Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian "Mediterranean" / Sujung Kim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kim, Sujung, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shinra Myōjin (Buddhist deity).

Buddhism--Japan--History--1185-1600.

Buddhism.

Buddhism--Korea--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (201 pages)

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This ambitious work offers a transnational account of the deity Shinra Myōjin, the "god of Silla" worshipped in medieval Japanese Buddhism from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries. Sujung Kim challenges the long-held understanding of Shinra Myōjin as a protective deity of the Tendai Jimon school, showing how its worship emerged and developed in the complex networks of the East Asian "Mediterranean"-a "quality" rather than a physical space defined by Kim as the primary conduit for cross-cultural influence in a region that includes the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the East China Sea, and neighboring coastal areas. While focusing on the transcultural worship of the deity, Kim engages the different maritime arrangements in which Shinra Myōjin circulated: first, the network of Korean immigrants, Chinese merchants, and Japanese Buddhist monks in China's Shandong peninsula and Japan's Ōmi Province; and second, that of gods found in the East Asian Mediterranean. Both of these networks became nodal points of exchange of both goods and gods. Kim's examination of temple chronicles, literary writings, and iconography reveals Shinra Myōjin's evolution from a seafaring god to a multifaceted one whose roles included the god of pestilence and of poetry, the insurer of painless childbirth, and the protector of performing arts. Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian "Mediterranean" is not only the first monograph in any language on the Tendai Jimon school in Japanese Buddhism, but also the first book-length study in English to examine Korean connections in medieval Japanese religion. Unlike other recent studies on individual Buddhist deities, it foregrounds the need to approach them within a broader East Asian context. By shifting the paradigm from a land-centered vision to a sea-centered one, the work underlines the importance of a transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to the study of Buddhist deities.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: Shinra Myōjin in the East Asian "Mediterranean" Network

Part I. Maritime East Asia: Networks of Immigrants and Silla Shrines/Temples

Part II. Sedentarization: Networks of Silla Deities and Shinra Myōjin

Part III. Restoring Fluidity: Functional and Symbolic Networks of the Silla Deities

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

Other Format:

9780824888442

ISBN:

9780824881740

0824881745

9780824881733

0824881737

OCLC:

1129458662