Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism : emptiness, power and the question of origin / Joseph Walser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walser, Joseph, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mahayana Buddhism--History.

Mahayana Buddhism.

History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 291 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2018.

Summary:

Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to a problem that some have called the holy grail of Buddhist studies: the problem of the --origins-- of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In a work that contributes both to a general theory of religion and power for religious studies as well as to the problem of the origin of a Buddhist movement, Walser argues that that it is the neglect of political and social power in the scholarly imagination of the history of Buddhism that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions about Mahāyāna Buddhism, offering a fascinating new take on its genealogy that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was -- Mahāyāna -- In situating such concepts in their political and social contexts across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia. This text will be will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of Buddhism, religious studies, history and philosophy.

Contents:

Part I Genealogies of Mahayana p. 1

1 Introduction: on origins and genealogies p. 3

2 Mahayana in retrospect: from my house to the Dalai Lama (looking back from 2017 to 1930) p. 11

Assessing the essence p. 20

Tibet as Buddhist: tracing the lines of power p. 21

Emptiness and the analytic of power p. 25

Inculcating dispositions to authority: the Kalacakra p. 31

2 Mahayana in the republic, Mahayana in the empire: tracing "religion" from republican China to the early Qing Dynasty (1920s - 1723) p. 40

Religion vs. superstition in 20th-century East Asia p. 41

The Fin de Siècle turning point p. 44

The Qing imperium and the usefulness of Mahayana p. 48

The Yonghegong Temple in Beijing and the political work of monuments p. 48

Emperor Qianlong: the tantric initiate and the tantric state p. 53

Tantra, emptiness and the reincarnate emperor/lama, or why it's never too late to have a venerable past p. 57

Yongzheng emperor and the great Ming debate p. 60

4 The image of emptiness across the landscape of power (China: 11th century BCE - 15th century CE) p. 72

The ancestor image p. 75

The image of emptiness: Di, space and the celestial pole p. 76

The image of the earth and control of the cults p. 85

Exorcism and the state: when possession is nine-tenths p. 88

Religion in the service of taxation p. 90

Buddhist exorcism and the heart of Mahayana p. 91

5 Buddha Veda: an Indian genealogy of emptiness (20th century - sixth century CE) p. 99

Emptiness and power in Orissa: from Mahima Dharma Sampradaya to Jagannatha of Puri p. 100

Buddhism and Brahmanism in Maitripa (ca. 1010-1097 CE) p. 105

Bhaviveka's sixth-century Mahayana p. 111

Bhaviveka, Mahayana and Yogacara p. 116

Bhaviveka, Mahayana and Brahmanism p. 118

Preliminary conclusion p. 123

Part II The genealogy of the Perfection of Wisdom p. 127

6 What did the text of the Perfection of Wisdom look like? p. 129

The versions p. 129

The quest for the ur-sutra p. 130

The core pericope p. 134

The ending p. 137

Subhuti's non-apprehension p. 138

The Mindlessness section and its relation to the Irreversibility section p. 143

The message of the original Perfection of Wisdom p. 149

Mahayana p. 151

Bodhisattvas p. 152

What's missing? p. 154

7 Mahayana Sutra as palimpsest: discerning traces of the Tripitaka p. 158

Beyond "origin" as mere advent p. 158

Heteroglossia and textual rationale p. 160

Intertextuality and adaptation in Buddhist literature p. 162

The Non-Apprehension section and its intertexts p. 163

Sermon on selflessness? p. 164

Nominalism? p. 166

Cessation of cognition p. 168

Selflessness ... but differently p. 170

The perfected as untraceable p. 172

Fearlessness p. 177

Abhidharma echoes p. 181

Conclusion: the perfection of wisdom p. 183

8 Palimpsest II: brahmanical writings on the Tripitaka p. 190

The importance of incoherence p. 190

The context of abhidharma literature? p. 192

The context of other schools? p. 195

The context of luminous thought and varieties of unaware thought p. 195

The context of acitta neither existing nor not existing as anti-Brahmanical dependent-origination p. 198

The context of absence of mental construction (avikalpa) p. 200

Nirvikalpa p. 202

Brahmanical intertexts and their implications p. 205

9 Placing early Mahayana p. 222

Placing the Perfection of Wisdom in the early Mahayana suite p. 223

Mañjusri's Inquiry Concerning the Office of the Bodhisattva Sutra p. 226

Placing the early Perfection of Wisdom p. 229

Mistaken sounds p. 232

Subhuti's aranavihara: preaching or penetration? p. 234

Emptiness, Brahmin nuns, tulkus and the power of possession p. 238

10 On sites and stakes: meditation on emptiness and imperial aspirations p. 246

Shifting contexts, shifting interpretations p. 248

The Unnabhabrahmanasutta and the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad on cosmic foundations p. 251

The Horse Sacrifice p. 256

Piling the Fire Altar and legitimation regress p. 259

Buddhist Brahmins p. 262

On power and reproduction p. 263

Sovereign echoes: on manhood and celibacy, on thrones and crowns p. 265

Buddhist brahmodyas as court debates p. 268

The Mahayana genealogy from the Vedas to the sutras to Tantra to Zen p. 269.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781138955554

1138955558

9781138955561

1138955566

OCLC:

1046101209