First Volume of “Famed Mountains and Great Monasteries” (English)

First Volume of “Famed Mountains and Great Monasteries” (English)

From Xiangyuan to Ceylon: The Life and Legacy of the Chinese Monk Faxian (337-422)

 

Editors: Jinhua CHEN, KUAN Guang
Series: Famed Mountains and Great Monasteries 4
ISBN: 978-981-14-5737-1
Date of Publication: 2020-05-31
Publisher: World Scholastic Publishers
Pages: 456
Format: Paperback
Open access: Download PDF

 

This volume collects thirteen papers contributed by top scholars to a conference on Faxian 法顯 (337-422) and his legacy in the spring of 2017 in Xiangyuan 襄垣, Shanxi 山西, generally taken to be Faxian’s hometown. Faxian’s legacy is not limited to him being a wise master, a devoted Buddhist, a great traveller or an outstanding translator. Rather, his true legacy is symbolic: Faxian lived on as a perennial symbol of perseverance daring to overcome any distance and danger. Faxian is a spiritual monument that has inspired generations of Buddhists, including Xuanzang and Yijing, to follow in his steps to the West. The research topics this volume covers are diverse but also in-depth: the conference papers concerned themselves with the entire geographical sphere touched by the influence of Faxian—from the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Central Asia to the Chinese cultural zone, notably Japan; at the same time, the conference papers also reach a depth of sophistica­tion deserving a world-class academic conference. Panelists em­ployed diverse and interdisciplinary methodologies. They have used not only the traditional methods that are common in historical, philological and philosophical research, but also a linguistically diverse range of primary sources (in addition to the classical Buddhist languages such as Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan, they used Burmese and Thai sources) and secondary sources written in English, French, German and Japanese.

 

Table of Contents

Part One    South Asian Buddhism through the Prism of Faxian

Part Two    Faxian in the Context of East Asia

    • Faxian and the Construction of the Buddha’s Shadow Platform at Mount Lu
      Wang Bangwei 王邦維
    • Faxian and the Meaning of Bianwen 變文: The Value of His Biography to the Study of China
      T. H. Barrett
    • Faxian and Liu Yu’s Inner Circle: Interactions between Society and Buddhism during the Eastern Jin Dynasty
      Liu Yuan-ju 劉苑如
    • The Biography of Faxian: On the Practice and Spread of Chinese Buddhist Precepts during the Jin and Song Dynasties (Fourth–Fifth Century CE)
      Zhang Xuesong 張雪松
    • Faxian and the Establishment of the Pilgrimage Tradition of Qiufa (Dharma-searching)
      Ji Yun 紀贇
    • The Other Great Chinese Trepiṭaka in Japan: Faxian as Translator and Pilgrim in Medieval Japanese Manuscript Canons
      George A. Keyworth

Part Three    Textual Studies

    • Research on Faxian VI: On the Chinese Term Bangti (傍梯) and Yi (杙) Corresponding to the Sanskrit Śaṅkupatha as Recorded by Faxian, Dharmodgata and Xuanzang
      Haiyan Hu-von Hinüber 胡海燕
    • ‘Please Be Seated (還坐)’: Faxian’s Account and Related Legends Concerning the First Buddha Image
      Nicolas Revire
    • Was the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra 大般涅槃經  T7 Translated by ‘Faxian’?: An Exercise in the Computer-Assisted Assessment of Attributions in the Chinese Buddhist Canon
      Michael Radich
    • Sites of Caṅkrama (Jingxing 經行) in Faxian’s Record
      Kim Minku 金玟求

 

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