Buddhism in the Sung Edited by Gregory and Getz

I didn't read all the articles in Buddhism in the Sung as several of them were about things that simply don't interest me all that much, being discussions of the different doctrine of the era, but there were several good articles on the more practical side of religion and it's impact on society. The introduction challenged the notion that the Sung was a period of decline for Buddhism. While there were a much smaller number of different Buddhist schools at this time these schools were gaining in popularity, particularly among the elite. The editors challenged the idea that many of the foundations of religion that were claimed to be inherited from the Tang were actually from the Tang and instead were Sung inventions that had been given an extended lineage to increase their attraction to the people of the time. This argument I question as sources for the Sung are much more common than sources for the Tang, therefore it is much easier to prove the existence of something in the Sung than in the Tang, however ideas always need time to develop. Also I believe that early documents do show earlier traditions, including documents in the Dunhuang collections. But I do agree that there seems to be little evidence of decline during this time.

The most interesting article in this collection was "Images of Women in Ch'an Buddhism Literature of the Song Period" by Ding-hwa E. Hsieh. What was interesting in this article was to show the changing attitudes of Chan towards women. The author explains this due to the growing interest in Chan by elite women who were welcomed as patrons of Buddhism by the Chan monks, as well as the idea that Chan wanted to challenge existing stereotypes. It is believed that many of the monks wanted to appeal to the elite lay women in the hopes that they would then pass on their teachings to their sons who might be in a position later in government to influence policy in favour of Chan and Buddhism. This is particularly interesting as the Sung is considered to be a turning point for women in Chinese history with increased domination over them by men with the rise of neo-Confucianism and footbinding. Chan literature portrays another challenge to this assumption. Nuns, while a small percentage, are given increasing space in the biographies, and are considered to be fully capable of becoming enlightened. The teacher Ta-hui's first pupil to become enlightened was a woman. She went on to become a famous nun, heading a nunnery, preaching and teaching in her own right. She was mentioned repeatedly in the sermons of her teacher, however while it is great to show her as an example of what a woman can do, it seems to be that his argument is then aimed at the men, if this woman can manage this, what is your excuse not to? The view seemed to remain that the women who achieved enlightenment and were able to travel and teach were the exceptional few, and not intended to become the majority at any point.

Ding also mentions the stories of the old poor women who were spiritually enlightened and there to challenge the young men into further studies. Ding makes the interesting connection that these women were based on the Taoist goddess Xi Wang Mu (often referred to as the Queen mother of the West) who is sometimes portrayed as an old wise women. The idea behind these teachings is to reject the idea of dualism, gender being another example of this. Though these stories Ding interprets as catering to the male audience rather than inspiring more female believers. A woman was allowed to be part of Buddhism as long as it didn't challenge the norms of Confucianism, she was still expected to fulfil her duties as a wife and mother first. In China unlike the west, women more often became nuns after their children were grown. Having fulfilled their duty they were able to retire to a life of religion and study.

The other essay in the book which I particularly enjoyed was "Miao-Tan and her Teacher Ta-hui" by Miriam Levering. This article looked at the life of the woman I mentioned above, unlike most nuns, she came from a strong Buddhist family and was able to convince her father of her religious calling and didn't marry but rather became a nun, and travelled and was taught by different monks before becoming one of the leading disciples of Ta-hui. It is unfortunate that most of what we know about her come through his teachings rather than her own. But discourses and sermons given by Miao Tan do survive and are quoted in the article. A nice counterpoint to the more general description of Ding's article. Both excellent articles on the religious life of women in the Sung.