The most common Buddhist practice in Asia is bowing, yet Buddhist and Christian Responses to the Kowtow Problem is the first study of Buddhist obeisance in China. In Confucian ritual, everyone is supposed to kowtow, or bow, to the Chinese emperor. But Buddhists claimed exemption from bowing to any layperson, even to their own parents or the emperor. This tension erupted in an imperial debate in 662. This study first asks how and why Buddhists should bow (to the Buddha, and to monks), and then explores the arguments over their refusing to bow to the emperor. These arguments take us into the core ideas of Buddhism and imperial power: How can one achieve nirvana by bowing? What is a Buddha image? Who is it that bows? Is there any ritual that can exempt a subject of the emperor? What are the limits of the state's power over human bodies? Centuries later, Christians had a new set of problems with bowing in China, to the emperor and to “idols.” Buddhist and Christian Responses to the Kowtow problem compares these cases of refusing to bow, discusses modern theories of obeisance, and finally moves to examine some contemporary analogies such as refusing to salute the American flag. Contributing greatly to the study of the body and power, ritual, religion and material culture, this volume is of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, Buddhism, Chinese history and material culture.

The most common Buddhist practice in Asia is bowing, yet Buddhist and Christian Responses to the Kowtow Problem is the first study of Buddhist obeisance in China. In Confucian ritual, everyone is supposed to kowtow, or bow, to the Chinese emperor. But Buddhists claimed exemption from bowing to any layperson, even to their own parents or the emperor. This tension erupted in an imperial debate in 662. This study first asks how and why Buddhists should bow (to the Buddha, and to monks), and then explores the arguments over their refusing to bow to the emperor. These arguments take us into the core ideas of Buddhism and imperial power: How can one achieve nirvana by bowing? What is a Buddha image? Who is it that bows? Is there any ritual that can exempt a subject of the emperor? What are the limits of the state's power over human bodies? Centuries later, Christians had a new set of problems with bowing in China, to the emperor and to “idols.” Buddhist and Christian Responses to the Kowtow problem compares these cases of refusing to bow, discusses modern theories of obeisance, and finally moves to examine some contemporary analogies such as refusing to salute the American flag. Contributing greatly to the study of the body and power, ritual, religion and material culture, this volume is of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, Buddhism, Chinese history and material culture.

With well over 100 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from near-annihilation during the Cultural Revolution to become the largest religion in China today. Despite this, Buddhism’s rise has received relatively little scholarly attention. The present volume, with contributions by leading scholars in sociology, anthropology, political science, and religious studies, explores the evolution of Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period with a depth not seen before in a single study. Chapters critically analyze the effects of state policies on the evolution of Buddhist institutions; the challenge of rebuilding temples under the watchful eye of the state; efforts to rebuild monastic lineages and schools left broken in the aftermath of Mao’s rule; and the development of new lay Buddhist spaces, both at temple sites and online. Through its multidisciplinary perspectives, the book provides both an extensive overview of the social and political conditions under which Buddhism has grown as well as discussions of the individual projects of both monastic and lay entrepreneurs who dynamically and creatively carve out spaces for Buddhist growth in contemporary Chinese society. As a wide-ranging study that illuminates many facets of China’s Buddhist revival, Buddhism after Mao will be required reading for scholars of Chinese Buddhism and of Buddhism and modernity more broadly. Its detailed case studies examining the intersections among religion, state, and contemporary Chinese society will be welcomed by sociologists and anthropologists of China, political scientists focusing on the role of religion in state formation in Asian societies, and all those interested in the relationship between religion and social change.

With his carefully annotated translation of Fozu tongji, juan 39-42, Thomas Jülch enables an in-depth understanding of a key text of Chinese Buddhist historiography.

The matter of saṃgha-state relations is of central importance to both the political and the religious history of China. The volume The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel brings together, for the first time, articles relating to this field covering a time span from the early Tang until the Qing dynasty. In order to portray also the remarkable thematic diversity of the field, each of the articles not only refers to a different time but also discusses a different aspect of the subject. Contributors include: Chris Atwood, Chen Jinhua, Max Deeg, Barend ter Haar, Thomas Jülch, Albert Welter and Zhang Dewei.

In Song-period China (960–1279 CE), masters in the Chan (Japanese Zen) school of Buddhism were presented as sources of religious authority on par with the Buddha, an almost unthinkably lofty status before the rise of Chan. This claim carried great rhetorical power, facilitating Chan’s appeal to Buddhist monastics and powerful patrons alike. But it also raised a challenging question for Chan Buddhists, who insisted that buddhahood properly transcends all worldly marks: By what signs could one recognize a Chan master as a buddha? Discerning Buddhas argues that Chan Buddhists wove together tropes of sovereignty, hospitality, and martial heroism drawn from both Buddhist tradition and China’s cultural heritage to develop a distinctive vision of what it meant for a Chan master to be a buddha in Song-period China. Kevin Buckelew analyzes the ways Chan Buddhists deployed such tropes in ritual, literature, and visual culture in order to stage the comparison of Chan mastery with buddhahood. He examines how they used the concept of buddhahood to work through questions about the ideal Chan master’s authority, agency, and masculinity, in the process rendering buddhahood in terms highly legible to elite Chinese society. Chan Buddhists, Buckelew shows, developed their own “signature” of buddhahood, according to which enlightened Chan masters who truly deserved comparison to the Buddha were supposed to be distinguished from everyone else. By exploring the resulting Chan culture of discernment, which raised fundamental questions about Buddhist authority at a pivotal inflection point in Chinese history, this book offers fresh insight into the place of Buddhism in Chinese society.

An essential piece in California Studies, Redemptive Dreams: Engaging Kevin Starr’s California offers the first critical engagement with the vision of California’s most ambitious interpreter. While Starr’s multifaceted and polymathic vision of California offered a unique gaze—synthesizing central features, big themes, and incredible problems with the propitious golden dream—his eight-volume California Dream series, along with several other books and thousands of published articles and essays, often puzzled historians and other scholars. Historians in the contemporary school of critical historiography often found Starr’s narrative approach—seeking to tell the internal drama of the California story—to be less attuned to the most important work happening in the field. Such a perspective fails to acknowledge key developments in historical subfields like Black and African American Studies, Chicana/o/x Studies, Asian Studies, Native Studies, and others that draw from the narrative in their critical work and how this relates to Starr’s contribution. But it also neglects Starr as a theological interpreter. Along with being a major figure in California institutional life, with literary output spanning genres from journalism to critical cultural and political commentary, to history and memoir, Starr’s unique contribution to California Studies as a distinctly Catholic historian has yet to be adequately understood. Through his lived experience as a devout Catholic to the particular theological features of this faith tradition that animated his views, this critical sociological perspective sheds new light on his project. With contributions from sociology, history, and theology, akin to investigations appearing in Theology and California: Theological Refractions on California’s Culture (Routledge), Redemptive Dreams offers interdisciplinary perspectives that highlight key features inherent in interdisciplinary theological reflection on place and illuminates these diverse disciplinary discourses as they appear in Starr’s articulation of the California Dream. Such a vision remains important for reckoning with California’s place in the world.