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Exploring Buddha Fields
Gómez examines early pure land cult |
On November 5th, eminent Buddhist scholar Luis Gómez (Michigan, emeritus) presented his reconstruction of the beliefs of an early community of pure land faithful in India. In an animated lecture to an overflow audience, Gómez spoke from a chapter of his forthcoming book on the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra.
While acknowledging that the reconstruction of the context of an ancient Indian text was a problematic exercise, he argued that the two extant Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtras reveal that, for the community that produced these texts, birth in the pure land was not a "generalized religious goal," as Gregory Schopen has suggested, but an aspiration directed toward the specific land of Sukhāvatī and inspired by the particular Buddha Amitābha. He went on to suggest that such a cult may have arisen in competition with other communities of Buddhist belief in buddha fields.
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The lecture was the first event in the 2009-10 HCBSS forum on "Exploring the Buddha Fields." For more on this program, see below, "Saints and Paradises." |
Two new programs at HCBSS
Saints and Paradises |
The Ho Center is offering two special programs of public lectures during the 2009-10 academic year: one focusing on Buddhist paradises; the other, on religious biography.
A series entitled “Exploring the Buddha Fields” features talks on Indian, Chinese, and Japanese traditions of Buddhist pure land art and literature, with presentations by Luis Gómez (Michigan, emeritus), Yamabe Nobuyoshi (Tokyo Nōgyō Daigaku), and Fred Kotas (HCBSS fellow). The public lectures are part of the annual HCBSS Forum, which also includes a class by Paul Harrison on “Buddhist Visions of Paradise” and a faculty-student seminar by Daniel Stevenson (Kansas) on Song-Dynasty pure land texts.
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A second series, entitled “Saints and Sages,” presents talks by Reginald Ray (Naropa), on the Buddhist Tantric saints of India; Phyllis Granoff (Yale), on the jinas of Jainism, and Koichi Shinohara (Yale), on an early Chinese Buddhist wonder-worker. The program is co-sponsored with the Department of Religious Studies and also includes lectures on Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
For details, visit the HCBSS events calendar.
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Himalayan Buddhist art specialist
Luczanits visits winter term |
Christian Luczanits, noted historian of the Buddhist art of India and Tibet, will be Visiting Professor of Religious Studies and Fellow of HCBSS during winter term 2010. A graduate of Vienna, he is the author of Buddhist Sculpture in Clay: Early Western Himalayan Art, Late 10th to Early 13th Centuries (2004) and other works on the western Himalaya.
While in residence, Dr. Luczanits will offer a lecture course on Gandharan Buddhist art and a seminar on the buddha image. He will also present a public lecture on the early history of Alchi Monastery for the Tibetan Studies Initiative, and a public seminar on the Tibetan mandala for the Understanding Buddhist Art program. |
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| Gimello named Shinnyo-en Visiting Professor |
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Robert Gimello, distinguished scholar of Chinese Buddhism, will be the 2009-10 Shinnyo-en Visiting Professor of Buddhism. Long known for his work on early Huayan thought, Professor Gimello is the author of numerous studies of Buddhism in the Tang and Song dynasties. A graduate of Columbia University, he currently holds a post as research professor at Notre Dame and has previously taught at Dartmouth, UC Santa Barbara, the University of Arizona, and Harvard.
Professor Gimello will be in residence at Stanford during spring term, when he will offer a course in the department of Religious Studies on Chinese Buddhism in the Liao and Xixia kingdoms. |
| The Shinnyo-en Visiting Professorship in Buddhist Studies is a program of HCBSS inaugurated in 2008 through an endowment from the Shinnyo-en Foundation. |
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| Alumna Adamek returns as fellow |
Buddhist Studies alumna Wendi Adamek ('97) will be an HCBSS Visiting Fellow for 2009-10. Dr. Adamek, a specialist in Chinese Buddhism who has taught at Iowa and Barnard, is the author of The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Contexts, a book that won the 2008 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Textual Studies.
During her tenure at Stanford, Dr. Adamek will hold an External Faculty Fellowship from the Stanford Humanities Center, to work on her manuscript "A Niche of Their Own: The Buddhist Women of Bao Shan," an exploration of the practices of the community of nuns, monks, and lay donors associated with Lingquansi at Baoshan, Henan, in the 6th-7th centuries. |
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| van der Kuijp to give Evans-Wentz lecture |
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Distinguished Tibet scholar Leonard van der Kuijp will deliver this spring the XXXVth annual Evans-Wentz Lecture in Oriental Philosophies, Religions, and Ethics. Van der Kuijp, a graduate of Hamburg, is professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Harvard, where he chairs the department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, as well as the Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies.. Best known for his studies of Buddhist epistemology, he is the author of numerous works on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, including his most recent book, In Search of Dharma: Indian and Ceylonese Travelers in Fifteenth Century Tibet (2009). |
Professor van der Kuijp's lecture, entitled "Buddhist Tantras On their Origins," is scheduled for Thursday, April 15. The event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center and the Tibetan Studies Initiative.
The Evans-Wentz lectures are a program of the department of Religious Studies, administered by HCBSS. The lectureship, founded through the bequest of Walter Y. Evans-Wentz (Stanford, ‘06; M.A., ‘07), began in 1969, with the inaugural lecture delivered by the eminent Sinologist Holmes Welch. |
featured research
Professor Paul Harrison on the Diamond Sutra |
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The work of HCBSS co-director Paul Harrison is the subject of a feature story on the web site The Human Experience: Inside the Humanities at Stanford University. The story highlights Harrison's ongoing study of the Diamond Sutra, one of the most popular texts of Mahayana Buddhism. Harrison, Edwin Burnell Professor in the department of Religious Studies, hopes to publish his findings during the coming year.
Read the story and view a video clip.
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featured book
Alumnus James Robson on Nanyue |
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A new book by Buddhist studies program alumnus James Robson ('02) explores the religious history of Mt. Nanyue, a major center of Buddhist and Daoist practice in medieval China. Entitled Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China, the work is published by Harvard University. Robson, formerly at Michigan, is associate professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard.
Read more.
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