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Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture

Jeffrey Samuels

An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also ... More

An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, and live with every other human feeling while relating to other monks and the lay community. This book looks at how emotion determines and influences the commitments that laypeople and monastics make to each other and to the Buddhist religion in general. By focusing on “multimoment” histories, it highlights specific junctures in which ideas about recruitment, vocation, patronage, and institution-building are negotiated and refined. The book illustrates how aesthetic responses trigger certain emotions, and how personal and shared emotions, at the local level, shape notions of beauty. It reveals the negotiated character of lay-monastic relations and temple management. In the fields of religion and Buddhist studies there has been a growing recognition of the need to examine affective dimensions of religion. The book breaks new ground in that it answers questions about Buddhist emotions and the constitutive roles they play in social life and religious practice through a close, poignant look at small-scale temple and social networks. The book conveys the manner in which Buddhists describe their own histories, experiences, and encounters as they relate to the formation and continuation of Buddhist monastic culture in contemporary Sri Lanka.Less

Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana: A Study and Translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra

Daniel Boucher

This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the ... More

This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. The book first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is an analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sūtra's evolution. The first part looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Part 2 focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sūtra attributed to Dharmarakṣa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, the book explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. One of the signal contributions of this book is its skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. The book concludes with an annotated translation of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.Less

Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women's Rituals

Paula Arai

Healing lies at the heart of Zen. This book reveals a vital stream of religious practice that flourishes outside the bounds of formal institutions through sacred rites that women develop and transmit ... More

Healing lies at the heart of Zen. This book reveals a vital stream of religious practice that flourishes outside the bounds of formal institutions through sacred rites that women develop and transmit to one another. Everyday objects and common materials are used in inventive ways. The book brings a fresh perspective to Zen scholarship by uncovering a previously unrecognized but nonetheless vibrant strand of lay practice. The creativity of domestic Zen is evident in the ritual activities that women fashion, weaving tradition and innovation, to gain a sense of wholeness and balance in the midst of illness, loss, and anguish. Their rituals include chanting, ingesting elixirs and consecrated substances, and contemplative approaches that elevate cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and caring for the sick and dying into spiritual disciplines. Creating beauty is central to domestic Zen and figures prominently in the book’s analyses. This book, the first study of the ritual lives of Zen laywomen, applies a cutting-edge ethnographic method to reveal a thriving domain of religious practice.Less

The Buddha in Lanna: Art, Lineage, Power, and Place in Northern Thailand

Angela S. Chiu

This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), ... More

This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), monastic histories and legends from the Lanna region centered in today’s northern Thailand. Examination of themes, structures and motifs illuminates the conceptual and material aspects of Buddha images that influenced their functions in Lanna society. As agents and mediators of social agency, Buddha images were focal points of pan-regional political-religious lineages and rivalries, indeed, the very generators of history itself. Statues also unified the Buddha with the northern Thai landscape, integrating Buddhist and local significances of place. The book also compares Thai statues with Sri Lankan and Burmese-Mon Buddha relics and images, contributing to broader understanding of how materially different types of Buddhist representations mediated the Buddha’s ‘presence.’ Moreover, the book considers fundamental yet rarely critically deliberated questions such as how particular statues were selected as models to be copied. This involves the image’s aspect as an exchange of financial outlay for merit, ‘commoditized’ even as it is ‘singularized’ through enshrinement. Throughout its ‘life,’ the Thai Buddha image is always a part of wider society beyond monastery walls.Less

The Buddha Side: Gender, Power, and Buddhist Practice in Vietnam

Alexander Soucy

The most common description of the supernatural landscape in Vietnam makes a distinction between Buddhist and non-Buddhist “sides.” The “Buddha side” (ben phat) is the focus of this investigation ... More

The most common description of the supernatural landscape in Vietnam makes a distinction between Buddhist and non-Buddhist “sides.” The “Buddha side” (ben phat) is the focus of this investigation into the intersection of gender, power, and religious praxis. Employing an anthropological approach to Buddhist practice that takes into account modes of action that are not only socially constructed and contextual, but also negotiated by the actors, the book explores how gender and age affect understandings of what it means to be a Buddhist. The book examines everything from the skeptical statements of young men and devotional performances of young women to the pilgrimages of older women and performances of orthodoxy used by older men to assert their position within the pagoda space. From an in-depth view, the book describes the critical role of religion in shaping social contexts and inserting selves into them. Religion can thus be described as a form of theatre—one in which social identities (youth, old age, masculinity, femininity, authority) are constructed and displayed via religious practice.Less

Buddhism and the Transformation of Old Age in Medieval Japan

Edward R. Drott

This book examines the shifting sets of meanings ascribed to the aged body in early and medieval Japan and the symbolic uses to which the aged body was put in the service of religious and ... More

This book examines the shifting sets of meanings ascribed to the aged body in early and medieval Japan and the symbolic uses to which the aged body was put in the service of religious and religio-political ideologies. In the Nara through mid-Heian periods, old age was used as a symbol of weakness, ugliness or pollution to contrast with the glories of the sovereign and his or her efflorescent court. Concurrently, governmental and Buddhist retirement practices called for elders to remove themselves from social, political and cultural centers. From the late-Heian period forward, however, various marginalized individuals and groups took up the aged male body as a symbol of their collective identity and crafted narratives depicting its empowerment. Although in early Japan the terms okina and ōna had been reserved for strange or foolish underclass old men and women, in the medieval period, Buddhist authors presented a great number of gods (kami), Buddhist divinities, saints and immortals (sennin) as okina, or in rare cases, as ōna. In these years literati came to enthusiastically employ the persona of the aged Buddhist recluse and early Noh theorists and playwrights sought to enhance the prestige of their art by linking it to performance traditions featuring mysterious but powerful okina. Although many of the divinized okina of medieval myth are today seen to inhabit a “Shintō” pantheon, they were, in fact, the product of Buddhist texts and arose within a Buddhist cultural milieu.Less

Buddhism in a Dark Age: Cambodian Monks under Pol Pot

Ian Harris

This study of the fate of Buddhism during the communist period in Cambodia puts a human face on a dark period in Cambodia's history. It is the first sustained analysis of the widely held assumption ... More

This study of the fate of Buddhism during the communist period in Cambodia puts a human face on a dark period in Cambodia's history. It is the first sustained analysis of the widely held assumption that the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot had a centralized plan to liquidate the entire monastic order. The book offers a view that attempts to move beyond the horrific monastic death toll and fully evaluate the damage to the Buddhist saṅgha under Democratic Kampuchea. Evidence exists to suggest that Khmer Rouge leaders were determined to hunt down senior members of the pre-1975 ecclesiastical hierarchy, but other factors also worked against the Buddhist order. This book outlines a three-phase process in the Khmer Rouge treatment of Buddhism: bureaucratic interference and obstruction, explicit harassment, and finally the elimination of the obdurate and those close to the previous Lon Nol regime. The establishment of a separate revolutionary form of saṅgha administration constituted the bureaucratic phase. The harassment of monks was partially due to the uprooting of the traditional monastic economy in which lay people were discouraged from feeding economically unproductive monks. Younger members of the order were disrobed and forced into marriage or military service. The final act was the execution of those monks and senior ecclesiastics who resisted. It was difficult for institutional Buddhism to survive the conditions encountered during the decade under study here. The book concludes with a discussion of the slow re-establishment and official supervision of the Buddhist order during the People's Republic of Kampuchea period.Less

Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China

Stuart H. Young

This book is a study of how medieval Chinese Buddhists represented their ancient Indian forebears as exemplars of Buddhist practice for a world without a Buddha. It focuses on the Chinese ... More

This book is a study of how medieval Chinese Buddhists represented their ancient Indian forebears as exemplars of Buddhist practice for a world without a Buddha. It focuses on the Chinese hagiographies of Aśvaghoṣa, Nāgārjuna, and Āryadeva in particular, who were celebrated in medieval China as the greatest Buddhist saints since Śākyamuni, and who have long captured the attention of modern Buddhist Studies scholars. In contrast to earlier studies of these figures, which attempt to situate them in ancient Indian history, this book examines Chinese accounts of their lives as means of illuminating the beliefs and concerns of Chinese Buddhists themselves. Through these hagiographies I explore broader issues concerning how Chinese Buddhists conceived Indian Buddhism as a whole, and how they thereby construed the problem of being Buddhist in latter-day China. I examine Chinese Buddhist appropriations of the ancient Indian patriarchs in order to elucidate medieval Chinese conceptions of Buddhist sanctity across the Sino-Indian divide.Less

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter (eds)

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 ... More

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.Less

Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism: Yasuda Rijin and the Shin Buddhist Tradition

Paul B. Watt

The True Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism, or Shin Buddhism, grew out of the teachings of Shinran (1173–1262), a Tendai-trained monk. Shinran held that even those unable to fulfill the ... More

The True Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism, or Shin Buddhism, grew out of the teachings of Shinran (1173–1262), a Tendai-trained monk. Shinran held that even those unable to fulfill the requirements of the traditional Buddhist path could attain enlightenment through the experience of shinjin, “the entrusting mind”—an expression of the profound realization that the Buddha Amida, who promises birth in his Pure Land to all who trust in him, was nothing other than the true basis of all existence and the sustaining nature of human beings. Over the centuries, the subtleties of Shinran's teachings were often lost. Rituals developed to focus one's mind at the moment of death so one might travel to the Pure Land unimpeded, and an artistic tradition celebrated the moment when Amida and his retinue of bodhisattvas welcome the dying believer. Many Western interpreters tended to reinforce this view of Pure Land Buddhism. This book introduces the thought and selected writings of Yasuda Rijin (1900–1982), a modern Shin Buddhist thinker affiliated with the Ōtani, or Higashi Honganji, branch of Shin Buddhism. Yasuda sought to restate the teachings of Shinran within a modern tradition that began with the work of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903) and extended through the writings of Yasuda's teachers Kaneko Daiei (1881–1976) and Soga Ryōjin (1875–1971). For them, and Yasuda in particular, Amida did not exist in some other-worldly paradise but rather Amida and his Pure Land were to be experienced as lived realities in the present.Less

Dharma

Alf Hiltebeitel

This book proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. It offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. The book explores how the ... More

This book proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. It offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. The book explores how the Buddhist canon brought out different meanings of dharma. This is followed by an exposition of the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the Hindu law books flowered after the third-century BC emperor Asoka, a Buddhist, made dharma the guiding principle of an entire realm and culture. The book shows how their narratives amplified the new Brahmanical norms and brought out the ethical dilemmas and spiritual teachings that arose from inquiry into dharma. A chapter on the tale of the Life of the Buddha considers the relation between dharma, moksa/nirvana (salvation), and bhakti (devotion). Here, the book ties together a thread that runs through the entire story, which is the Buddha's tendency to present dharma as a kind of civil discourse. In this sense, dharma challenges people to think critically or at least more creatively about their ethical principles and the foundations of their own spiritual values. A closing chapter on dharma in the twenty-first century explores its new cachet in an era of globalization, its diasporic implications, its openings into American popular culture, some implications for women, and the questions it is still raising for modern India.Less

Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of Uich'on

Ŭich’ŏn (1055–1101) is one of the most important figures in Koryŏ Buddhism. He was a staunch proponent of doctrinal Buddhism and the intellectual heritage of East Asia. Although Ŭich’ŏn had been ... More

Ŭich’ŏn (1055–1101) is one of the most important figures in Koryŏ Buddhism. He was a staunch proponent of doctrinal Buddhism and the intellectual heritage of East Asia. Although Ŭich’ŏn had been educated as an adherent of the Hwaŏm (Huayan) school, he reportedly left it to found a new Ch’ŏnt’ae (Tiantai) school in Korea after a pilgrimage to China in 1085–1086. After his death, his disciples compiled his collected works. This monograph is a translation of selections from his collected works, which demonstrate that Ŭich’ŏn did not abandon the Hwaŏm school. Instead, the lectures, letters, essays, and poetry compiled his Ŭich’ŏn’s The Collected Works of State Preceptor Taegak portray a monk committed to the interfusion of doctrinal learning and meditative visualization. Ŭich’ŏn maintained a closer relationship with his Chinese mentor Jinshui Jingyuan (1011–1088) and other colleagues in the Chinese Huayan school than with monastic associates in the Tiantai school. Ŭich’ŏn’s personal writings do not support the view that Ŭich’ŏn abandoned the Hwaŏm tradition to found a new Ch’ŏnt’ae tradition, but rather that he strongly encouraged monks to blend the best learning from all doctrinal traditions with meditative contemplation.Less

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China

Beata Grant

The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Only recently beginning to be explored ... More

The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Only recently beginning to be explored are such seventeenth-century religious phenomena as “the reinvention” of Chan Buddhism—a concerted effort to revive what were believed to be the traditional teachings, texts, and practices of “classical” Chan. And, until now, the role played by women in these religious developments has hardly been noted at all. This book brings together several of these important seventeenth-century trends. Although Buddhist nuns have been a continuous presence in Chinese culture since early medieval times and the subject of numerous scholarly studies, this book is one of the first to provide a detailed view of their activities, and to be based largely on the writings and self-representations of Buddhist nuns themselves. This perspective is made possible by the preservation of collections of “discourse records” (yulu) of seven officially designated female Chan masters in a seventeenth-century printing of the Chinese Buddhist Canon rarely used in English-language scholarship. The book is able to place the seven women, all of whom were active in Jiangnan, in their historical, religious, and cultural contexts, while allowing them, through her skillful translations, to speak in their own voices. Together these women offer an important, but until now virtually unexplored, perspective on seventeenth-century China, the history of female monasticism in China, and the contribution of Buddhist nuns to the history of Chinese women’s writing.Less

Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan

John K. Nelson

This book documents a sense of what is happening on the front lines as a growing number of Buddhist priests try to reboot their roles and traditions to gain greater significance in Japanese society. ... More

This book documents a sense of what is happening on the front lines as a growing number of Buddhist priests try to reboot their roles and traditions to gain greater significance in Japanese society. It profiles innovative as well as controversial responses to the challenges facing Buddhist priests. From traditional activities (conducting memorial rituals; supporting residences for the elderly and infirm; providing relief for victims of natural disasters) to more creative ones (collaborating in suicide prevention efforts; holding symposia and concerts on temple precincts; speaking out against nuclear power following Japan’s 2011 earthquake; opening cafés, storefront temples, and pubs; even staging fashion shows with priests on the runway) more progressive members of Japan’s Buddhist clergy are trying to navigate a path leading towards renewed relevance in society. An additional challenge is to avoid alienating older patrons while trying to attract younger ones vital to the future of their temples. The work’s central theme of “experimental Buddhism” provides a fresh perspective to understand how priests and other individuals employ Buddhist traditions in selective and pragmatic ways. Using these inventive approaches during a time of crisis and transition for Japanese temple Buddhism, priests and practitioners from all denominations seek solutions that not only can revitalize their religious traditions but also influence society and their fellow citizens in positive ways.Less

Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms

Shayne Clarke

Scholarly and popular consensus has painted a picture of Indian Buddhist monasticism in which monks and nuns severed all ties with their families when they left home for the religious life. They ... More

Scholarly and popular consensus has painted a picture of Indian Buddhist monasticism in which monks and nuns severed all ties with their families when they left home for the religious life. They remained celibate, and those who faltered in their “vows” of monastic celibacy were immediately and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist Order. This image is based largely on the ascetic rhetoric of texts such as the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra. Through a study of Indian Buddhist law codes (vinaya), this book dehorns the rhinoceros, revealing that in their own legal narratives, Indian Buddhist writers take for granted the fact that monks and nuns would remain in contact with their family members. This challenges some of the most basic scholarly notions of what it meant to be a Buddhist monk or nun in India around the turn of the Common Era. Not only do we see depictions of monks and nuns continuing to interact and associate with their families, but some are described as leaving home for the religious life with their children, and some as married monastic couples. The book argues that renunciation with or as a family is tightly woven into the very fabric of Indian Buddhist renunciation and monasticisms. Whereas scholars have often assumed that monastic Buddhism must be anti-familial, the book demonstrates that these assumptions were clearly not shared by the authors/redactors of Indian Buddhist monastic law codes.Less

The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Art, Archaeology, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan

Donald F. McCallum

Few periods in Japanese history are more fascinating than the seventh century. This was the period when Buddhism experienced its initial flowering in the country and the time when Asukadera, Kudara ... More

Few periods in Japanese history are more fascinating than the seventh century. This was the period when Buddhism experienced its initial flowering in the country and the time when Asukadera, Kudara Odera, Kawaradera, and Yakushiji (the “Four Great Temples” as they were called in ancient texts) were built. These structures have received only limited attention in Western literature, primarily because they are now ruins. This book seeks to restore the four great temples to their proper place in the history of Japanese Buddhism and Buddhist architecture. Three of the temples have been studied archaeologically, but one, Kudara Odera (the first royal temple in Japan) has until recently been known only through textual references. A series of digs carried out between 1997 and 2001 at Kibi Pond yielded what are thought to be the remains of Kudara Odera. A platform, the appropriate size for a large pagoda, has been uncovered at the site, indicating the reliability of the textual sources. These results have necessitated a rethinking of early Buddhist architecture in Japan. The book gives the first detailed account in the English language of these excavations. It considers historiographical issues, settings and layouts, foundations, tiles, relics, and icons and allows readers to follow their chronological evolution. The book looks at broader political and religious developments that serve as a context for the study. It further makes an effort to unify data on great royal temples in China, Korea, and other parts of Japan.Less

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China

Gareth Fisher

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of research, it provides an intimate ... More

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of research, it provides an intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this non-monastic space, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, the book argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Often socially marginalized and sidelined from meaningful roles in China’s new economy, these former communist comrades look to new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their self-worth.Less

Genshin's Ojōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan

Robert F. Rhodes

The Ōjōyōshū, written by the Heian period Tendai monk Genshin (942-1017), played a pivotal role in establishing Pure Land Buddhism in Japan. This book is a study of the central teachings of the ... More

The Ōjōyōshū, written by the Heian period Tendai monk Genshin (942-1017), played a pivotal role in establishing Pure Land Buddhism in Japan. This book is a study of the central teachings of the Ōjōyōshū. Furthermore, in order to situate this text in its historical background, a substantial portion of the volume is taken up with discussions of the development of Pure Land Buddhism before Genshin’s time and to Genshin’s event-filled life. Part One provides a brief survey of Pure Land Buddhism in India and China and then treats how it developed in Japan before Genshin’s time. Part Two focuses on the main events of Genshin’s life. Part Three turns to two main issues taken up in the Ōjōyōshū: its Pure Land cosmology and its nenbutsu teaching. In his description of the Pure Land cosmology, Genshin describes, in often graphic detail, the suffering inherent in the six realms of transmigration, including hell, and urges his readers to seek birth in Amida Buddha’s Pure Land, a realm beyond suffering. Furthermore, in the central portion of the Ōjōyōshū, Genshin presents a systematic analysis of the nenbutsu, or the practice of focusing one’s mind on Amida, which is the central practice for attaining birth in the Pure Land.Less

The Halo of Golden Light: Imperial Authority and Buddhist Ritual in Heian Japan

Asuka Sango

The Halo of Golden Light examines the complex ways in which the emperor and other elite ruling groups employed Buddhist rituals to legitimate their authority. Although considered a descendant of the ... More

The Halo of Golden Light examines the complex ways in which the emperor and other elite ruling groups employed Buddhist rituals to legitimate their authority. Although considered a descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, the emperor used Buddhist idiom, particularly the ideal king as depicted in the Golden Light Sutra, to express his right to rule. In the Heian period, these ideals presented in the sutra became the basis of a number of court-sponsored rituals, the most important of which was the emperor’s Misai-e Assembly. By tracing the changes in the assembly’s format and status throughout the era and the significant shifts in the Japanese polity that mirrored them, the book demonstrates how the ritual enactment of imperial authority was essential to justifying political power, and challenges dominant scholarly models that presume the gradual decline of the political and liturgical influence of the emperor over the course of the era. It also compels a reconsideration of Buddhism during the Heian as “state Buddhism” by showing that monks intervened in creating the state’s policy toward the religion to their own advantage.Less