Accession rituals and Buddhism in medieval Japan

PAN GU and His Descendants: Chinese Cosmology in Medieval Japan

Chinese cosmology has had a deep impact on Japanese culture, not only on the philosophical plane, but also in the religious domain. Under a mythologic and ritual form, Chinese notions such as the theory of the Five Phases or Agents (wuxing) spread throughout medieval Japan,through the intermediary of the so-called Way of Yin and Yang (Onmyôdô). The present article examines the development of th...

Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-christianity, and the Danka System

Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan is a very important book providing a detailed explanation of a vital part of early modern Japanese Buddhism that goes a long way to putting in perspective how the religious tradition functions in the contemporary world. To put in context the contributions of the book, it can be noted that visitors to Japan who are curious about the role of Buddhism in re...

Buddhism Architecture in Northwestern Iran

Architecture is not only a complex including materials and methods to provide a shelter for human beings, but also it is an expression of the society, which created that. Its form will be the reflection of values and religious orientation besides social maturity of the related society and its structure will narrate the nature, power and different dimensions of mythical and psychological aspects...

Placing Nichiren in the “Big Picture” Some Ongoing Issues in Scholarship

This article places Nichiren within the context of three larger scholarly issues: de3nitions of the new Buddhist movements of the Kamakura period; the reception of the Tendai discourse of original enlightenment (hongaku) among the new Buddhist movements; and new attempts, emerging in the medieval period, to locate “Japan” in the cosmos and in history. It shows how Nichiren has been represented ...

Jøkei and Hønen: Debating Buddhist Liberation in Medieval Japan—Then and Now