Maitreya, the Future Buddha

322 Pages·1988·6.1 MB·English

by  Alan Sponberg

Maitreya, the Future Buddha
Standing Maitreya. Nepali, ninth to tenth centuries. Gilt copper with
polychrome. Height, 66 em. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. 1982.220.12.
Maitreya,
the Future Buddha
Edited by
ALAN SPONBERG
Princeton University
HELEN HARDACRE
Princeton University
Th~ right 0/ th~
University of Cambridge
to print and .sell
all mannt!r of books
was granted by
Henry viII in 1534.
The Univus-ily has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1988
First published 1988
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publi,ation Data
Maitreya, the future Buddha.
Papers presented at a conference at Princeton University.
Includes index.
1. Maitreya (Buddhist deity) - Congresses.
1. Sponberg, Alan. II. Hardacre, Helen, 1949-
III. Princeton University.
BQ4690.M3M34 1988 294.3'421 87-10857
ISBN 0 521 34344 5
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publicationapplied for.
Contents
List of Contributors page vii
Preface Xl
Abbreviations xv
Introduction
ALAN SPONBERG
I Maitreya and the History of Religions
1 The Many Faces of Maitreya: A Historian of Religions'
Reflections 7
JOSEPH M. KITAGAWA
2 The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological
Analysis 23
JAN NATTIER
II The Core Tradition and Its Subsequent Variation
Maitreya in South Asia: Introduction 51
ALAN SPONBERG
3 Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathagata Maitreya 54
PADMANABH s. JAINI
Maitreya in China, Korea, and Vietnam: Introduction 91
ALAN SPONBERG
4 Wonhyo on Maitreya Visualization 94
ALAN SPONBERG
v
vi Contents
5 Messenger, Savior, and Revolutionary: Maitreya in
Chinese Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries 110
DANIEL 1. OVERMYER
6 Maitreya in Korea 135
LEWIS LANCASTER
7 Perfect World and Perfect Time: Maitreya in Vietnam 154
HUE-TAM HO TAl
Maitreya in Japan: Introduction 171
HELEN HARDACRE
8 Types of Maitreya Belief in Japan 175
MIYATA NOBORU
9 The Pensive Prince of Chuguji: Maitreya Cult and Image
in Seventh-Century Japan 191
CHRISTINE M. E. GUTH
10 A waiting Maitreya at Kasagi 214
KAREN L. BROCK
11 Mt. Fuji as the Realm of Miroku: The Transformation of
Maitreya in the Cult of Mt. Fuji in Early Modern Japan 248
MARTIN COLLCUTT
12 Maitreya in Modern Japan 270
HELEN HARDACRE
Epilogue: A Prospectus for the Study of Maitreya 285
ALAN SPONBERG
Index 298
Contributors
Karen L. Brock is Assistant Professor ofJ apanese Art at Washington University
in Saint Louis. She coauthored Autumn Grasses and Water Motifs in Japanese Art
and has translated catalogues on Japanese painting for exhibitions in Japan and
the United States. She is currently writing Editor, Artist, and Audience in
Japanese Picture Scrolls.
Martin Colbltt is Professor in the Departments of East Asian Studies and
History at Princeton University. He is the author of Five Mountains: The
Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in MedievalJapan and is currently working on a
history of Japanese religion in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries.
Christine M. E. Guth has taught Japanese art at Princeton University, the
University of Pennsylvania, and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York
University. She is the author of Shinzo: Hachiman Imagery and Its Development.
Helen Hardacre is a member of the Department of Religion at Princeton
University and the author of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan: Reiyukai
Kyodan, Kurozumikyo and the New Religions oJJapan and The Religion oJJapan's
Korean Minority.
Padmanabh S.Jaini is Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of South
and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He
is the author of The Jaina Path oj Purification, and his critical editions in
clude Abhidharmadfpa with Vibha~aprabha-vrtti, Laghutattvasphota, Saratama:
Ratnakarasanti' 5 Paiijika on the A~tasahasrika-Praiiaparamita-sutra, Praiiiiasa
Jataka, and LokaneyyappakaralJaytl.
Joseph M. Kitagawa is Professor Emeritus of the History of Religions in the
Divinity School of the University of Chicago, as well as former Dean of the
VB
Vlll Contributors
Divinity School and Professor in the Department of Far Eastern Languages
and Civilizations, also of the Uni~ersity of Chicago. His publications include
Religion inJapanese History and Religions of the East. He has recently edited The
History of Religions: Retrospect and Prospect and two volumes of wntings by
Joachim Wach. Forthcoming are two collections of Professor Kitagawa's own
essays, On UnderstandingJapanese Religion and Religious Understanding ofH uman
Experience.
Lewis Lancaster is Professor of East Asian Buddhism in the Department of
Oriental Languages and a member of the Group in Buddhist Studies at the
University of Califomia at Berkeley. In addition to his publications on
Chinese Buddhism, Professor Lancaster has compiled The Korean Buddhist
Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue, and he is editing a new series entitled Studies in
Korean Religion and Culture.
Miyata Noboru is Professor of Folklore at Tsukuba University in Ibaragi, Japan.
Professor Miyata has published a numlier of works on Maitreya in Japan and
other aspects of popular religion, including Miroku shinko no kenkyu, Minzoku
shukyoron no kadai, Toshi minzokuron no kadai, Tsuchi no shiso, Ikigami shinko,
Edo no saijiki, and Onna no reiryoku to ie no kami. He is also a senior editor of a
major collection of folklore studies: Nihon minzoku bunka taikei.
Jan Nattier is a specialist in Central Asian languages who did graduate work in
. Central Asian Languages and Buddhism first at Indiana University and later at
Harvard University, where she is currently writing her doctoral dissertation
on the decline of the Dharma, based on Tibetan and Mongolian sources. She is
also working on a documentary and bibliographic survey of resources for the
study of Buddhism in Soviet Central Asia and Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang).
Daniel L. Overmyer is Professor and Head of the Department of Asian Studies
at the University of British Columbia. In addition to several articles on the
history of Chinese religions, he has published Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting
Sects in Late Traditional China, Religions of China: The World as a Living System,
and with coauthor David K. Jordan, The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese
Sectarianism in Taiwan. His current research is on Chinese popular religious
texts from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Alan Sponberg teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford
University. He has published on Buddhism in South Asia and East Asia, with
special interest in the early transmission of Buddhism into China. He is
currently completing a two-volume study ofYo gacara Buddhism in India and
China.
Contributors IX
Hue-Tam Ho Tai is Associate Professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at
Harvard University. She is the author of Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in
Vietnam and has just completed a study of the social and intellectual origins of
the Vietnamese Revolution.