Buddhist Historiography: A Tale Of Deception in A Seminal Late Ming Buddhist Letter

This article offers an historical repositioning of an unusually rich early seventeenth-century autobiographical letter written by the Donglin ?? partisan Wang Yuanhan ??? (1565-1633). The letter is religiously complex, yet historians have previously focused only on a single short excerpt listing the...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:  
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Journal of Chinese religions
1. VerfasserIn: Eichman, Jennifer Lynn 1960- (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Lade...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Veröffentlicht: Johns Hopkins University Press [2018]
In: Journal of Chinese religions
Jahr: 2018, Band: 46, Heft: 2, Seiten: 123-165
normierte Schlagwort(-folgen):B China / Ming dynasty / Buddhism / Historiography
weitere Schlagwörter:B Qian Qianyi
B Wang Yuanhan
B Chen Yuan
B Langmu Benshan
B Lists
B epistolary networks
B Liu Zongzhou
B Ming Buddhism
B Donglin
B anti-Buddhist
Online Zugang: Volltext (Verlag)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:This article offers an historical repositioning of an unusually rich early seventeenth-century autobiographical letter written by the Donglin ?? partisan Wang Yuanhan ??? (1565-1633). The letter is religiously complex, yet historians have previously focused only on a single short excerpt listing the names of eighteen monks and officials to argue that Buddhist activity flourished in Beijing circa 1600. To the contrary, the greater historical value of this letter resides in its depictions of religious desire, vision of self-cultivation, and critical judgments imparted by an impassioned Buddhist and unremitting Donglin remonstrator. Through examination of Wang's political and spiritual biography and actual evidence that the network he conjures was more aspirational than real, this article concludes that we need to rethink earlier scholarly depictions of the Donglin as anti-Buddhist, distinguish between being critical and being anti-Buddhist, and reflect on the use of lists in an age of scholarly attention to networks.
ISSN:2050-8999
Enthält:Enthalten in: Journal of Chinese religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/0737769X.2018.1507093