Japanese Monks and Chinese Books: Glimpses of Buddhist Sinology in Early Tokugawa Japan

Barrett, Timothy H.

Abstract

In the17th and 18th centuries, just as English scholars were reading and writing about their heritage in the continental prestige language of Latin, so too were Japanese members of the Buddhist clergy researching and publishing about the Chinese language heritage of their own religious tradition, drawing both on new printed books, often imported from China, and on much earlier manuscripts and printed texts preserved in their own country. The importation and reprinting of the canon by Ōbaku monks and the subsequent flowering of Zen scholarship is already well-known, but we should consider the efforts of Shingon monks in commenting on the heritage they received from China eight centuries earlier, and even the activities of Nichiren monks, who took steps to promote the legacy of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism. Critical reflection on the Buddhist tradition may not have emerged in Japan until the 18th century, but it did so in the context of a world of scholarship concerning an imported classical language that certainly stood comparison with that of the contemporary Anglophone world.

Citation

Barrett, T. H. (2021). Japanese Monks and Chinese Books: Glimpses of Buddhist Sinology in Early Tokugawa Japan. Religions, 12(10), Article 871. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100871

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 9, 2021
• Publication Date: Oct 13, 2021
• Deposit Date: Mar 23, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 23, 2025
• Electronic ISSN: 2077-1444
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 10
• Article Number: 871
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100871
• Keywords: TokugenYōson德嚴養存 (1632–1703); Unshō運敞 (1614–1693); SōsanGensei艸山元政 (1623–1668); Nyokai如海 (?-1711); 17th-century Anglo–Japanese comparisons
• Publisher URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/10/871