A01=Huaiyu Chen
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animal studies
animals
Author_Huaiyu Chen
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Buddhism
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HRKN
Category=QRRL
Confucianism
COP=United States
Daoism
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environmental studies
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eq_nobargain
iconography
Language_English
medieval Chinese culture
medieval Chinese religion
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parrots
Price_€100 and above
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religious studies
snakes
softlaunch
tigers
visual studies
Product details
- ISBN 9780231202602
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 21 Mar 2023
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment.
Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans.
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.
Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans.
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.
Huaiyu Chen is an associate professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of The Revival of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval China (2007) and coeditor of Great Journeys Across the Pamir Mountains: A Festschrift in Honor of Zhang Guangda on His Eighty-fifth Birthday (2018), among other books.
