Skip to Main Content

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

Online ISBN:
9780824869250
Print ISBN:
9780824832049
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press
Book

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

Jacqueline I. Stone (ed.),
Jacqueline I. Stone
(ed.)
Princeton University
Find on
Mariko Namba Walter (ed.)
Mariko Namba Walter
(ed.)
Harvard University
Find on
Published:
20 August 2008
Online ISBN:
9780824869250
Print ISBN:
9780824832049
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press

Abstract

For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. This book, running chronologically from the tenth century to the present, brings to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. It also explores the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two chapters. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four chapters. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. The book constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close