Signs from the Unseen Realm : Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China / Robert Ford Campany.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campany, Robert Ford, author.

Contributor:

Campany, Robert Ford.

Series:

Classics in East Asian Buddhism.

Kuroda Classics in East Asian Buddhism ; 16

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Miracles (Buddhism).

Buddhist legends--China.

Buddhist legends.

Wang, Yan, active 5th century. Ming xiang ji.

Wang, Yan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (330 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2012]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In early medieval China hundreds of Buddhist miracle texts were circulated, inaugurating a trend that would continue for centuries. Each tale recounted extraordinary events involving Chinese persons and places-events seen as verifying claims made in Buddhist scriptures, demonstrating the reality of karmic retribution, or confirming the efficacy of Buddhist devotional practices. Robert Ford Campany, one of North America's preeminent scholars of Chinese religion, presents in this volume the first complete, annotated translation, with in-depth commentary, of the largest extant collection of miracle tales from the early medieval period, Wang Yan's Records of Signs from the Unseen Realm, compiled around 490 C.E.In addition to the translation, Campany provides a substantial study of the text and its author in their historical and religious settings. He shows how these lively tales helped integrate Buddhism into Chinese society at the same time that they served as platforms for religious contestation and persuasion. Campany offers a nuanced, clear methodological discussion of how such narratives, being products of social memory, may be read as valuable evidence for the history of religion and culture.Readers interested in Buddhism; historians of Chinese religions, culture, society, and literature; scholars of comparative religion: All will find Signs from the Unseen Realm a stimulating and rich contribution to scholarship.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Conventions

Part I. Signs from the Unseen Realm and Buddhist Miracle Tales in Early Medieval China

Introduction

Wang Yan and the Making of Mingxiang ji

Miracle Tales and the Communities That Exchanged Them

The Idiom of Buddhism Represented in the Tales

Miracle Tales and the Sinicization of Buddhism

The Narrative Shape of the Miraculous

Religious Themes in the Text

Part II. Translation: Signs from the Unseen Realm

Preface / Yan, Wang

1(27)-25(269)

26(277)-129(967)

Appendix 1. Fragments and Questionable Items

Appendix 2. List of Major Motifs

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

ISBN:

9780824869601

0824869605

9780824865719

0824865715

OCLC:

794925907