The Chan (Zen in Japanese) school began when, in seventh-century China, a small religious community gathered around a Buddhist monk named Hongren. Over the centuries, Chan Buddhism grew from an obscure movement to an officially recognized and eventually dominant form of Buddhism in China and throughout East Asia. It has reached international popularity, its teachings disseminated across cultures far and wide. In Monks, Rulers, and Literati, Albert Welter presents, for the first time in a comprehensive fashion in a Western work, the story of the rise of Chan, a story which has been obscured by myths about Zen. Zen apologists in the twentieth century, Welter argues, sold the world on the story of Zen as a transcendental spiritualism untainted by political and institutional involvements. In fact, Welter shows that the opposite is true: relationships between Chan monks and political rulers were crucial to Chan's success. The book concentrates on an important but neglected period of Chan history, the 10th and 11th centuries, when monks and rulers created the so-called Chan "golden age" and the classic principles of Chan identity. Placing Chan's ascendancy into historical context, Welter analyzes the social and political factors that facilitated Chan's success as a movement. He then examines how this success was represented in the Chan narrative and the aims of those who shaped it. Monks, Rulers, and Literati recovers a critical period of Zen's past, deepening our understanding of how the movement came to flourish. Welter's groundbreaking work is not only the most comprehensive history of the dominant strand of East Asian Buddhism, but also an important corrective to many of the stereotypes about Zen.

Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism

History

Welter, Albert

Asia

Oxford University Press

The Linji lu, or Record of Linji, ranks among the most famous and influential texts of the Chan and Zen traditions. Ostensibly containing the teachings of the Tang dynasty figure Linji Yixuan, the text has generally been accepted at face value, as reliable records of the teachings of this historical figure. In this book, Albert Welter offers the first systematic study of the Linji lu in a western language. Welter places the Linji lu in its historical context, showing how the text was manipulated over time by the Linji faction. Rather than recording the teachings of the illustrious patriarch of legend, the text reflects the motivations of Linji-faction descendants in the Song dynasty (9601279). The story of the Linji lu is not simply the story of one heroic figure, Linji Yixuan, but the story of an entire movement that sought validation through retrospective image making. The success of this effort is seen in Chan's rise to prominence. Drawing on the findings of Japanese scholars, Welter moves beyond the minutiae of textual analysis to place the development of Linji lu within the broader forces shaping the development of the Chinese Records of Sayings literary genre as a whole.

The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy: The Development of Chan's Records of Sayings Literature

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and the surrounding environs have one of the richest Buddhist cultures in China. In A Tale of Two St&#363;pas, Albert Welter tells the story of Hangzhou Buddhism through the conceptions, erections, and resurrections of Yongming Stupa, dedicated to the memory of one of Hangzhou's leading Buddhist figures, and Leifeng Pagoda, built to house stupa relics of the historical Buddha. Welter delves into the intricacies of these two sites and pays particular attention to their origins and rebirths. These sites have suffered devastation and endured long periods of neglect, yet both have been resurrected and re-resurrected during their histories and have resumed meaningful places in the contemporary Hangzhou landscape, a mark of their power and endurance. A Tale of Two St&#363;pas adopts a site-specific, regional approach in order to show how the dynamics of initial conception, resurrection, and re-resurrection work, and what that might tell us about the nature of Hangzhou and Chinese Buddhism.

A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in China

Religion & Spirituality

Buddhism

Yongming Yanshou ranks among the great thinkers of the Chinese and East Asian Buddhist traditions, one whose legacy has endured for more than a thousand years. Albert Welter offers new insight into the significance of Yanshou and his major work, the Zongjing lu, by showing their critical role in the contested Buddhist and intellectual territories of the Five Dynasties and early Song dynasty China. Welter gives a comprehensive study of Yanshou's life, showing how Yanshou's Buddhist identity has been and continues to be disputed. He also provides an in-depth examination of the Zongjing lu, connecting it to Chan debates ongoing at the time of its writing. This analysis includes a discussion of the seminal meaning of the term zong as the implicit truth of Chan and Buddhist teaching, and a defining notion of Chan identity. Particularly significant is an analysis of the long underappreciated significance of the Chan fragments in the Zongjing lu, which constitute some of the earliest information about the teachings of Chan's early masters. In light of Yanshou's advocacy of a morally based Chan Buddhist practice, Welter also challenges the way Buddhism, particularly Chan, has frequently been criticized in Neo-Confucianism as amoral and unprincipled. Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu concludes with an annotated translation of fascicle one of the Zongjing lu, the first translation of the work into a Western language.

Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures

This book investigates the world of medieval Chinese Buddhist thought at a time when the efficacy of Buddhist practice was being openly questioned. It reviews the life and times of Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975), a leading figure in the restoration of Buddhism and the principle architect of post-T'ang Buddhist practice. It focuses on the Wan-shan t'ung-kuei chi (Treatise on the Common End of Myriad Good Deeds), a work which has long been credited with providing theoretical justification for the combined practice of Ch'an meditation and activities aimed at rebirth in the Pure Land. The present study offers evidence on how Yen-shou and his Treatise have for centuries been subjected to sectarian bias, clarifying our understanding of the man and his work.

The Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds: A Study of Yung-ming Yen-shou and the "Wan-shan t'ung-kuei chi (Asian Thought and Culture)

Americas

Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers

The Future of China's Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)

The Future of China's Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)

State Univ of New York Pr

Addresses the question of China's rise and what it portends for the future.

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