Dharma in Common: Yuanzhao and the Resurgence of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval East Asia

Abstract

This dissertation utilizes a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective to uncover how intellectual and material exchange between China and Japan led to monastic revival movements in both countries. Grounded in the shared commentarial tradition on monastic rules in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya (Chi. Sifenlü, Jpn. Shibunritsu 四分律), I interpret how Buddhists negotiated the tension between fidelity to the original Vinaya and their localized social reality, which led not only to renewed monastic daily practice but to new religious movements on a larger scale. The revitalized intellectual tradition of monastic rules on the continent was transmitted to Japan through cultural exchanges by Buddhist clerics. Nonetheless, communication did not take place only through texts. I also trace the movements and networks of people, ideas, and material culture through woodblock prints, picture scrolls, portraits, statues, relics, etc. Against the backdrop of a shared sense of the Final Dharma period, Vinaya merged with practices for rebirth in the Pure Land. I explore the understudied connection between the combined practices of the Vinaya and Pure Land from the continent to Japanese Pure Land schools. In an effort to stay true to the origin of Buddhism, Buddhists created a new body of texts, doctrines, objects, and practices; re-defining monasticism and casting a long shadow on the post-medieval period. My study revolves around the pivotal figure of Yuanzhao (1048-1116), a Northern Song Vinaya master, demonstrating how his reinterpretation of Daoxuan’s (596-667) commentaries on the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya has inspired and informed the monastic revival movements in medieval China and Japan. The project explores critical issues for Buddhist monasticism, including theoretical conceptualization for the formation of the religious self by means of receiving and observing Buddhist precepts, and ways to organize communal daily life according to monastic rules. It provides a multifaceted perspective for understanding the significance of Buddhist monasticism as situated within the central connecting points of doctrine, everyday practice, soteriology, material culture, community identity, and social embeddedness. The establishment of the Vinaya school in medieval China is one direct result of a resurgent interest in the commentarial tradition of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya. Through the efforts of Yuanzhao and his disciples, the teaching of the Vinaya eventually acquired an institutional presence in Song China, while its impact was also felt through the vibrant cultural exchanges between Buddhists in China and Japan during the 12-14th centuries—a topic that scholars have not given sufficient attention. Yuanzhao’s vast volumes of commentaries in woodblock printing were carried back and studied in Japan through the endeavors of nissōsō (Japanese monks who studied in the Song). This new imported knowledge of the Vinaya became the motivation for religious movements of revival of Buddhist precepts in medieval Japan, led by eminent monks such as Shunjō, Kakujō, Eison, and Ninshō. Rooted in the commentarial tradition of the Vinaya, a cross-regional Buddhist community— rather than a sectarian school— was formed.