What are the foundational scriptures and major schools for Chinese Buddhists? What divinities do they worship? What festivals do they celebrate? These are some of the basic questions addressed in this book, the first introduction to Chinese Buddhism written expressly for students and those interested in an accessible yet authoritative overview of the subject based on current scholarship. After presenting the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings and the Chinese religious traditions, the book focuses on topics essential for understanding Chinese Buddhism: major scriptures, worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, rituals and festivals, the monastic order, Buddhist schools such as Tiantai and Chan, Buddhism and gender, and current trends—notably humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan and the resurgence of Buddhism in post-Mao China. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. A convenient glossary of common terms, titles, and names is included.

In 1967 a body of Chinese texts was discovered in a tomb outside Shanghai. It contained a set of unique examples of an oral genre favoured by unlearned classes in the late imperial period (15th century), best called 'chantefables', appearing at the beginning of a profound historical shift which resulted in a broadening of the uses of writing and printing in China. These texts are now generally seen to occupy an important place in the development of Chinese literature as a whole, and of Chinese vernacular literature in particular. In the first monographic treatment of all the chantefable corpus in English the author, by examination from a more anthropological view, points out that these 'oral traditional texts' can only be appreciated in the festival, ritual and performative context of their derivation and reception. Topics dealt with in this important work include the popular interpretation of Confucian orthodoxies, the literary recycling of the oral tradition, and the influence of chantefables on the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. The author offers interesting comparative perspective on the different social consequences of print technology in China and the West. Illustrations of ten chantefable woodblocks are included.

Aufsatzsammlung.

New identifications of the 460 bas-reliefs of Borobudur illustrating the Gandavy?ha, based upon a comparison with the contents of three early Chinese translations of Sanskrit manuscripts of the text of Central Asian or Indian provenance.

Signposts to Silence provides a theoretical map of what it terms ‘metaphysical mysticism’: the search for the furthest, most inclusive horizon, the domain of silence, which underlies the religious and metaphysical urge of humankind in its finest forms. Tracing the footsteps of pioneers of this exploration, the investigation also documents a number of historical pilgrimages from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds. Such mountaineers of the spirit, who created paths trodden by groups of followers over centuries and in some cases millennia, include Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu, Siddhattha and Jesus, Sankara and Fa-tsang, Plato and Plotinus, Isaac Luria and Ibn Arabi, Aquinas and Hegel. Such figures, teachings and traditions (including the religions of ‘Judaism’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘Islam’; ‘Hinduism’, ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Taoism’) are understood as, at their most sublime, not final destiny and the end of the road, but signposts to a horizon of ultimate silence. The hermeneutical method employed in tracking such pioneers involves four steps: • sound historical-critical understanding of the context of the various traditions and figures • reconstruction of the subjective intentional structure of such persons and their teachings • design, by the author, of a theoretical map of the overall terrain of ‘metaphysical mysticism’, on which all such journeys of the spirit are to be located, while providing a theoretical context for understanding them tendentionally (i.e. taking the ultimate drift of their thinking essentially to transcend their subjective intentions) • drawing out, within the space available, some political (taken in a wide sense) implications from the above, such as religio-political stances as well as ecological and gender implications. Continuing the general direction of thought within what the author endorses to be the best in metaphysical mysticism in its historical manifestations, the book aims to contribute to peace amongst religions in the contemporary global cultural situation. It relativizes all claims to exclusive, absolute truth that might be proclaimed by any religious or metaphysical, mystical position, while providing space for not only tolerating, but also affirming the unique value and dignity of each. This orientation moves beyond the stances of enmity or indifference or syncretism or homogenisation of all, as well as that of mere friendly toleration. It investigates the seemingly daunting and inhospitable yet immensely significant Antarctica of the Spirit, the ‘meta’-space of silence behind the various forms of wordy ‘inter’-relationships. It affirms pars pro toto, totum pro parte, and pars pro parte: that each religious, mystical and metaphysical orientation in its relative singularity represents or contains the whole and derives value from that, and that each represents or contains every other. This homoversal solidarity stimulating individual uniqueness is different from and in fact implies criticism of the process of globalisation. While not taking part in a scientific argument as such, Signposts to Silence aims at promoting an understanding of science and metaphysical mysticism as mutual context for each other, and it listens to a number of voices from the domain of science that understand this.

A 1991 bestseller in South Korea, where it was serialized in that country's largest newspaper, Little Pilgrim is a tale of adventure and self-discovery in the tradition of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Based on the Gandavyuha, one of Buddhism's deepest and most challenging scriptures, Ko Un's Little Pilgrim relates the heroic journey of Sudhana, who sets out to discover what is truth. Throughout 20 years of fantastic travels, Sudhana encounters teachers that are human, animal, and spirit as he navigates mountain vistas, lush valleys, and remote villages. Drawing from his own 20-year journey, as well as first-hand experiences with war and monastic life, Ko Un infuses his book with reflections and memories, creating fascinating characters and a vibrant story. The pinnacle of Ko Un's career as a writer and as a man in search of truth, as well as the first of Ko Un's works of fiction to be translated into English, Little Pilgrim is a poignant voyage that resonates on many levels. "A man of great insight." —Thich Nhat Hanh

This volume includes the editorial “The absconded subject of Pop,” by Thomas Crow; “Enlivening the soul in Chinese tombs,” by Wu Hung; “On the ‘true body’ of Huineng,” by Michele Matteini; “Apparition painting,” by Yukio Lippit; “Immanence out of sight,” by Joyce Cheng; “Absconding in plain sight,” by Roberta Bonetti; “Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen,” by Megan E. O’Neil; “Style and substance, or why the Cacaxtla paintings were buried,” by Claudia Brittenham; “The Parthenon frieze,” by Clemente Marconi; “Roma sotterranea and the biogenesis of New Jerusalem,” by Irina Oryshkevich; “Out of sight, yet still in place,” by Minou Schraven; “Behind closed doors,” by Melissa R. Katz; “Moving eyes,” by Bissera V. Pentcheva; “‘A secret kind of charm not to be expressed or discerned,’” by Rebecca Zorach; “Ivory towers,” by Richard Taws; “Boxed in,” by Miranda Lash; “A concrete experience of nothing,” by William S. Smith; “Believing in art,” by Irene V. Small; “Repositories of the unconditional,” by Gabriele Guercio; “From micro/macrocosm to the aesthetics of ruins and waste-bodies,” by Jeanette Zwingenberger; “Are shadows transparent?” by Roberto Casati; “Invisibility of the digital,” by Boris Groys; “Des formes et des catégories,” by Remo Guidieri; and “Further comments on ‘Absconding,’” by Francesco Pellizzi.

The papers in this volume all result from field work in the Indian Himalayas and the TAR conducted by the Interdisciplinary Research Unit, Austrian Science Fund. While the research goals were established within the framework of transdisciplinary research, each scholar approaches scientific problems according to the methodologies associated with their respective disciplines: philology, philosophy, history, art history, linguistics, and anthropology. In the contribution published here, Steinkellner, Klimburg-Salter, Widorn, and Jahoda explicate the structure, methods, and advantages of transdisciplinary research. Lasic and Tauscher analyse two different philosophical questions on the basis of manuscripts from Tabo (Spiti) and Gondhla (Lahaul). Pasang Wangdu, Tropper and Ponweiser each examine a Buddhist monument from a different perspective: Keru (TAR), Wanla (Ladakh), and Tabo. Papa-Kalantari and Hein discuss respectively an iconographic problem and oral traditions from Spiti and upper Kinnaur.

Essays discussing transdisciplinary methodology introduce case studies on Buddhist manuscripts, inscriptions, art and oral traditions of the Indian Himalayas and Central Tibet. The research was carried out within the context of an Interdisciplinary Research Unit financed by the Austrian Science Fund.