha biographies, we can place Chittadhar Hridaya’s Sugata Saurabha. He, too, draws upon classical sources, but as mediated by their rendering in two vernacular languages of South Asia (Newari and Hindi). An extraordinary poetic biography of the Buddha, Sugata Saurabha blends a rich awareness of Indic textual culture, Brahmanical and Buddhist, composed masterfully using a host of rhythmic patterns and end rhymes. It is a work that—where the classical sources are silent—creatively inserts details of the Buddha’s material life and urban culture drawn from the author’s own Newar context. It is an epic that eruditely describes the Shakya sage’s life and teachings, inflected through a prism of modernism. Making this work even more extraordinary is that it was composed in prison, smuggled out, and, with yet another more subtle purpose of defending the integrity of the author’s own cultural traditions, offers a positive vision of Newar life and for Nepal as well. Sugata Saurabha deserves a place among the great literary accomplishments of Buddhist history and modern world literature.
