Embodying Xuanzang
Regular price
€68.99
Regular price
€83.99
Sale
Sale price
€68.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Benjamin Brose
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Benjamin Brose
automatic-update
Buddhism
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSB
Category=HBJF
Category=HRE
Category=NHF
Category=QRF
China
COP=United States
Daoism
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
India
Journey to the West
Language_English
Myth
PA=Available
Pilgrimage
Popular Religion
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
Ritual
softlaunch
Xuanzang
Product details
- ISBN 9780824894900
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 30 Sep 2023
- Publisher: University of Hawai'i Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-year pilgrimage from China to India, his transmission and translation of hundreds of Buddhist texts, and his training of a generation of masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Xuanzang’s life and legacy are the stuff of legend. In the centuries after his death, stories of his epic adventures and extraordinary accomplishments circulated in texts, images, songs, and plays. These mythic accounts recast the erudite pilgrim, translator, and court cleric as a magical monk who traveled not between China and India but between heaven and earth. Beset by bloodthirsty demons, this deified version of Xuanzang navigates the perilous paths of the netherworld to reach a pure land in the west. His purpose is to acquire a cache of sacred scriptures with the power to safeguard the living and deliver the dead. Along the way, he is guided and protected by a mischievous monkey, a lazy pig, a demonic monk, and a dragon horse. This imaginative and compelling tale received its fullest and most influential treatment in the famous sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West.
In this engaging exploration of the confluence of myth, narrative, and ritual, Benjamin Brose uncovers the hidden histories of Xuanzang’s many afterlives. Beginning in the eleventh century and continuing to the present day, devotees have summoned Xuanzang and his band of misfit pilgrims to perform exorcisms, guide the spirits of the dead, and possess the bodies of insurgents. Embodying Xuanzang traces the postmortem travels of China’s greatest pilgrim and reveals the narrative and performative roots of China’s best-known novel.
In this engaging exploration of the confluence of myth, narrative, and ritual, Benjamin Brose uncovers the hidden histories of Xuanzang’s many afterlives. Beginning in the eleventh century and continuing to the present day, devotees have summoned Xuanzang and his band of misfit pilgrims to perform exorcisms, guide the spirits of the dead, and possess the bodies of insurgents. Embodying Xuanzang traces the postmortem travels of China’s greatest pilgrim and reveals the narrative and performative roots of China’s best-known novel.
Benjamin Brose is professor of Buddhist and Chinese studies and chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan.
