This paper examines the extent to which the construction of these Big Buddhas represents the appropriation of Buddhist RCR (Rock-Cut Religious) sites by non-local political and religious elites as a form of social control, and it is herein proposed that these social and religious elites commissioned and maintained such projects to reinforce authority and integrate local religious practices into institutional Buddhism. Since the construction of Big Buddhas required vast resources, labour and coordination, this paper examines those Big Buddhas which were left unfinished in order to understand the criteria for both success and failure, while also considering how these sculptures, as acts of social appropriation, mediated between the mundane and the divine, the imperial periphery and the centre, functioning as both spiritual symbols and political instruments.

Tantric Buddhism is pervasive in the history of Buddhism.

A sweeping history of tantric influences across the Buddhist world showing that Tantra was a coherent and continuous movement present across Asia.

Ritual theories almost always assume that ritual is a kind of human action, which makes it impossible to explain ritual spaces or objects that were designed to enact the ritual without human participation. The relic depository of Chaoyang North Pagoda was a completely sealed stone box that was clearly designed as a ritual space for chanting the Uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī. This ritual space—occluded from human access—contradicts contemporary understandings of ritual. By illuminating the relic depository from the emic perspective of medieval Buddhists and applying anthropological theories, this paper offers theoretical explanations for conditions in which religious rituals were primarily enacted through non-human agency.

The Konjaku monogatari shu (今昔物語集) is a Japanese anthology dating from the early twelfth century. The original work contains more than one thousand systematically arranged tales from India, China, and Japan. It is the most important example of a genre of collections of brief tales which, because of their informality and unpretentious style, were neglected by Japanese critics until recent years but which are now acknowledged to be among the most significant prose literature of premodern Japan.

The crown prince asked:
“Where do you come from?
What are you looking for?”
The brahmin said:
“I come from Dunnivittha,
And I am begging for two children.”

A translation of the Worin Cheongang Jigok by Sejon the Great, the fourth monarch of the Joseon. The work celebrates the life of Shakyamuni Buddha and is noted for being one of the first works printed in vernacular Korean.

Together with the Silla dynasty scholiast Wonhyo (617-686), Chinul is one of the two most important figures produced by Korean Buddhism. Chinul was the inheritor of a mature tradition already rich after seven hundred years of symbiotic development with its Chinese counterpart.

This pivotal work in Korean Buddhist Studies provides an extensive introduction to Chinul’s life and thought alongside the complete translations of all his surviving writings.

In 1240, Köten famously summoned the Central Tibetan Buddhist polymath Sakya Pandita, by then already an old man, to his court at Liangzhou. Examining Tibetan and Mongolian accounts about their meeting from the last seven centuries, this study shows that it was neither compelling philosophy nor some turn of faith that converted the Mongols. It was, rather, Sakya Pandita’s violent therapeutic intervention into the space of Köten’s ill body that wrenched the Mongol body politic into the Dharmic fold.

a study of avadāna narratives found in two related anthologies, the Za piyu jing 雜譬喻經 (T207) and the Zhong jing xuan za piyu 眾經撰雜譬喻 (T208). […] These narratives are carefully constructed literary productions that offer a window into both the world of the Indic society in which they were initially composed and the Chinese society which translated them.

Legend has it that a ninth century Buddhist monk sailing back from China was caught in a storm. The monk, Kukai, appealed to a statue of Fudo for protection. The monk was rewarded with the vision of Fudo attacking the waves with the sword calming the storm and saving him the ship

Brief video introducing the guardian deity Fudo Myoo, an emanation of Mahāvairocana.

the inscriptions of the past refer often to a corpus of women as “nuns”. What are we to make of this?

Learn well yourself this Law
That the Blessed One has taught;
Teach it to others in compassionate love
By the results of skillful acts performed.
Bar forever the roads to realms of woe

A 15th century, Sri Lankan poem beautifully exhorting the listener to the ethical life and to right view.

Listen to the poem in the original Sinhala on Archive.org.

And if this poetic translation is a bit hard to follow, see the more prosaic translation, Towards a Better World.

While for Huisong, China was indeed a center of Buddhist studies as opposed to the ‘barbaric’ Gaochang, Xuanzang and Puguang most likely regarded China as a Buddhist borderland as opposed to India.

three sets of omen verses from the Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna, which offers the earliest account of Astral Science (jyotiḥśāstra) in Buddhist literature

fearing that the merchants would throw the Sūtras and Buddha’s portraits overboard, I concentrated with all my heart on Guanshiyin

I present here a preliminary report on selected engraved or inscribed objects, most of them recently found in Southeast Asia. Foremost among them are those indited with the single word apramāda: ‘careful’, ‘heedful’, ‘aware’.

A few Buddhist talismans used to ward off danger in medieval Southeast Asia.

Besides silk, the Silk Road helped the dispersion of writing and paper-making, coinage and gunpowder, and it was along these trade routes that Buddhism reached China from India. The history of these transcontinental links reveals a dazzlingly complex meeting and mingling of civilisations, which lasted for well over a thousand years.

Whereas the texts discussed in the first section generally argue for a stricter separation between these two domains, those in the second [Mahāyāna wave] strove to integrate medicine into the very heart of Buddhism.

On how the relief of medical suffering became central to Mahāyāna Buddhism.

… wearing only a saṃkakṣikā, because the latter appears not to cover the breasts completely, but only providing some support

A Gandharan stucco figurine of a female Buddhist monk in the Civico Museo Archeologico in Milan, likely from Hadda around the second century AD, providing rare evidence of female monastics in Gandhāra and their attire.

The first part, as is usual in votive texts, opens up a wide perspective on the Buddhist teaching and the value of sutras. It evokes the ephemeral nature of the world, including our fragile human existence. Rescue can only come through the knowledge of the correct texts that save and protect.

This book chapter details the archeological history of Stone Hymn, engraved Buddhist scriptures on Mount Tie (鐵山).

The Taliban were by no means the first people to try to destroy the Buddhas. Islamic iconoclasts had been hacking away at them for centuries. The Emperor Aurangzeb ordered cannons to blast the statues, as did a Persian king in the 18th century. Both attempts damaged but did not destroy the statues.

This essay is a brief history of and reflection on the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Zhu Fonian may have begun to produce new ‘scriptures’ without benefit of any Indian source-texts in an attempt to revive his own flagging fame.

How one Chinese Āgama translator came to write Chinese apocrypha.

This study gives some additional perspective on why Buddhism has always been a particularly attractive religion to traders and merchants.

Virtuosity in chanting spells and working miracles—particularly those associated with healing, protection, and other aspects of personal welfare—was an important quality for a monk to develop.

A nuanced view of “spells” during the Sui Dynasty period through the end of the Tang, roughly 500–907 C.E focusing on three Chinese intellectuals—Jingying Huiyuan (523–592), Daoshi (596–683), and Amoghavajra (705-774)—asking how these figures would have understood Dhāraṇī in those days before the development of Buddhist Tantra.

To see the image strictly as something to be seen is, in Skilling’s Buddhologist eyes, nothing less than to manifest ignorance…

This book chapter examines the concept of “icons” within Theravāda Buddhism, drawing on narrative depictions. It argues that debates in art history regarding insider (emic) and outsider (etic) interpretations are crucial for understanding Southeast Asian perspectives on the Buddha. These perspectives grapple with the Buddha as both a historical figure and a representation of transcendent ideals.

Actually, during the Song, although marginal, this dual acceptation of supernaturalism and its antithesis manifests itself not only in Chan biographies, but also in doctrinal writings of the school.

This paper explores the theme of Chan interaction with indigneous Chinese religions and deities.

Early Chan texts de-emphasized miracles, focusing on doctrine and dharma transmission, but by the 9th and 10th centuries, Chan biographies embraced accounts of Buddhist dominance over local cults, mirroring a trend in broader Chinese Buddhist hagiography. Finally, the study ends with a look at a syncretic model in Song Chan writings, which presented a veiled challenge to idolatry and redefined supranturalism to serve new Chan doctrines.

Missionary monks encountered these zones of multicultural influences, either in situ or in the diasporas of the great cities of North India or China, many of them became enamored of the paradoxical presence of metropolitan sophistication and rural isolation that Central Asia afforded

Long seen as a mythical land (See, “Uttarakuru”), Inner Asia was central (via the Silk Road) in not only disseminating Buddhism across Asia in but shaping its mythos as well.

The vinaya canon, some major sutras and the writings of eminent vinaya exegete Daoxuan in China insisted that astrology was not to be practiced by a Buddhist monk or nun. Despite this fact, a tradition of Buddhist astrology nevertheless emerged in China from the eighth century and came to full maturity in the ninth century.

This article examines early Buddhist Vinaya rules on astrology in both India and China. The author shows that, though all varieties of astrology are forbidden in earlier texts, Buddhist monastics in China still developed and practiced it. The analysis delves into the motivations and justifications for this tradition and its significance for the evolution of Buddhism in East Asia.

The relationship between Buddhism and society was apparent in nearly every aspect of medieval life…

Thaumaturgic thinking and a polytheistic outlook pervaded premodern agricultural life. Much as we in modern times depend on scientific technology, people in premodern times relied on magical ceremonies for an abundant harvest.

The decision of a Buddhist council in favor of extensive missionary work outside India and the dispatch of monks to Afghanistan and Kashmir launched Buddhism’s development into a world religion. Thus, at the beginning of our era, Buddhist monks were wandering as missionaries through Central and Far East Asia.

This is a catalog of a 1982 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the pieces themselves dating from the 3rd century CE to the 10th century CE and now housed in the collections of the West Berlin State Museums. Also included is a scholarly introduction, giving a background to both the Silk Road and the movement of Buddhist art (and therefore Buddhism itself) through Central and East Asia.

Although the sūtra allows for war, it does so only under special conditions and with special restrictions on its conduct. In a graded series of skillful means, a king must first try to befriend, then to help, and then to intimidate his potential enemy before resorting to war.

In Buddhist materials translated into Chinese, from the earliest times onwards, local magistrates are viewed in an extremely negative light. They are indeed most frequently grouped with bandits as a potential threat to property or worse…

This paper attempts to describe the many difficulties faced by the first Buddhist translators through the analysis of the translation of a particular poem, the Buddhacarita. The case study aims at pointing out how this translation process involved linguistic, religious and cultural issues.

I would like to consider the blend of Indian and Chinese cultures that is evident in the works of Indian scholar monks who immigrated to China.

One of the early functions of the talisman was for a ruler to authorize the conduct and scope of authority of a general (e.g., how many troops he could command). The military context of talismans later found a corollary in the spiritual realm and permitted their possessor to summon and control a variety of deities that could be drawn on in battles with spirits.

When it came to such significant acts, such as warding off disease demons and protecting or extending one’s life, Buddhist and Daoists were occupied with the same types of concerns and employed a similar arsenal of powerful techniques that drew on the powers embedded in esoteric talismans.

An accused who was able to flee to the nearest monastery would be protected from such mob justice. Sanctuary would give the person an opportunity to explain himself and allow his accusers to calm down so the facts could be examined more objectively.

The Pali terms equivalent to sanctuary would be abhayatthana or pujjatthana. Sanctuary in Buddhist monasteries had a long history in Sri Lanka lasting for at least 1,000 years.

… this paper explores the processes by which he was transformed into a saintly figure. The manifold images of Xuanzang reflected the interaction and synthesis of Chinese and Indian Buddhist traditions that began during the early medieval period, further transformations when transmitted to other cultures, distinctions between elite and popular worship, and the intertwining of visualal and literary forms of [Buddhist] art.

Even the sundry demons of hell broke off their cruel horns. Indeed, it seemed as if all the beings from the eight great hells up to the one-hundred thirty-six minor hells might gain liberation.

Among the Dunhuang documents, when examining some of the monk signature lists, name list of monks copying scriptures and name list of monks chanting scriptures in monasteries, we can estimate a relatively accurate literacy rate of the Buddhist sangha. Generally speaking, the literacy rate of the sangha during the Guiyi Army 歸義軍 period (851–1036) was lower than that during the Tibetan occupation period (786–851). The reason for this change is closely related to each regime’s Buddhist policy, the size and living situation of the sangha, and the Buddhist atmosphere.

A study of the distribution of sema stones also provides evidence for the spread of Buddhism, while Buddha images carved into rock faces on mountaintops and evidence for rock shelters illustrate that the tradition of forest monks was functioning alongside the more established urban monasticism.

Attitudes of the Thai embedded in the myths offer insight into the mechanism through which Buddhism was able to be integrated into the indigenous belief system.

The recent split between the Christian Karen National Union and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organization is a dramatic expression of the political role of religion. Religion, religious movements, and prophetic leaders are important elements in Karen identification and their relationship with neighboring peoples, states, and colonizers. Religious cosmology and rituals are not merely the essentials of their world view but also constitute modes of empowerment

A compelling look at how small tribes in the Southeast Asian hills adopt new religious ideas.

This paper takes a closer look at the variations in the translation of tridoṣa in Chinese. I argue that translation inconsistencies reflect not confusion, but a range of strategic translation decisions. While some translators prioritised closer fidelity to Sanskrit originals, most chose to emphasise the compatibility between Indian and Chinese medical thought by glossing the tridoṣa with terms that were loaded with indigenous metaphorical connotations. In a rereading of one such passage, I show that understanding so-called errors as translation tactics allows historical analysis to move beyond a limited focus on the accuracy of translations and to instead explore the cultural resonances and social logics of translated texts in their historical context.

In the poetic commentary Nameless Notes (1211–1216), the poet-priest Kamo no Chōmei explains that unlike prose, a poem “possesses the power to move heaven and earth, to calm demons and gods,” because, among other attributes, “it contains many truths in a single word.”

The supernatural powers of Japanese poetry are widely documented in literature of Heian and medieval Japan. Twentieth-century scholars have tended to follow Orikuchi Shinobu in interpreting and discussing miraculous verses in terms of ancient (pre-Buddhist) beliefs in kotodama, the magic spirit power of special words. In this paper, I argue for application of a more contemporaneous hermeneutical approach: thirteenth-century Japanese dharani theory, according to which Japanese poetry is capable of supernatural effects because it contains truth (kotowari) in a semantic superabundance.

Beginning in the northwestern region of India, and spreading through Central Asia and the rest of Asia along the Silk Road, the making of colossal Buddha statues has been a major theme in Buddhist art. The colossal Buddha statues predominantly feature Śākyamuni (the Historical Buddha), Maitreya (the Future Buddha), and Vairocana (the Transcendant Buddha), and they were fashioned out of religious devotion and frequently in conjunction with notions of Buddhist kingship. This paper examines the religious, social and political circumstances under which these colossal statues were made, focusing on examples from Central and East Asia made during the first millennium CE. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a revival of making colossal Buddha statues across China and elsewhere. The paper also briefly compares the current wave of building colossal Buddha statues with historical examples.

As a sacred site for pilgrimage, Bodhgayā became even more prominent from the sixth and seventh centuries onward, when the rebuilding of the Mahābodhi Temple coincided with the installation of a Buddha statue with the earth-touching gesture, symbolic of the Buddha’s calling upon the earth to bear witness to his victory over evil. Miracles enshroud the creation of the image itself, and later it became a famous icon widely copied throughout the Buddhist world.

This essay investigates the image’s origins and its dissemination to China. Further, it argues that the legends surrounding the image that developed in China contributed to Chinese pilgrims visiting India to pay homage to the site and the sacred statue, and to seek experiences of the numinous and validation of their piety. In turn they brought replicas of the statue back to China, contributing to the spread of the image type. Pilgrims’ accounts of miracle-performing images and their depictions in visual forms affirm, to the pious, the efficacy of the divinities, not seen as separate from their material forms

The Five Buddha Districts system prevailed from the 1790s to the 1880s on the frontier between Yunnan, in Southwest China, and the Burmese Kingdom, in the mountainous areas to the west of the Mekong River. Through more than a century of political mobilization, the Lahu communities in this area became an integrated and militarized society, and their culture was reconstructed in the historical context of ethnic conflicts, competition, and cooperation among the Wa, Dai, and Han Chinese settlers. The political elites of the Five Buddha Districts, however, were monks who had escaped the strict orthodoxy of the Qing government to become local chieftains, or rebels, depending on political changes in southern Yunnan.

The Kumano shrines were among the most popular pilgrimage sites of medieval Japan, drawing devotees across geographic, sectarian, class, and gender barriers. Yet this pilgrimage, which is often seen as a paradigmatic and formative example of Japanese popular religion, was instituted by the country’s ruling elite as an elaborate ritual of state.

… a third century CE inscription [is dedicated] ‘to the Theriya teachers, followers of the Vibhajjavāda, bringers of the faith to the Kashmiri, Gandhāran, Bactrian and Vanavāsan peoples and to the island of Ceylon, dwellers in the Mahāvihāra’

A reevaluation of the Indian lineage behind the Theravāda.

Christina of Saint-Trond (1150–1224) experienced what we would nowadays call a “near-death experience.”

Buddhism’s second step in becoming a world religion occurred during the reign of King Kaniska (r. 130?–155?, or 78?–103?) of the Kushan Empire as the religion spread into Central Asia.

In this desert, there are no fruits, roots or any food or drink. There is no way to make a fire. There is only dust and scorching sand.

A deva named Serissaka explains how he came to enjoy a comfortable life and what we can do to achieve the same.

This interview explores David Max Moerman’s study of the largely unknown history of Japanese, Buddhist world maps. His work uncovers an alternative history of Japanese Buddhism shaped by a Buddhist geographic imaginary that engaged multiple cartographic and cosmological worldviews.

Buddhist literature offers us the only narratives from this period that feature to any great extent the nautical or maritime traveller as hero.

… central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the [Buddhist] community

On the political turmoil of 12th c. Sri Lanka and how it (as much as the unification under Parakramabahu I) was responsible for the century’s prolific writing and reforms which continue to shape Theravāda Buddhism today.

In contrast to the monastic emphasis at Ajanta, Aurangabad seems to have been more open to laity, emerging as a religious sanctuary serving primarily the nonordained

The fascinating archeology and proposed history of the Aurangabad caves: a tourist site for lay Buddhists even in ancient times.

… scholarship has always interpreted the resurgence of Buddhist activity at Ajanta and neighboring sites as a regional phenomenon linked to the prestige of a dominating group and to internal political strives. Yet at a closer look, it appears that much like in earlier times, the life of these rock-cut sites in the fifth century continued to be closely related to a network of commercial activities

Buddhists, and the worshippers of Avalokitesvara in particular, spread along Indian Ocean and Central Asian trade routes during the early medieval period, returning wealth and dynamism to the Buddhist communities of India.

This sequence of images of cities may lie behind the location of Nibbāna at the pinnacle of a cosmological hierarchy as has been frequently noted in ethnographic studies of contemporary Theravādin Buddhism.

The Nibbānasutta displays, at least in part, the processes through which summaries and new suttas were created in the Theravāda tradition.

A late, apocryphal “sutta” in the Theravāda tradition, building on the famous simile of Nibbāna as a hidden, jungle city.

I find it reasonable that a period that was characterized by both a low standard in Pāli and indeed Buddhist learning, and a desire to effect a revival of Buddhist thought and practice could provide a fertile context for the acceptance of a work like the Tuṇḍilovāda Sutta. As happened with “apocryphal” Buddhist literature in other contexts, “suspicions concerning the authenticity of a text (may have) paled as its value in explicating Buddhist doctrine and practice became recognized.”

A thought-provoking example of a sutta composed in medieval Sri Lanka and a demonstration of the painstaking work going into the study of old manuscripts.

… so many warriors perished on the battlefield. The response of the arahants is truly astounding.

How “motivated reasoning” led ancient Sri Lankan monks to create a problematic theology to justify murder which is still haunting the Theravāda today.

… while Indians like Mahinda, Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala and Ramachandra Bharati, were able to have a profound influence on Sri Lankan Buddhism, Sri Lankans were able to have equally profound effects on Indian Buddhism

… we might regard Big Hand as a student, perhaps a young monk struggling to become fluent

A speculative interpretation of some quirky Gandhāran fragments.

One of the great archeological finds of the 20th century, the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, dating from the 1st century CE, are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered. Richard Salomon discusses his pioneering research on these fascinating manuscripts, how the then obscure Gāndhārī language was deciphered, the historical and religious context from which these texts emerged, and the Gandhāran influence on other parts of the Buddhist world.

But the Bodhisattva, unwilling to ask anyone for help, plucks up his courage, and goes out with his basket and cutting tool and cuts grass. He sells the grass and ekes out a meager living, giving what he can to those in need.

Aśoka (c. 268-232 BCE) and Jayavarman VII (1182-1220?), two of the greatest rulers of India and Southeast Asia, were Buddhists by any definition. However, the puzzling problem is that their deaths were followed by an inexorable decay of their erstwhile great empires.

This man is one of those who have seldom been seen from ancient times to the present. Since the Great Doctrine flowed on to the East there has been no one to be compared with Hien in his forgetfulness of self and search for the Law.

The extraordinary first-hand account of Buddhism in South Asia during the fifth century and of one monk’s journey to bring the true Buddhist texts back to China.

The historical period of this area was the third century until 627–649, when Zhenla took over. Buddhism on this route was mahāsāmghika. Important was Avalokiteśvara, Nanhai Guanyin, who may have merged with Mazu along the southern Chinese coast.

… wealth and power did not seem to ease disruptive conflict

The fascinating details of monastic life in medieval Dunhuang as told by their cave-preserved legal documents.

That Buddhism became so ritualistic, excessive, and subservient to the state even along the Silk Road demonstrates how common and impactful state intervention has been to the history of Buddhism.

… valuable material for the contemplation of the transit of ideas between South Asia and Korea

A Chinese monk visits medieval Sri Lanka and perhaps influences Korean sculpture, challenging our notions of nationalized Buddhisms.

… simultaneously donning a tolerant posture while claiming the overriding-ness of one’s religion was in fact a distinct phenomenon from what could be called “synthesis,” and has in actuality characterized many syncretistic endeavors in Chinese history.

How Ming era Buddhist apologists adapted Chan to Yogacara doctrine.

… the deed in the early text [MN135] is simply stated to be the killing, or refraining from killing, of living beings, and so on. The specific types of actions, and their approval are not mentioned. In the [later] Sanskrit text we get a list of normally around ten causes that lead to the result, many of which are illustrated

In the centuries after the Buddha, many of the subtleties of karma were simplified for didactic expedience. This led to a formulaic, “if you do this, this will happen to you” understanding of karma (which the Buddha himself rejected as fatalistic). This model came to be repeated ad-infinitum in texts (such as the Karma-Vibanga) and in Buddhist art (such as at Borobudur) for millennia, perpetuating a simplistic, “popular” understanding of Karma which persists today.