Inter-area/Border Crossing

Organized Panel Session

Indigenous Buddhist Texts as Lived Objects among the Chinese (c. 300 C.E. – Present)

Our panel is an analysis of, not an apologia for, indigenous Buddhist texts from the perspectives of sociology, archeology, intellectual history, and philology. The concept of indigenous Buddhist texts is used to describe a class of locally composed literature whose authenticity is in question. While the issue of authenticity has garnered much scholarly attention, reasons for the composition and circulation of these controversial texts remain to be explored. Shifting the focus from authenticity to contextuality, our panel perceives these texts as lived objects that actively express the cultural life, sociopolitical discourse, rituals and religious space of Chinese communities across time and space.  

Our discussions begin with Ying-Ruo Show’s investigation of the circulation and historical continuities of scriptures associated with the Azure Lotus Teaching in the Buddhist Vegetarian Halls of Southeast Asia, since the mid-19^thcentury. Through examining newly unearthed steles from Shandong, which are carved with Buddhist scriptures on parents’ kindness, Ying Chen analyzes the interaction between Buddhism and local rituals, such as ancestor worship, from the mid-Tang to early Song. Jingjing Li unpacks how a contentious document, called the Chronicle of Nadi, discloses the interplay between factional politics and doctrinal competitions in the early Tang. Ruifeng Chen studies 28 clusters of manuscripts with their colophons from medieval Dunhuang and explores whether Buddhist apocrypha met local Buddhists’ needs better than the translated scriptures did. Overall, the panel promotes interdisciplinary dialogues on how a wide range of indigenous Buddhist texts can advance our understanding of cultures inside and outside the Sinosphere. 

Organizer(s)

• JL

  Jingjing Li

  McGill University, Canada

Chair(s)

• JH

  Jeehee Hong

  McGill University, Canada

Paper Presenter(s)

• YS

  Ying-Ruo Show

  National University of Singapore, Singapore
• YC

  Ying Chen

  University of Oxford, United Kingdom
• JL

  Jingjing Li

  McGill University, Canada
• RC

  Ruifeng Chen

  McMaster University, Canada

Discussant(s)

• SB

  Stephanie Balkwill

  University of Winnipeg, Canada

Papers:

• 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

  The Blooming of Azure Lotus in the South Seas: The Circulation and Historical Continuities of Chinese Indigenous Scriptures in the Buddhist Vegetarian Halls of Southeast Asia
• 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

  How to Repay Parents’ Kindness in Medieval China: Steles from Shandong Carved with Indigenous Buddhist Texts
• 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

  "Walking on Thin Ice": The Chronicle of Nadi, and the Tension between Buddhism and the State
• 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

  Scripture Clusters from Dunhuang: Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha and Translated Scriptures with the Same Colophons