The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations

505 Pages·2007·5.77 MB·English

by  Bryan J. Cuevas

Buddhist studies
The BUDDHIST
(Continued from front flap) Cuevas
and
DEAD
practitioners and devotees, Bryan J. Also in the Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism series: Stone In its teachings, practices, and institu-
Cuevas, John Clifford Holt, and Matthew tions, Buddhism in its varied Asian forms
T. Kapstein take up the subject of the BURNING FOR THE BUDDHA has been—and continues to be—centrally
Practices, Discourses, rePresentations
“ordinary dead” and the intimate rela- self-immolation in chinese Buddhism concerned with death and the dead. Yet
tions that often persist between them and James A. Benn surprisingly “death in Buddhism” has
those still living, while Hank Glassman, received little sustained scholarly atten-
No. 19: 2007, 352 pages Edited by
Mark Rowe, and Jason A. Carbine shed tion. The Buddhist Dead offers the first
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8248-2992-6
light on Buddhist funerary practices and Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone comparative investigation of this topic
address the physical and social locations of Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism is the first book- across the major Buddhist cultures of
the Buddhist dead. length study of the theory and practice of “abandoning the body” (self-immola- T India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet, and
tion) in Chinese Buddhism. Although largely ignored by conventional scholar- Burma. Its individual essays, representing
h
This important collection moves beyond ship, the acts of self-immolators (which included not only burning the body, but a range of methods, shed light on a rich
the largely text- and doctrine-centered also being devoured by wild animals, drowning oneself, and self-mummifica- e array of traditional Buddhist practices for
approaches characterizing an earlier tion, among others) form an enduring part of the religious tradition and provide the dead and dying; the sophisticated but

generation of Buddhist scholarship and a new perspective on the multifarious dimensions of Buddhist practice in China often paradoxical discourses about death
B
expands its treatment of death to include from the early medieval period to the present time. This book examines the ha- and the dead in Buddhist texts; and the
ritual, devotional, and material culture. giographical accounts of all those who made offerings of their own bodies and U varied representations of the dead and the
Its foundational insights are both cultur- places them in historical, social, cultural, and doctrinal context. afterlife found in Buddhist funerary art
ally and historically grounded and at the D and popular literature.
same time offer a basis for further, com-
parative conversations on death between D The paradigmatic figure of the histori-
scholars of Buddhism and other religious cal Buddha, his death, the symbolism of
H
traditions. his funeral, and his relationship to the
Jacket illustration: “The bodhisattva Jizò rescuing a sinner in the hells,” from impurity of the dead are treated in the
I
the Yata Jizò engi (Kamakura period). Courtesy of Yatadera, Nara Prefecture. opening essays by John S. Strong and
S
Gregory Schopen. The deaths of later re-
Bryan J. Cuevas is associate professor Jacket design by Santos Barbasa Jr. T markable adepts, following the Buddha’s
of Buddhist and Tibetan studies in the model, and their significance for Buddhist
Department of Religion, Florida State communities are investigated by Koichi
D
University. Shinohara, Jacqueline I. Stone, Raoul
Birnbaum, and Kurtis R. Schaeffer. A
E
JaCqueline i. stone is professor of dramatic, often controversial category of
Japanese religions in the Department of A exemplary death, that of “giving up the
Religion, Princeton University. body” or Buddhist suicide, is examined by
D James Benn and D. Max Moerman. Mov-
ing from celebrated masters to ordinary
(Continued on back flap)
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888
Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 20
www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
jack mech.indd 1 3/27/07 10:00:44 AM
The Buddhist Dead

STUDIES IN EAST ASIAN BUDDHISM 20
The Buddhist Dead
Practices, Discourses, Representations
edited by
Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone
AKURODA INSTITUTEBOOK
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
82007KurodaInstitute
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
TheBuddhistdead:practices,discourses,representations/editedby
BryanJ.CuevasandJacquelineI.Stone.
p. cm. — (StudiesinEastAsianBuddhism;20)
‘‘AKurodaInstitutebook.’’
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13:978-0-8248-3031-1(hardcover:alk.paper)
ISBN-10:0-8248-3031-8(hardcover:alk.paper)
1.Death—Religiousaspects—Buddhism. 2. Buddhism—Customsand
practices. I.Cuevas,BryanJ.,1967– II.Stone,JacquelineIlyse.
III.KurodaInstitute.
BQ4487.B82 2007
294.30423—dc22
2006027683
TheKurodaInstitutefortheStudyofBuddhismandHumanValues
isanonprofiteducationalcorporationfoundedin1976.Oneofits
primaryobjectivesistopromotescholarshiponthehistorical,
philosophical,andculturalramificationsofBuddhism.Inassociation
withtheUniversityofHawai‘iPress,theInstitutealsopublishes
ClassicsinEastAsianBuddhism,aseriesdevotedtothetranslation
ofsignificanttextsintheEastAsianBuddhisttradition.
UniversityofHawai‘iPressbooksareprintedonacid-free
paperandmeettheguidelinesforpermanenceand
durabilityoftheCouncilonLibraryResources.
BasedondesignbyKennethMiyamoto
PrintedbyTheMaple-VailBookManufacturingGroup
Contents
Listof Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
BryanJ. Cuevasand Jacqueline I. Stone
1 The Buddha’s Funeral 32
John S. Strong
2 Cross-DressingwiththeDead:Asceticism,Ambivalence,
and Institutional Values inanIndianMonastic Code 60
Gregory Schopen
3 The Moment of Death in Daoxuan’s Vinaya
Commentary 105
Koichi Shinohara
4 The Secret Art of Dying:Esoteric Deathbed Practices
in HeianJapan 134
Jacqueline I.Stone
5 The Deathbed Image of MasterHongyi 175
RaoulBirnbaum
6 Dying LikeMilare´pa:Death Accounts in aTibetan
HagiographicTradition 208
KurtisR. Schaeffer
7 Fireand theSword: Some Connections between Self-
Immolation and Religious Persecutionin the History
of Chinese Buddhism 234
James A. Benn
8 Passage to Fudaraku:Suicideand Salvation in
Premodern Japanese Buddhism 266
D. Max Moerman
v
vi Contents
9 TheDeath and Return of Lady Wangzin:Visionsof
the Afterlife in Tibetan Buddhist PopularLiterature 297
Bryan J.Cuevas
10Gone but NotDeparted:The Dead among theLiving
in Contemporary Buddhist Sri Lanka 326
John Clifford Holt
11Mulian in theLandof Snows and King Gesar in Hell:
A ChineseTale of ParentalDeath in Its Tibetan
Transformations 345
Matthew T. Kapstein
12Chinese Buddhist Death Ritual and theTransformation
of Japanese Kinship 378
Hank Glassman
13GraveChanges:Scattering Ashes in Contemporary
Japan 405
Mark Rowe
14Carefor Buddhism:Text, Ceremony, and Religious
Emotion in aMonk’s Final Journey 438
JasonA. Carbine
Chinese and KoreanCharacter Glossary 457
JapaneseCharacter Glossary 461
Contributors 467
Index 471
Illustrations
5.1. MasterHongyion his deathbed 176
5.2. Hongyi in 1937 177
5.3. Vinayamaster Guanghuaat the momentof death 188
5.4. Hongyi in 1941 191
8.1. Imageof Fudarakutokai based on Jesuit accounts 278
8.2. NachiPilgrimage Mandala(Nachi sankeimandara) 280
˙˙
8.3. Detail from NachiPilgrimage Mandala 281
˙˙
8.4. Diagramoffunerarygroundfrom Shugendo¯ mujo¯ yo¯shu¯ 282
8.5. Manifestation of Kannonat Nachi 288
8.6. Detail of Fudarakubune sails from NachiPilgrimage
Mandala 289
˙˙
12.1. MarriagesamongReishi’s close relatives 383
vii

Acknowledgments
We wish to express our deepest appreciation to the fine scholars
whose excellent contributions appear in this volume and for their
patience in awaiting its publication. The essays that appear in this
collection were prepared initially for a conference on ‘‘Death and
Dying in Buddhist Cultures’’ held at Princeton University in May
2002. The conference was organized by the two editors and spon-
sored by Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion (CSR), along
with the Council on Regional Studies, the Department of Religion,
the East Asian Studies Program, the Humanities Council, and the
StewartFundforReligion.Wearegratefulforthegeneroussupport
of these institutional centers. In particular, we would like to thank
Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of Religion,
and Stephen (‘‘Buzzy’’) Teiser of the CSR executive committee for
their support and encouragement of the initial proposal for the
conference. Moreover, the conference could not have succeeded
without the gracious and tireless administrative and organizational
efforts of Anita Kline, Lorraine Fuhrmann, Micah Auerback, and
PaulCopp.
We especially wish to thank the following individuals for their
lively discussion during the three-day event and for their insightful
comments,allofwhichhelpedtoimprovetheessaysincludedhere:
James Boon (Princeton), David Germano (University of Virginia),
Phyllis Granoff (Yale), Yang Lu (Harvard), Reiko Ohnuma (Dart-
mouth),andLizWilson(MiamiofOhio).KevinCarr,nowassistant
professor at the University of Michigan, deserves our special praise
for his fine artistic sensibilities, for designing the conference Web
site and posters, and for his assistance in selecting and securing
the image of the Yatadera bodhisattva Jizo¯ saving evildoers from
the hells, which graces the cover of this book. We would like to
thank the Nara National Museum and Yatadera for permission
to use this image. A few of the essays included here, or portions
thereof,representrevisionsofearlierpublishedworks.Wegratefully
ix