Refiguring East Asian Religious Art: Buddhist Devotion and Funerary Practice
Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago, and Art Media Resources, Inc., 2019. Item #45336
ISBN: 9781588861511
Within the realm of Buddhist art, death is often portrayed not as the end but instead as a new beginning. Examining how pre-modern East Asians related to death as a broad concept is often just as impactful in the study of their culture and artwork as is the study of how they lived from day to day. This volume of twelve chapters is divided into four sections titled "Death of the Buddha and Buddhist Icons," "Kinship and Commemoration," "Filial Piety and Politics," and "Constructing Ritual Space." These chapters explore the powerful transformations that took place within ancient Buddhist societies when the life an individual came to an end and took on new life in unique forms of religious art and architecture. Dealing with concrete historical examples, these essays not only delve deep into the tightly woven interpersonal relationships, loyalties, and intense devotion that led to the creation of these religious and societal practices, they also challenge both the modern scholar and general reader to see with fresh eyes and refigure how we experience, conceptualize, and understand East Asian religious art.
Contributions by: Phillip E. Bloom, Madeleine Boucher, Sun-ah Choi, Liu Cong, Youn-mi Kim, Winston Kyan, Seunghye Lee, Sonya S. Lee, Wei-Cheng Lin, Kate Lingley, Katherine Tsiang, and Akiko Walley.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction by Wu Hung
I. DEATH OF THE BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST ICONS
1. Strike a Chord: The Principle of Resonance in Early East Asian Buddhist Reliquaries
by Akiko Walley
2. “King Aśoka” Reliquaries and Stupa Burials in Medieval China
by Katherine Tsiang
3. Broken Bodies: The Death of Buddhist Icons and Their Changing Ontology in Tenth- through Twelfth-Century China
by Wei-Cheng Lin
II. KINSHIP AND COMMEMORATION
4. Kinship and the Commemoration of the Dead in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Monuments
by Kate Lingley
5. Ancestors, Politicians, and Patrons: Portraits of the Dead in Ninth- and Tenth-Century Dunhuang Mogao Caves
by Madeleine Boucher
6. Tomb and Cave: Reconstructing the Commemorative Space of the Death of Cao Yijin
by Liu Cong
III. FILIAL PIETY AND POLITICS
7. Rethinking Patronage and Filial Piety at Sŏkkuram and Pulguksa in Kyŏngju, Korea
by Sun-ah Choi
8. Pagodas for the Deceased: The Intersection of Buddhism and Funerary Art in Unified Silla
by Youn-mi Kim
9. Female Bodily Sacrifice and the Absence of Men: Representing Filial Offspring in Song, Jin, and Liao Tombs
by Winston Kyan
IV. CONSTRUCTING RITUAL SPACE
10. A Landscape Fit for the Great Buddhas: On Cliff Tombs and Buddhist Cave Temples in Leshan
by Sonya S. Lee
11. Hall of the Underground Palace of the Tianfeng Pagoda: Changing Form, Function, and Meaning of Reliquary Space in Southern Song China
by Seunghye Lee
12. “How Grand Are the Uses of Texts!”: Visions of Paperwork in the Water-Land Retreat
by Phillip E. Bloom
Afterword by Paul Copp
Index
About the Editors and Contributing Authors.
Price: $68.00