Introduction to the book. surveys the other essays in the book, and the history of various conce... more Introduction to the book. surveys the other essays in the book, and the history of various concepts of memory, mindfulness, smṛti derivatives, and other terms
This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life S... more This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life Story and attempts to analyse how they work in the narrative. It advances a theory about the "literary affordances" of texts, which make possible varying levels of detail, irony, suspended resolution, and multiple points of view, and which serve to enhance the interest and impact of the story. It also argues that there is a discernible self-reflexivity when texts take advantage of these kinds of license, seemingly delighting in their own artfulness. The essay examines several episodes in the Life Story which illustrate these features of the work's literary brilliance. 1. Gtsang smyon 2007. In this essay I refer mostly to Quintman 2010. The first complete English translation of the work to my knowledge was Evans-Wentz 1928. I would like to express thanks to Charles Hallisey, who drew my attention, long ago, to the literary critical strategy of paying attention to point of view. journal of tibetan literature 186 in terms of their style, structure, and impact on the reader. Something like what is referred to as belle lettres. More specifically, I myself have long considered the category of "literature" to apply to any verbal presentation that takes advantage of its own mechanisms-the very possibilities that the medium of literature itself offers, or affords-to convey feelings and experiences and kinds of knowledge beyond the purely documentary, or descriptive. 2 A literary verbal presentation, or text, can be written or oral; in this essay, the text under consideration is written (although it may well have some oral roots). But either way, there is a kind of second-order self-reflexivity at the very heart of the literary; part of what is brought to the fore in any literary presentation, quite apart from the actual story that is being told, is the very fact itself that special affordances of the verbal are now in play. This does not impute "consciousness" to literature, although it may sound like it. Rather, I am merely suggesting a kind of self-referentiality, in line with what literary critic Julia Kristeva hypothesized is at the very heart of the "semiotic" dimension of literature. 3 Note that this definition sets aside authorial intent, although surely the literary is often created consciously and intentionally. But it does not have to be. It can also come into being intuitively, or spontaneously, even accidentally, through a writer's hand. But whether deliberate or not, in literature the verbal medium, the very nature of a textual topos, serves to convey something beyond the direct denotations of each word and/or utterance. The verbal medium thereby does more than convey what we can loosely call, after Dominick LeCapra, the documentary, or information of practical import. 4 Rather, the literary indulges in its own resources to "work" on its readers, creating kinds of aesthetic and affective resonances-sadness, joy, irony, humor, wonder-with what is being conveyed. There is also a sense of play, and freedom to play, in what the literary entails. There is a sense of reveling in the very license that literature affords to enjoy, or commiserate, or laugh. This in turn makes for a second-order self-reflexivity. Literature often gives the impression of taking pleasure in being literature. Among the affordances that the medium of a verbal presentation, or textual topos, offers for the birth of literature is the ability to make use of timing. It offers options to draw some things out in detail, and others to say summarily, in order both to give emphasis and even suspense, and to accord with the familiar experience in daily life wherein not all things operate with the same swiftness, nor are they governed by a strict clock. Repetition is another device that texts allow that serves to arrest the attention or also subvert any regimented process of unfolding according to a clock. The inordinate amount of fine-grained detail that written texts allow, detail that may be extraneous to the central message of a work, can instead serve to set off the imagination. Lit-2. LeCapra 1983. 3. She develops this theory in her book Revolution in Poetic Language.
Ranging from the 11th to the 20th century, ritual silk brocade garments, painted leather pieces, ... more Ranging from the 11th to the 20th century, ritual silk brocade garments, painted leather pieces, ceremonial silver objects, intricately worked objects, prayer wheels and Buddhist paintings and sculpture are all lavishly illustrated in this book. Scenes of everyday life, the role of the nobility and the official Buddhist establishment are covered in the essays.
14 Longchenpa and the Possession of the Dakinis David Germano and Janet Gyatso Lay communities of... more 14 Longchenpa and the Possession of the Dakinis David Germano and Janet Gyatso Lay communities of itinerant yogins and yoginis have been a vital dimension of Tibetan Buddhist culture from at least the ninth century onward. These com-munities were almost always irreducibly ...
The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava: The Indian Consort of Padmasambhava This lucid tr... more The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava: The Indian Consort of Padmasambhava This lucid translation of a rare Tibetan text makes available for the first time to Western readers the remarkable life story of Princess Madarava. As the principal consort of the eighth century Indian master Padmasambhava before he introduced tantric Buddhism to Tibet, Mandarava is the Indian counterpart of the Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal. Lives and Liberation recounts her struggles and triumphs as a Buddhist adept throughout her many lives and is an authentic deliverance story of a female Buddhist master. Those who read this book will gain inspiration and encouragement on the path to liberation.
This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life S... more This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life Story and attempts to analyse how they work in the narrative. It advances a theory about the "literary affordances" of texts, which make possible varying levels of detail, irony, suspended resolution, and multiple points of view, and which serve to enhance the interest and impact of the story. It also argues that there is a discernible self-reflexivity when texts take advantage of these kinds of license, seemingly delighting in their own artfulness. The essay examines several episodes in the Life Story which illustrate these features of the work's literary brilliance.
48 pp. unnumbered Chinese characters and transliterations. This volume (after a review of French ... more 48 pp. unnumbered Chinese characters and transliterations. This volume (after a review of French literature on ancient Indian hagiography in French by A. Couture) contains six carefully researched articles that intend to treat Asian religious biographies "not as historical records but as religious texts" with a focus on their "religious and cultural significance" (pp. 7, 8). In two studies on the medieval Jain prabandha corpus, P. Granoff asks how Buddhist Nagarjuna became a Jain hero, and how Arya Khapata's life story was adapted in light of polemics. From another historical perspective, E. Dargyay notes the emergence of a new imperial ideal in the transformation of secular Tibetan king Srong-btsan sgam-po into a Buddhist saint. K. Shinohara expands the world of biographical texts through a look at the relation between stupa inscriptions and what became remarkably pervasive Chinese Buddhist miracle stories. Also concerned with Chinese Buddhist life stories, Yiin-hua Jan articulates the strengths, limits, and functions of biography and autobiography in a study of Tsung-mi; and A. Welter, alert to the disjunction between "fact" and "fiction," notes the impact of community interest on the biographical identity of Yung-ming Yen-shou. While new biographical terrain with respect to both content and method is explored, two important factors in this decidedly historical volume are neglected: the broader context of cross-cultural hermeneutics and the question of truth value in relation to historical reductionism. The book, "meant as a first step in a long journey" (p. 7), makes impressive strides in examining the constitution and formation of biography, but leaves the identification of a peculiarly religious genre underdeveloped. Numerous technical notes (making up about one-third of the volume, with half again as many unnumbered pages of Chinese transliterations) contain a wealth of historical and bibliographical information that render the book valuable as a research tool. A future edition would be well served, however, with an index, discrete bibliographies, and a more extensive introduction. [VICTORIA URUBSHUROW, Catholic University] Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing the Bittersweet Ethnology of East Indies History, Hindu-Balinese Culture, and Indo-European Allure. By JAMES BOON. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Pp. xviii+246. $45.00 (cloth); $14.95 (paper).
Introduction to the book. surveys the other essays in the book, and the history of various conce... more Introduction to the book. surveys the other essays in the book, and the history of various concepts of memory, mindfulness, smṛti derivatives, and other terms
This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life S... more This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life Story and attempts to analyse how they work in the narrative. It advances a theory about the "literary affordances" of texts, which make possible varying levels of detail, irony, suspended resolution, and multiple points of view, and which serve to enhance the interest and impact of the story. It also argues that there is a discernible self-reflexivity when texts take advantage of these kinds of license, seemingly delighting in their own artfulness. The essay examines several episodes in the Life Story which illustrate these features of the work's literary brilliance. 1. Gtsang smyon 2007. In this essay I refer mostly to Quintman 2010. The first complete English translation of the work to my knowledge was Evans-Wentz 1928. I would like to express thanks to Charles Hallisey, who drew my attention, long ago, to the literary critical strategy of paying attention to point of view. journal of tibetan literature 186 in terms of their style, structure, and impact on the reader. Something like what is referred to as belle lettres. More specifically, I myself have long considered the category of "literature" to apply to any verbal presentation that takes advantage of its own mechanisms-the very possibilities that the medium of literature itself offers, or affords-to convey feelings and experiences and kinds of knowledge beyond the purely documentary, or descriptive. 2 A literary verbal presentation, or text, can be written or oral; in this essay, the text under consideration is written (although it may well have some oral roots). But either way, there is a kind of second-order self-reflexivity at the very heart of the literary; part of what is brought to the fore in any literary presentation, quite apart from the actual story that is being told, is the very fact itself that special affordances of the verbal are now in play. This does not impute "consciousness" to literature, although it may sound like it. Rather, I am merely suggesting a kind of self-referentiality, in line with what literary critic Julia Kristeva hypothesized is at the very heart of the "semiotic" dimension of literature. 3 Note that this definition sets aside authorial intent, although surely the literary is often created consciously and intentionally. But it does not have to be. It can also come into being intuitively, or spontaneously, even accidentally, through a writer's hand. But whether deliberate or not, in literature the verbal medium, the very nature of a textual topos, serves to convey something beyond the direct denotations of each word and/or utterance. The verbal medium thereby does more than convey what we can loosely call, after Dominick LeCapra, the documentary, or information of practical import. 4 Rather, the literary indulges in its own resources to "work" on its readers, creating kinds of aesthetic and affective resonances-sadness, joy, irony, humor, wonder-with what is being conveyed. There is also a sense of play, and freedom to play, in what the literary entails. There is a sense of reveling in the very license that literature affords to enjoy, or commiserate, or laugh. This in turn makes for a second-order self-reflexivity. Literature often gives the impression of taking pleasure in being literature. Among the affordances that the medium of a verbal presentation, or textual topos, offers for the birth of literature is the ability to make use of timing. It offers options to draw some things out in detail, and others to say summarily, in order both to give emphasis and even suspense, and to accord with the familiar experience in daily life wherein not all things operate with the same swiftness, nor are they governed by a strict clock. Repetition is another device that texts allow that serves to arrest the attention or also subvert any regimented process of unfolding according to a clock. The inordinate amount of fine-grained detail that written texts allow, detail that may be extraneous to the central message of a work, can instead serve to set off the imagination. Lit-2. LeCapra 1983. 3. She develops this theory in her book Revolution in Poetic Language.
Ranging from the 11th to the 20th century, ritual silk brocade garments, painted leather pieces, ... more Ranging from the 11th to the 20th century, ritual silk brocade garments, painted leather pieces, ceremonial silver objects, intricately worked objects, prayer wheels and Buddhist paintings and sculpture are all lavishly illustrated in this book. Scenes of everyday life, the role of the nobility and the official Buddhist establishment are covered in the essays.
14 Longchenpa and the Possession of the Dakinis David Germano and Janet Gyatso Lay communities of... more 14 Longchenpa and the Possession of the Dakinis David Germano and Janet Gyatso Lay communities of itinerant yogins and yoginis have been a vital dimension of Tibetan Buddhist culture from at least the ninth century onward. These com-munities were almost always irreducibly ...
The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava: The Indian Consort of Padmasambhava This lucid tr... more The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava: The Indian Consort of Padmasambhava This lucid translation of a rare Tibetan text makes available for the first time to Western readers the remarkable life story of Princess Madarava. As the principal consort of the eighth century Indian master Padmasambhava before he introduced tantric Buddhism to Tibet, Mandarava is the Indian counterpart of the Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal. Lives and Liberation recounts her struggles and triumphs as a Buddhist adept throughout her many lives and is an authentic deliverance story of a female Buddhist master. Those who read this book will gain inspiration and encouragement on the path to liberation.
This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life S... more This essay explores some of the outstanding literary flourishes of Tsangnyon Heruka's Mila Life Story and attempts to analyse how they work in the narrative. It advances a theory about the "literary affordances" of texts, which make possible varying levels of detail, irony, suspended resolution, and multiple points of view, and which serve to enhance the interest and impact of the story. It also argues that there is a discernible self-reflexivity when texts take advantage of these kinds of license, seemingly delighting in their own artfulness. The essay examines several episodes in the Life Story which illustrate these features of the work's literary brilliance.
48 pp. unnumbered Chinese characters and transliterations. This volume (after a review of French ... more 48 pp. unnumbered Chinese characters and transliterations. This volume (after a review of French literature on ancient Indian hagiography in French by A. Couture) contains six carefully researched articles that intend to treat Asian religious biographies "not as historical records but as religious texts" with a focus on their "religious and cultural significance" (pp. 7, 8). In two studies on the medieval Jain prabandha corpus, P. Granoff asks how Buddhist Nagarjuna became a Jain hero, and how Arya Khapata's life story was adapted in light of polemics. From another historical perspective, E. Dargyay notes the emergence of a new imperial ideal in the transformation of secular Tibetan king Srong-btsan sgam-po into a Buddhist saint. K. Shinohara expands the world of biographical texts through a look at the relation between stupa inscriptions and what became remarkably pervasive Chinese Buddhist miracle stories. Also concerned with Chinese Buddhist life stories, Yiin-hua Jan articulates the strengths, limits, and functions of biography and autobiography in a study of Tsung-mi; and A. Welter, alert to the disjunction between "fact" and "fiction," notes the impact of community interest on the biographical identity of Yung-ming Yen-shou. While new biographical terrain with respect to both content and method is explored, two important factors in this decidedly historical volume are neglected: the broader context of cross-cultural hermeneutics and the question of truth value in relation to historical reductionism. The book, "meant as a first step in a long journey" (p. 7), makes impressive strides in examining the constitution and formation of biography, but leaves the identification of a peculiarly religious genre underdeveloped. Numerous technical notes (making up about one-third of the volume, with half again as many unnumbered pages of Chinese transliterations) contain a wealth of historical and bibliographical information that render the book valuable as a research tool. A future edition would be well served, however, with an index, discrete bibliographies, and a more extensive introduction. [VICTORIA URUBSHUROW, Catholic University] Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing the Bittersweet Ethnology of East Indies History, Hindu-Balinese Culture, and Indo-European Allure. By JAMES BOON. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Pp. xviii+246. $45.00 (cloth); $14.95 (paper).
Page 1. //MIRROR A. T JL-l^AX*A X. X^r A X. - - of Mindfulness and Remembrance in. ... Page 5. I... more Page 1. //MIRROR A. T JL-l^AX*A X. X^r A X. - - of Mindfulness and Remembrance in. ... Page 5. In the Mirror of Memory Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism EDITED BY JANET GYATSO State University of New York Press Page 6. ...
in highlighting the dynamic relationship between texts (p. 137), while neglecting to mention the ... more in highlighting the dynamic relationship between texts (p. 137), while neglecting to mention the key importance of the concept of huwen in the theory and practice of the Chinese literary tradition. That being said,Modern Archaics substantially revises our understanding of poetic writing and the modern literary canon in China. It is part of a larger move to excavate “alternative” traditions and practices in modern Chinese literature and culture. Students and scholars of Chinese literature and culture, especially its classical tradition and modern transformations, will benefit greatly fromWu’s important contribution to the field of both classical and modern Chinese literary studies.
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