ABSTRACT
Buddhist monasteries, with their sumptuous architecture, ornate furnishings, and striking natural settings, have always stuck out dramatically on the religious landscapes of Asia. Buddhist monasteries have constituted one of the most visible aspects of the Buddhist tradition, but until recently it has been rather rare to fi nd explicit refl ection on those fundamental elements of Buddhist practice.1 While the term monastery appears on fi rst glance to refer unproblematically to religious institutions that we all seem to have a general understanding of, it is worth noting how the topic of monasticism rarely enters into the discourse on religion in a neutral way, as the writings of Edward Gibbon and Max Weber attest.2 Monasteries, as we shall see, have also been contested grounds within Buddhist studies, with much of that contestation centering on their nature and function across diverse cultures and vast historical periods. Therefore, any answer to the most basic question: “What is a Buddhist monastery?” will necessarily be as complex and multifarious as the diverse religious, historical and cultural contexts within which they have existed. Although the topic of Buddhist monasticism has long attracted the interests of Buddhist studies scholars and historians of religion, most representations of those entities have tended to be far more unifi ed than their historical realities would suggest. The goal of this Introduction-and the collection of papers presented here-is not, therefore, to present a normative description of a singular entity called “the Buddhist monastery,” and in the process try to house a variety of different institutional entities under a single roof. Rather, this volume aims to capture some sense of the multiplicity-both within and across traditions-of those institutions. The essays gathered here focus on facets of the religious, social, cultural, artistic and political functions of Buddhist monasteries in medieval China and Japan. It should therefore be stated clearly at the outset that this volume does not aim to constitute a comprehensive history of monasticism in Asia. There are no chapters on other forms of monasticism, such as Daoist monasticism, the role of nuns and nunneries is touched on only in passing here, and there is no treatment of Korean monasticism, Tibetan monasticism, or more contemporary forms of monasticism in East Asia.3 Rather, what are presented here are selected topics of East Asian Buddhist monasticism. In this Introduction I do not intend to review all the recent, and not so recent, literature on Buddhist monasteries or to explore the full range of issues addressed by that literature here, since that project would
require a separate monograph. Instead, I shall limit myself to a discussion of some key issues that lie in the background of-or provide some context to-the topics explored by the individual authors. If there is one thing that we can say for certain about Buddhist monasteries and monasticism it is that they warrant the sustained attention of scholars of Buddhist studies, since what goes on inside and outside of their imposing gates is of central concern to our understanding of Buddhism as it functioned as a living religious tradition.
