[Buddha-l] H-Net Review Publication: 'The Material World of Japanese Buddhism'

[JKirkpatrick]

X-posted: some interesting ideas here about buddha nature.
Long review. check out the whole thing on H-Buddhism.

JK
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H-ASIA
July 28, 2010

Book Review (orig pub. H-Buddhism) by Pamela Winfield on Fabio
Rambelli.
_Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects

(x-post H-Review)
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From: H-Net Staff <revhelp at MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU>

Fabio Rambelli.  Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of
Objects in Japanese Buddhism.  Palo Alto  Stanford University
Press, 2007.
xiv + 394 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-5682-2.

Reviewed by Pamela Winfield (Elon University) Published on
H-Buddhism (July, 2010) Commissioned by Gereon Kopf

The Material World of Japanese Buddhism

Fabio Rambelli has long been known in the field of Japanese
Buddhist studies for his scholarship on Shinto-Buddhist
syncretism and Shingon semiotics and secrecy. He now brings these
areas of expertise to bear on a sweeping analysis of the
philosophical underpinnings and real-world ramifications of the
Buddhist views of objects. In _Buddhist Materiality_, Rambelli
specifically focuses on the tangible stuff of the material
universe that so often gets overlooked by Buddhist discourses on
meditation and intangible states of mind. He considers not only
the obvious topics of ritual implements and icons but also some
not so obvious topics that trigger methodological innovations and
insights. These include the consideration of scriptures as
performance objects and not just subjects of hermeneutical
exegesis; trees as embodiments of Buddha-nature and not just
Shinto animism with all its nativist and "vague environmental"
associations; and professional tools as religious commodities
that along with other inanimate objects directly benefited temple
economies through special deconsecration, disposal, and memorial
rites (_kuy?_) (p. 3).......