Interpreting Amida: History and Orientalism in the Study of Pure Land BuddhismState University of New York Press, 25 avr. 1997 - 262 pages Pure Land Buddhism was the largest traditional religion in Japan. It had an enormous impact on Japanese culture and was among the first forms of Buddhism encountered by Western culture. Not only has it been neglected in modern descriptions of Japan, but it also has been relatively ignored by Buddhist studies. The author shows that Pure Land Buddhism, despite a Mahayana Buddhist philosophical basis, has paralleled the social and political qualities associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. It has variously been threatening to mainstream Westerners, uninteresting to Westerners seeking the exotic, and disagreeable to cultural brokers on all sides who want to depict Japanese culture as radically opposed to the West. The faulty appreciation of Pure Land Buddhism is one of the leading world examples of a counterproductive orientalism that restricts rather than improves cross-cultural communication. |
Table des matières
| 1 | |
Modernization | 25 |
Interpreting Pure Land Buddhism | 43 |
Interpreting Pure Land | 55 |
Interpreting Pure Land in the Postwar Period | 83 |
Other Missionaries and Outside Observers Reports | 123 |
Notes | 141 |
Bibliography | 209 |
| 241 | |
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American Amida Asia Asian Buddha Buddhist studies bukkyō Chicago Confucian critical critique dhism discourse economic elites ethics European faith Futaba Kenko gion Hakushi Hakushi koki kinen Hōnen Honganji idea ideology Ienaga ikkō-ikki independent influence intellectual interests interpretation Japanese Buddhism Japanese culture Japanese religion Japanese society Jesuit Jōdo Shinshu Kamakura kenkyu Kyoto Kindai Kiyozawa kyōdan leadership Mahāyāna Marxist medieval Meiji Meiji period membership missionaries modern Japanese monastic moral Morioka Murakami Nagata bunshodō nationalism Nihon bukkyōshi nihonjinron Nishi okeru organization perspective philosophical political popular postwar period practice prewar priests Princeton problem Protestant Pure Land Buddhism Pure Land teaching regime Religion in Japan Religious Studies Rennyo rhetoric ronshu scholars secular Shin Buddhism Shin institution Shin sect Shin tradition Shin's Shinran Shinshu Shinto shūkyō sixteenth century social sociology sociopolitical spiritual temples thought tion Tokugawa period Tokyo twentieth century University Press West Western Yanagita Kunio York