Patrons and Patriarchs: Regional Rulers and Chan Monks during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Benjamin Brose
Abstract
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms has typically been characterized as a period of debilitating violence and instability in China, but it also brought increased economic prosperity, regional development, and political autonomy to many southern provinces. The rise of new sovereign states in the south empowered local Buddhist cultures and elevated Chan (Zen) monks from the margins to the center of Chinese society. The shift in imperial patronage from a diverse array of individual Buddhist clerics to members of specific Chan lineages was driven by the political, social, and geographical reorient ... More
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms has typically been characterized as a period of debilitating violence and instability in China, but it also brought increased economic prosperity, regional development, and political autonomy to many southern provinces. The rise of new sovereign states in the south empowered local Buddhist cultures and elevated Chan (Zen) monks from the margins to the center of Chinese society. The shift in imperial patronage from a diverse array of individual Buddhist clerics to members of specific Chan lineages was driven by the political, social, and geographical reorientations set in motion by the fall of the Tang dynasty. As monastic communities representing disparate traditions of thought, practice, and presentation allied with rival political factions, the outcome of power struggles determined which clerical networks occupied positions of power and which doctrines were enshrined as orthodoxy. Rather than view the rise of Chan monks and their traditions as an instance of intellectual hegemony, this book shows that larger sociopolitical processes—the breakdown of centralized rule, the rise of regional powers, subsequent cultural and political reconsolidation—helped to lift certain Chan lineages onto the imperial stage.
Keywords:
China,
religion,
Chan,
Zen,
Buddhism,
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms,
social networks,
lineage,
patronage
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780824853815 |
Published to Hawaii Scholarship Online: November 2016 |
DOI:10.21313/hawaii/9780824853815.001.0001 |