Buddhism and Chinese Culture in the Section on Self-Immolation of the Biographies of Eminent Monks

Abstract

In this thesis, I am going to explore some issues in Chinese culture connected with practices of self-mutilation and self-immolation, focusing in particular on materials taken from the medieval Biographies of Eminent Monks. This text records the deeds of dignitaries living in the Wei, Wu, Jin, Song, Qi, Northern Wei, and Yao Qin Dynasties, lasting 453 years from 67 CE to 519.However, in the preface, the author states it started in 67 and ended in 519, and the last year recorded was 518 CE. The Biography of Fa Xian in Xin Fu Chapter has been recorded that the Buddha's teeth-relics were stolen in 522, but this certainly happened at a later date; therefore, the work had been finished at the year of 519.The Buddhist monks' practice has reflected the development of Chinese Buddhism, which is a process containing ancient Chinese cultures. Therefore, the focus of my discussion is on the factors and conditions that are characteristics of the practice in self-immolation. The thesis divides into seven chapters.Chapter 1 Translations on the Section of Self-Sacrifice makes contribution to the understanding of the original text.Chapter 2 Introduction states the research motivation and purpose, research methods and scope, previous research results.Chapter 3 Issues Related to Buddhism and Chinese Politics. This chapter discusses the integrated and separated relationship between Buddhism and Chinese social politics, focusing on the royal politics affected by the influence of Buddhism and the development of Buddhism because of the kings' support.Chapter 4 Issues Related to Buddhism and Chinese Ethics. This chapter explores Chinese traditional ethics, especially the Confucian thoughts caring on the evolution and the development of ethics containing the view of the good and evil, life and ―filial piety‖ and so on, emphasizes on the particular points of the Chinese Buddhism and symbolized the Sinicization of the ethics of the Mainstream Buddhism.Chapter 5 Issues Related to Buddhism and Chinese Literature. This chapter inspects the tremendous impact on the aesthetic sense of medieval literatures, genre and writing techniques in Buddhism, thus revealing the development process of Buddhism under Chinese cultural background.Chapter 6 The Literature Characteristic of the Section of Self-Sacrifice presents that the significance of the repeating pattern of the Biographies in terms of their function within a context, which are Chinese traditional cultures.Chapter 7 Conclusions underlines the importance of personalization in the development of Chinese Buddhism.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2012
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester