A01=Soho Machida
amidism
amitabha sutra
Author_Soho Machida
buddhism
Category=DNBH
Category=NHF
Category=QDH
Category=QRF
contemplation sutra
cosmology
death
eastern asia
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethics
hell
honen
honenbo genku
infinite life sutra
japan
japanese buddhism
japanese religions
kyoto
liberation theology
mahayana buddhism
major world religions
medieval japanese history
pure land buddhism
pure land sect
pure land teachings
pure land traditions
radical thought
religion
revolutionary social movement
sutras
the buddha
the buddha amitabha
theology
vindictive spirits
Product details
- ISBN 9780520211797
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Apr 1999
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism is one of the strongest Buddhist sects in Japan, with three and a half million followers. In this book, Soho Machida provides the first detailed, objective account in English of the life and thought of its founder, Honenbo Genku (1133-1212), known as Honen. Opening with the destruction and chaos that beleaguered Kyoto during Honen's lifetime, Soho Machida explores Honen's social context to discover the roots of his thought and the source of his popularity. The Old Buddhist regime had a stranglehold on peasants, he shows, by concocting images of vindictive spirits, hell, and an apocalyptic collapse of the law in these chaotic times. Machida asserts that when Honen countered such negative, menacing images by focusing his imagination on the Pure Land and actually affirming death, he became not only a radical thinker but also the leader of a revolutionary social movement - a medieval Japanese "liberation theology." Clearly argued and informed by contemporary Western theory, this book will become the definitive source on Honen's life and thought for decades to come.
Soho Machida is Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at National University. Ioannis Mentzas is a Ph.D. candidate in the Deptartment of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
