Leaving for the Rising Sun: Chinese Zen master Yinyuan and the authenticity crisis in early modern East Asia

New York: Oxford University Press (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In 1654 Zen Master Yinyuan traveled from China to Japan. Seven years later his monastery, Manpukuji, was built and he had founded his own tradition called Obaku. The sequel to Jiang Wu's 2008 book Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China, Leaving for the Rising Sun tells the story of the tremendous obstacles Yinyuan faced, drawing parallels between his experiences and the broader political and cultural context in which he lived. Yinyuan claimed to have inherited the "Authentic Transmission of the Linji Sect" and, after arriving in Japan, was able to persuade the Shogun to build a new Ming-style monastery for the establishment of his Obaku school. His arrival in Japan coincided with a series of historical developments including the Ming-Qing transition, the consolidation of early Tokugawa power, the growth of Nagasaki trade, and rising Japanese interest in Chinese learning and artistic pursuits. While Yinyuan's travel has been noted, the significance of his journey within East Asian history has not yet been fully explored. Jiang Wu's thorough study of Yinyuan provides a unique opportunity to reexamine the crisis in the continent and responses from other parts of East Asia. Using Yinyuan's story to bridge China and Japan, Wu demonstrates that the monk's significance is far greater than the temporary success of a religious sect. Rather, Yinyuan imported to Japan a new discourse of authenticity that gave rise to indigenous movements that challenged a China-centered world order. Such indigenous movements, however, although appearing independent from Chinese influence, in fact largely relied on redefining the traditional Chinese discourse of authenticity. Chinese monks such as Yinyuan, though situated at the edge of the political and social arenas, actively participated in the formation of a new discourse on authenticity, which eventually led to the breakup of a China-centered world order.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,248

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

History of Zen.Yu-Hsiu Ku - 2016 - Singapore: Imprint: Springer.
Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies ed. by Steven Heine.Eitan Bolokan - 2016 - Philosophy East and West 66 (1):348-351.
Zen masters of Japan: the second step East.Richard Bryan McDaniel - 2013 - North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-12-15

Downloads
14 (#1,298,981)

6 months
1 (#1,865,674)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references