Download Important Data Since the Midterm Exam (Rel

Important Data Since the Midterm Exam (Rel. 103)
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Theravada : "Doctrine of the Elders," a non-Mahayana school of Buddhism that was established
in Sri Lanka (from ca 250 BCE), and later in Burma (from 11th c.) and Thailand (from
12th c.). The Theravada scriptures and the chronicles of Sri Lankan religious and
political history were composed in the Pali language (similar to Sanskrit), which became
a unifying medium of communication among the Theravada countries; chief intellectual
figure in tradition is Buddhaghosa (5th c. CE). The Theravada sect rejects the doctrines
distinctive of the Mahayana schools of thought (see below).
Mahinda : according to the Mahavamsa, a chronicle preserved by the Sri Lankan Sangha, the
monk Mahinda, the son of Ashoka, led Ashoka's mission of five monks and a layman to
convert Devanampiya Tissa, the king of the island. Returns to India to get a relic of the
Buddha for Sri Lanka's first stupa (in Pali: thupa)
Tantra : texts (and the traditions based on them) teaching a rapid path to enlightenment through
meditatively visualizing mandalas (abstract diagrams meant to depict the cosmos
governed by a large number of “deities”) and the union of the feminine deity Prajna
(Insight) and the masculine deity Upaya (Compassion, Skillful Practice); knowledge of
such techniques requires initiation with a Tantric teacher and is considered secret.
Vajrayana : the "Thunderbolt Vehicle" or "Diamond Vehicle," the term for the Tantric
dimension of Tibetan Buddhism (cf. Shingon, below).
Padmasambhava : the legendary miracle-worker and yogi who, along with the Indian scholar
Shantarakshita, brought Buddhism to Tibet (the first diffusion of the dharma there) at
the invitation of the 8th-c. king Trisong-detsen. Padmasambhava is said to have gone
around pacifying the local divinities.
lama : ("teacher" = Skt. guru) abbot of a monastery; or, a Buddhist (esp. Tantric) teacher.
Atisha : 11th-c. Indian scholar who restored the monastic order during the second diffusion of
the dharma in Tibet after a period of decline during the 9th-10th c.
Dalai Lama : title of the head of the Ge-lug-pa sect, a position held by successive reincarnations
of the first Dalai Lama; the 5th was declared King of Tibet in 1640; the 14th, the current
one, fled Tibet during the Chinese crackdown in 1959, and is living in India.
The Five Classics : Yi Jing = Classic of Changes (a manual for interpreting hexagrams used in
divination; reinterpreted in metaphysical terms), Classic of Documents (a collection of
historical records), Classic of Poetry (ceremonial and folk songs), a collection of ritual
texts, and the "Spring and Autumn Annals" (a commentary on the state of Lu, 722-481
BCE); these works are said to have been compiled and edited by:
Confucius (Kong Qiu) : (551-479), author of the Analects; advocated a model of government
by a virtuous king (tian-zi, "son of heaven") ruling with the (revocable) tian-ming
("mandate of heaven"), as exemplified by the legendary sage-kings Yao and Shun
mentioned in the Shu Jing; advocated the benefits of education.
Zhou dynasty : Confucius lived in the twighlight of the Zhou period, when the nominal rulers
no longer had real power; he looked back to its golden age of order and righteousness.
Warring States Period : (479-221 BCE) period of political disorder.
Qin (Chin) Empire (221-207) : first imperial unification and creation of the notion of greater
Chinese state.
Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) : long period of consolidation of classical Chinese culture,
canonization of the Confucian classics (79 CE) and the development of an education and
examination system for recruiting state officials.
Wang Bi : (226-249) commentator on Laozi and Yijing.
Tian : "Heaven," the chief embodiment of divine power in early Chinese religion, replacing the
imperial divinity of the Shang and Chou dynasties, Shang-Di ("Lord on High");
according to Confucian thought, the king rules by the will of Heaven, that is, by the tianming (“mandate of heaven”), which may be revoked if the ruler is deficient.
li : ritual, ceremony, decorum--the outward forms of behavior that are meant to manifest piety
and sincere sense of rightness (e.g., sacrifices to Heaven; observing a period of
mourning).
ren : humaneness, altruism, magnanimity.
xiao : filial piety, the ideal of harmonious relationship of child/subject to parent/ancestors/ruler.
junzi : the gentleman, one who lives in accordance with li, ren.
Dao : (noun) way, path; (verb) to tell, instruct, make a law. An ideal, natural mode of existence
toward which human beings strive (acc. to Conf.) or which is the basis of the whole
cosmos, and is manifested by Heaven (Lao Tzu).
Mozi : (470-391) advocated universal love as the will of Heaven, and rejected partiality as the
basis of all aggression, selfishness, mutual condemnation, and social disorder.
Emphasized the need for capable and deserving officials (meritocracy); rejected
cronyism and nepotism.
Mencius (Mengzi) : (4th c. BCE) believed in humans’ potential for goodness; ren should be
balanced by yi (a sense of what is fitting in any circumstance); through moral effort, one
can cultivate a vital power called qi.
Xunzi (Hsun-tzu) : believed that human nature can be modified and enhanced through culture
and learning (nurture), especially through personal engagement with a teacher and
participation in ritual practice; qi must be regulated, excesses curbed. Humanity
collaborates with tian (heaven) and earth to maintain the cosmic order, the balance and
completeness of yin and yang.
Laozi : legendary author of the Dao-de Jing (ca. 4th c. BCE); taught two forms of dao: constant
(the primordial source of all things, unknowable and inexpressible in words) and
changeable (the diverse forms to which we give names and about which we can speak);
teaches strength through weakness (the way of water); the best ruler is unnoticed by the
people; increase of laws corresponds to a decrease of virtue.
wu-wei : "acting without taking action," i.e., living in accordance with the dao, without initiative
or forceful effort.
de : virtue,that is, dao possessed by a person.
Zhuangzi : (ca. 369-286 BCE) taught a mystical, personal approach to the dao: spiritual
emancipation through adjusting oneself to nature, spontaneity; opposites become
identities.
yin / yang : the pair of contrary tendencies found in all things: yang (= movement, light, strength,
masculinity, life) alternating with yin (= rest, darkness, quiet, weakness, femininity,
death); both arise from the tai-ji ("Great Ultimate," the drop of primordial breath), the
first principle of existence in the world, which itself congealed in the midst of hun-tun
(chaos). Taoist meditation is meant to restore the balance of yin and yang in body and
mind; ritual aims to restore it in the family or community.
shen ming : "bright spirits", gods who can be prayed to for help.
Daoist Philosophy : the philosophical tradition inspired by Lao and Zhuang.
Church Daoism : a tradition of 3 parts: a practice of meditation and self-perfection performed by
celibate monks; organizations of pious laypeople (xin-shi) who study meditation; and the
ritual practices of the "fire-dwelling" priests, the Dao-shi, who officiate in the rites of
passage, exorcisms, festivals, and periodic Jiao rituals (rites of village purification and
renewal) of Chinese religion (the traditional, popular religion that includes elements of
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism).
hun : the yang part of a person's soul: benevolence, righteousness, wisdom; becomes shen and
rises to heaven after death.
po : the yin part of the soul: the passions; returns to earth after death, may harm the living as a
guei (demon, ghost).
First reference to Buddhism in China: ca. 65 CE.
An Shigao : translator from Parthia (modern Iran) arrives at Loyang, the Chinese capital, via the
Silk Road in 148 CE bringing Buddhist texts, which he began translating into Chinese;
many later Chinese Buddhist texts are said to have been translated by him, though some
were actually composed in Chinese to begin with. Translation was thus seen as a mark
of authenticity; at the same time, translating meant associating key Buddhist concepts
with Taoist and Confucian ideas, and led to the emergence of a distinctively Chinese
perspective on the Buddhist teaching.
Huiyuan : (403) argues at court that monks need not bow to the emperor; states that Buddhist
discipline (vinaya) is based on xiao.
Mouzi : author of “Disposing of Error,” a justifification of Buddhist doctrines and monastic
practice in the face of objections by Confucians and Daoists (“Removal of Errors”)
Mahayana : the “Great Vehicle,” blanket term for a cluster of doctrines first formulated in the
“Perfection of Wisdom Sutras” (texts purporting to be a higher, more direct version of
the Buddha’s dharma, a “second turning of the wheel of the Dharma”), promulgated by
the scholar-monk Nagarjuna (2nd c. CE), founder of the Madhyamika school of thought.
The distinctive themes of Mahayana doctrine are:
a. The ideal of Buddhist practice is to take the bodhisattva vow; the
bodhisattva is an "all-compassionate hero who, resolving to become a Buddha in
some far-distant future, dedicated the course of his innumerable lives to saving
beings of all kinds" (A. Bareau, Encyc. Rel.). Insight is fruitless unless coupled
with compassion.
b. The assertion that all things, including the basic constituents (dharmas)
of thought and matter, and even nirvana, lack inherent existence — i.e.,
everything is thus said to be “empty” (shunya). Samsara is even said not to be
different from nirvana, since both are empty of inherent existence.
c. The Buddha exists beyond his mortal person: the Perfection of Wisdom
(Prajna-Paramita) Sutras distinguish between his Dharma Body (esp. Buddha
as his dharma) and his Form Body, in which he taught. Later, three bodies were
taught: the Dharma Body (Buddha as essential nature), Enjoyment Body
(celestial forms), and Manifestation Body (illusory form taken to teach on earth).
d. Other viewpoints, such as the Theravada, are deemed inadequate
because they are based on the Buddha’s preliminary teaching only, and so are
called the Hinayana (Deficient or Little Vehicle). The ideal of Theravada piety,
the enlightened arhat, is thus judged imperfect because his enlightenment is selforiented only.
Kumarajiva : (344-413) half-Indian missionary who taught Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka doctrine
in north China, translating three important treatises.
Yogachara ("Practice of Meditation") or Mind-Only School of the Indian scholars Asanga and
Vasubandhu argued that all things and events in the world are mental constructs; there
are no physical dharmas at all. The images produced in meditation, and the "objects" we
seem to perceive, are no different from each other--they are all mental events. All these
things are empty, but "emptiness" is given a new definition. The school proposes a
purified mental state (devoid of subject and object) called the "conception of
nonexistence" that is said to actually exist, and to be the definition of emptiness.
Meditation, the programmatic modification of the thought process, thus becomes the most
important tool for attaining enlightenment. The Yogachara texts were translated by the
famous pilgrim-scholar Xuanzang who is also remembered for his account of his travels
in India (629-645).
Chan / Zen : sect specializing in techniques of meditation (Skt. dhyana); established in China
(from ca. 470) by the Indian teacher Bodhidharma, based on Yogachara texts like the
Lankavatara Sutra. Ch'an teaches that enlightenment can come in a sudden moment of
meditative insight into one's own nature (as being a Dharma-body), rather than from years
of scripture study and disputation. Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, is said to have made
this point by tearing up Buddhist sutras (see R&J, 177-181). Chan teaching is intensely
personalized, "mind-to-mind" transmission of the experience of "awakening" (Ch. wu / J.
satori / Skt. bodhi); many striking instances of teachers awakening pupils have been
preserved in the form of gong-an / koan ("old cases"), used as themes for contemplation.
Awakening often comes unexpectedly, and gong-an use suggestion, paradox, and nonsensical or even nonverbal cues; manual labor important in monastic life.
Tiantai : “Platform of Heaven,” a Chinese school of thought founded by Zhiyi (538-597), who
sought to synthesize divergent trends in Mahayana Buddhism, claiming that salvation can
only come about through a combination of faith and meditation with philosophy. Took
the Lotus Sutra as its core scripture. (See SCT, pp. 444ff.)
Pure Land Sect : a sect that traces its religious lineage back to Tanluan (476-542), who was
converted to Bsm. by the Indian monk Bodhiruci; advocated nian-fo / nembutsu,
recitation of the name of the Buddha ("Honor to the Amita Buddha") as a way of gaining
grace and salvation; liberation from samsara is understood as eternal life in the savior
buddha Amitabha's Western Pure Land; salvation is open to even the worst sinners
provided they call on Amita's grace with complete faith, for all people have "buddhanature." Pure Land was largely a popular, "easy" path for common folk, but beginning
with Shan-tao (7th c.), meditation, morality, and scholarship were reaffirmed as
important concerns in the tradition.
Emperor Wu : (of the Liang dynasty, 464-549) destroyed Daoist temples and made courtiers and
officials convert to Buddhism.
Tang dynasty : The Sangha is subsumed within the imperial state; the Emperor is identified as
the Buddha incarnate.
Great Tang Persecution of 841-845 : Taoists and other factions in the imperial court persuade
the Tang emperor to curtail privileges for Buddhist monks and institutions (such as taxfree status) and to confiscate the Sangha's financial assets, serfs, and real estate; monks
and nuns were laicized en masse; temple images were melted down for their metals;
monasteries and temples were destroyed. The new emperor in 846 reversed this policy,
but many of the more scholastic sects were destroyed. Chan and Pure Land survived
because of their popular support, their geographical distribution into remoter regions
outside the sphere of imperial influence, and their lesser reliance on libraries and urban
institutions.
Shinto : traditional religion of Japan, comprising popular worship of ancestors and local
divinities, Imperial worship of Amaterasu and other deities as patrons of Japan, and
various modern sects.
kami : divinity as a general, superhuman phenomenon, and in the particular deities and deified
ancestors and heroes worshiped by particular groups and individuals; e.g.:
ujigami : ‘clan deity’, regarded as an original ancestor and divine protector of the clan (uji).
Amaterasu Omikami : "Great Heavenly Illuminating Goddess," associated with the sun,
worshiped by the Japanese emperor as the imperial ujigami and patron of the nation.
Driven to seclude herself in a heavenly cave by the unruly behavior of her brother Susano-o Mikoto. The other gods enticed her to come out with prayer, music, and dance such
as is performed in worship.
Izanagi and Izanami : the first male and female divine pair, who thrust the jewel-spear of
heaven into the ocean, the foam from which formed the first pole-like island. They
descend to it and procreate the rest of the islands of Japan; their conduct demonstrates the
proper relationship between the sexes.
Kojiki and Nihongi : early eighth-century collections of clan myths and legendary history
collected and edited from the time of the Emperor Temmu (late 7th c.), who unified the
competing principalities of Japan; political union leads to religious unification: general
worship of Amaterasu (later under the administration of a "Bureau of Kami") and
imperial patronage of regional ujigami.
Prince Shotuku : (574-622) said to have written a Buddhist-inspired "constitution" of Japan; six
scholastic sects imported from China at this time. During the Nara Period (8th c.),
Chinese Buddhist arts, ritual, and custom permeated Japan culture.
Tendai: with imperial patronage, the young monk Saicho goes in 804 to study in China; returns
to establish the Tendai sect at his mountain temple at Mount Hiei . Tendai a mixture of
Chinese Tiantai with Chan and Tantra. Mount Hiei long remains a center of study from
which new sects arise.
Shingon : sect based on the Chinese Zhen-yen (“true word” or “Mantra”) school of Buddhist
Tantra, brought to Japan in 806 by Kukai, a brilliant Nara aristocrat; established a
monastery on Mount Koya in 816. Kukai is said to exist in a state of samadhi from
which he will reawaken upon the advent of the Buddha Maitreya.
Honen : worship of Amida (Amitabha) through nembutsu (see above) was already popular in
the Tendai sect, but Honen established a Pure Land sect in the 12th c. (Jodo-shu) after
studying on Mt. Hiei.
Shinran : student at Hiei, and then disciple of Honen, he had a vision of the bodhisattva Kannon
(Avalokiteshvara) that told him to marry; established the "True Pure Land Sect" (Jodoshin-shu), in which clergy, "neither monk nor layman," live a family life while serving in
temples; said monkhood not necessary for salvation--only Amida's grace.
Nichiren : another Hiei student who became disillusioned with Tendai Buddhism; in 1253 he
started a movement based on the Lotus Sutra, and teaching that salvation can be reached
through the simple act of chanting "Salutation to the Lotus Sutra" (namu myo-ho-ren-gekyo); denounced all other sects publicly warned that the end of the Dharma was near.
Eisai : Tendai monk who established the Rinzai Zen school in 1191; popularized tea cultivation
and drinking; by the 15th c., the tea ceremony had become a social art and spiritual
exercise embodying the Zen values of aesthetic sense and higher awareness, utility and
grace, conformity and spontaneity.
Dogen : studied at Hiei, and at a Zen temple in Kyoto, and in China; established the Soto house
of Zen (1227) in which he taught za-zen, "sitting meditation"; after 1400 most Buddhist
sects, but not the Zen schools, took up arms to defend their interest against competing
feudal lords (shoguns). In 1571, the Shogun Nobunaga destroyed all the fortified
monasteries, including those on Mt. Hiei; sects were brought under political control, but
scholarship continued; ushers in the Tokugawa period and state Buddhism.
Meiji Restoration of 1868 : inspired by Shinto nationalism, the Meiji government briefly
persecuted the Buddhist sects (which responded by modernizing), and decreed that all
clergy be allowed to marry (hence there are few celibate monks in Japan today). Many
new lay movements, meditation clubs, and social organizations perpetuate Buddhism
among the Japanese. ‘Shrine Shinto’ (declared not religious) was distinguished from
‘Sect Shinto’, and was made the administrative backbone of the country.
Imperial Rescripts of 1890 and 1946 : redefined the role of religious ideas in the imperial state.
Shinto Directive : a proclamation, issued by Allied Occupation forces in Japan at the end of
WWII, disestablishing Shinto as the state religion, and denying the divinity of the
Emperor.
The ‘New Religions’ : a response to formalistic, governmentally established religion, these
movements grew out of Buddhist, Shinto, and Christian bases, and attract large numbers
of adherents by the enthusiasm of their members, their charismatic teachers, simple
doctrines, and promises of personal benefits. Tenrikyo is a Shinto movement the grew
up around Mrs. Nakayama Miki, a farmer’s wife who became a medium for a kami in
1838. Soka Gakkai (“Value Creation Society”), started by the philosopher Makiguchi
(1937) and his disciple Toda, teaches that one can have a happy life by following the
basic practice advocated earlier by Nichiren. The movement has inspired the Komeito
Party in government.