Reading by heart: translated Buddhism and the pictorial Heart Sutras of Early Modern Japan
Abstract
This article combines contemporary work in social bibliography, translation theory and Buddhist studies to focus on two questions. First, what exactly does the act of “reading” sutras entail? And second, what is the precise relation between material sign and acoustic sound in Buddhist recitation? Answers to these questions are necessarily inextricably bound to local contexts and communities. The so-called ‘pictorial Heart Sutras’ (Jp: esetsu Shinkyō) of early modern Japan provide the particular aperture through which I pursue these queries. Following D. F. McKenzie, I understand the pictorial sutras “not simply as verbal constructs but as social products” (1999: 127) which may be examined to reveal patterns of textual engagement, practices of translation and particular techniques for associating the quotidian world of rice paddies and rounded bellies with the abiding realm of religious doctrine. In particular, I argue that the pictorial sutras develop a “visual vernacular” whose lexicon evinces an abiding interest in fecundity and a belief in the apotropaic value of sutra reading.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Reading language and religion together
- Reading by heart: translated Buddhism and the pictorial Heart Sutras of Early Modern Japan
- Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London
- The social motivation of code-switching in mosque sermons in Egypt
- Education efforts in the dissemination of Medieval Arabic
- Religiolinguistics: on Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-defined languages
- Linguistic, religious and national loyalties in Alsace
- Maintenance of Kaqchikel ritual speech in the confraternities of San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
- “D'une plume de fer sur un papier d'acier”: faith, nationalism and war in the poetry of the first French War of Religion
- Book Review
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Reading language and religion together
- Reading by heart: translated Buddhism and the pictorial Heart Sutras of Early Modern Japan
- Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London
- The social motivation of code-switching in mosque sermons in Egypt
- Education efforts in the dissemination of Medieval Arabic
- Religiolinguistics: on Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-defined languages
- Linguistic, religious and national loyalties in Alsace
- Maintenance of Kaqchikel ritual speech in the confraternities of San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
- “D'une plume de fer sur un papier d'acier”: faith, nationalism and war in the poetry of the first French War of Religion
- Book Review
