Important Data Since the Midterm Exam (Rel. 103)
__________________________________________________________
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 tian-ming (“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 self-oriented 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 "buddha-nature." 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 tax-free 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 Susa-no-o Mikoto. The other gods enticed her to come out with prayer, music, and dance such as is performed in worship.