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Embryology in Buddhist Thought (Buddhism)

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  1. Introduction
  2. Ideas about the origins of life and the development of the human body in utero have been part of Buddhist discourse since the time of its inception. Inheriting some of the notions seen also in the Jain, Puraṇic, and Āyurvedic sources, Buddhist embryological thought was linked inextricably with the idea of death and rebirth. The questions of how the consciousness emerges and what residues are left over after an individual’s death to continue the cycle of transmigration, or how the human being precisely develops in the mother’s womb, constituted the vital avenues of inquiry for Buddhist thinkers and practitioners. Thus, numerous descriptions of conception and embryological growth appeared in the Buddhist sutras, religious commentaries, and medico-religious manuals, but their perception and use varied according to the cultural and historical contexts. In locations as diverse as India, Thailand, Cambodia, Tibet, China, and Japan, the embryological descriptions were linked to the ideas of suffering, karmic debt, and filial piety; in some cases, the schematic models of fetal gestation were used as a template for ritual or spiritual progress or in tantric practices of self-cultivation. Such descriptions appeared also in medical treatises and, to a much lesser degree, vernacular Buddhist rituals related to women’s bodies and women’s health. The general overview below will introduce scholarly writings that have made prominent forays into this topic within specific cultural contexts or those that examine in depth the notions critical for understanding the embryological motifs embedded in Buddhist thought.
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  4. General Overviews
  5. There are few general overviews of this topic, but a growing number of studies offer detailed treatments of embryological themes found in different corners of the Buddhist cultural sphere. This section lists a number of useful introductions to embryological thought in several cultural and historical contexts, as well as studies that highlight the processes of transmission and reconfiguration of Buddhist teachings, medical thought, and ideas about gender. Regarding the medical sources, Harper 1998 discusses the earliest pre-Buddhist embryological sources discovered in China. Wujastyk 2003 introduces the classic Indian medical texts containing embryological descriptions, while Das 2003 analyzes such descriptions in depth. Chen 2005 and Deshpande 2008 cast light on the importance of the Sino-Indic exchanges in early medicine, including gender formation of embryos. Williams 1997 discusses different concepts of the body in Mahāyāna texts known in Tibet. As for the religious embryologies appearing in Buddhist sources, there is a growing number of studies that deal with such cases in each cultural context. Law and Sasson 2009 offers several important essays dealing with Buddhist embryological thought in the contexts of India, Thailand, and Tibet. Crosby 2000 surveys the embryological sources of Tantric Theravāda studied earlier by François Bizot. For the East Asian contexts, Sanford 1997 provides an early introduction to the theme of embryology in medieval Japan, while Andreeva and Steavu 2016 build on this theme and offer a collection of essays dealing with embryological themes in the contexts of Daoist practice in China and esoteric Buddhist practice in Japan.
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  7. Andreeva, Anna, and Dominic Steavu, eds. Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
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  11. The twelve essays discuss embryological ideas in the context of Daoist and esoteric Buddhist teachings and practices as they developed in China and Japan. The editors’ introduction provides an overview of Indian and Chinese sources that form backdrops and parallels to the diverse case studies taken up in each essay.
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  16. Chen Ming 陳明. “Zhuan Nü Wei Nan (轉女為男), Turning Female to Male: An Indian Influence on Chinese Gynaecology?” Asian Medicine 1.2 (2005): 315–334.
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  18. DOI: 10.1163/157342105777996647Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
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  20. Focuses on the issues of fetal gender determination and transformation seen in early medieval Chinese and Indian medical texts. Also highlights the possibility of a historical transmission of Indian medical knowledge to China, one of the key yet unresolved issues in the study of medical thought in premodern Asia.
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  25. Crosby, Kate. “Tantric Theravāda: A Bibliographic Essay on the Writings of François Bizot and Others on the Yogāvacara Tradition.” Contemporary Buddhism 1.2 (2000): 141–198.
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  27. DOI: 10.1080/14639940008573729Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
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  29. An annotated bibliography of the works by the French scholar of Southeast Asian Buddhism François Bizot. It offers an overview of embryological esoteric texts and meditational practices, such as “forming the Buddha within one’s body,” present within the Theravāda tradition of mainland Southeast Asia.
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  34. Das, Peter Rahul. The Origins of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female according to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003.
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  38. Written in a style traditional for a German Habilitation thesis, this study provides a wealth of information on embryology resulting from a thorough philological study of the four Indian medical treatises, the Caraka Saṃhitā, Suśruta Saṃhitā, Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, and Aṣṭāṅgasaṅgraha, considered to be representative of the Āyurvedic tradition.
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  43. Deshpande, Vijaya. “Glimpses of Āyurveda in Medieval Chinese Medicine.” Indian Journal of History of Science 43.2 (2008): 137–161.
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  47. This article by an Indian scholar of Āyurvedic and Chinese medicine highlights the case of the transcultural interpenetrations of different streams of medical and medico-religious thought between India and China, with the focus on ophthalmology and a cursive treatment of primary sources dealing with pregnancy and women’s health.
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  52. Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. London and New York: Kegan Paul, 1998.
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  55.  
  56. Analyzes some of the early pre-Buddhist Chinese sources that feature embryological thought. It focuses on the Mawangdui manuscripts excavated from the tombs of Western Han (206–220 BCE), including the Taichan shu (Book on the embryo and childbirth) that discusses fetal development.
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  61. Law, Jane Marie, and Vanessa Sasson, eds. Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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  64.  
  65. Introduces a broad range of religious sources and oral traditions from the cultural and historical contexts across the world that feature embryonic symbolism and metaphors. Of particular note are the chapters related to the Buddhist discourses on the embryo in India, Thailand, and Tibet. (See also Garrett 2009, cited under Tibetan Sources; Kritzer 2009 and Sasson 2009, cited under Indian Sources; and McDaniel 2009, cited under Pāli/Theravāda Sources.)
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  70. Sanford, James H. “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24.1 (1997): 1–38.
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  73.  
  74. A widely cited article that introduced the topic of embryology into the study of Japanese religions. It surveys the theory of tainai goi (the “five stages of embryo in the womb”) and its ritual dimensions, as well as the so-called Tachikawa lineage with which this theory was initially associated by 20th-century Japanese scholars.
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  79. Williams, Paul. “Some Mahāyāna Perspectives on the Body.” In Religion and the Body. Edited by Sarah Coakley, 205–230. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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  82.  
  83. Clarifies the key Mahāyānic terms signifying the physical body through the lam rim (the stages of the path) tradition developed by Tibetan scholar Tsong kha pa (b. 1357–d. 1419). It offers a survey of different models of the body as seen in the Mahāyānic sutras, with brief treatment of the embryological discourse emerging from the Tibetan Tantric sources.
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  88. Wujastyk, Dominic. The Roots of Āyurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings. London: Penguin, 2003.
  89.  
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  91.  
  92. Explains the historical background, literature, and terminology of classical Indian medicine, including the embryological development. It offers the English translations of the treatises Caraka Saṃhitā (Charaka’s compendium); Suśruta Saṃhitā (Suśruta’s compendium on surgery), on the uses of garlic (from the Bower Manuscript); Kaśyapa Saṃhitā (Kaśyapa’s compendium); Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya Saṃhitā (Vābghaṭa’s heart of medicine); and Śārṅgadhara Saṃhitā (Śārṅgadhara’s compendium).
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  97. Critical Sources and Notions
  98. Among the most important Buddhist primary sources dealing with embryology, there are several sources: Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa bhāśya, Yogācārabhūmi by Saṃgharakṣa, and the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, which, according to some scholars, may have predated the other treatises. These sources often explain the broadly conceived processes of karmic causation and rebirth, while providing descriptions of conceptions and embryological growth. Scriptures such as the Mahāparinirvāṇa mahāsūtra and the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra also offer glimpses of what could be called embryological thought, with regards to Buddha’s own conception or the seeds of Buddhahood inherent in all sentient beings.
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  100. Sources
  101. La Vallée Poussin 1980 and Demiéville 1951 provide French translations of the Abhidharmakośa bhāśya and Yogācārabhūmi, respectively. Huebotter 1932 and Kritzer 2014 offer annotated translations of the Garbhāvakrānti sutra, arguably the earliest embryological Buddhist sutra (in German and English, respectively). Rechung Rinpoche 1973 offers a partial translation of the major Tibetan embryological source, the rGyud bzhi (Four Treatises). Kragh 2013 discusses major Yogācāra treatises and notions of the “intermediate being” (see also Wayman 1984 and Kritzer 2000, cited under Notions). Radich 2015 and Zimmermann 2002 analyze, respectively, the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra.
  102.  
  103. Demiéville, Paul. “La Yogācārabhūmi de Saṇgharakṣa.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 44.2 (1951): 339–436.
  104.  
  105. DOI: 10.3406/befeo.1951.5178Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  106.  
  107. A classic monograph by Paul Demiéville (b. 1894–d. 1979), a Swiss-French scholar of Buddhism. Written in French, it surveys multiple Chinese translations of the Yogācārabhūmi by Saṃgharakṣa (T. 606, 607), a Buddhist treatise on practicing the Yogic contemplation (Sk. vipaśyanā, Ch. guan, Jp. kan) that outlined the “path of the bodhisattva” and embryological development set in the context of reincarnation.
  108.  
  109. Find this resource:
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  111.  
  112. Huebotter, Franz. Die Sutra Über Empfängnis und Embryologie. Tokyo: Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- Und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1932.
  113.  
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  115.  
  116. An early translation of the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (Ch. Baotai jing, Sutra on entry into the womb, T. 317) by the German scholar of China and the history of medicine, Franz Hübotter (b. 1881–d. 1967). It describes the conditions of conception and week-by-week fetal development, intertwined with the discourse on karma, demonic forces, and suffering (see also Kritzer 2014).
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  120.  
  121. Kragh, Ulrich Timme, ed. The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
  122.  
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  124.  
  125. Includes thirty-five essays by international scholars of Buddhism and the Yogācāra tradition. The essays focus on the historical processes of compilation of the Yogācārabhūmi corpus, the problems of authorship, major terms and practices, and Yogācārabhūmi’s intertextual citations. It discusses the reception of Yogācāra thought in India, China, Korea, and Tibet, but omits Japan.
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  129.  
  130. Kritzer, Robert. Garbhāvakrāntisūtra: The Sūtra on Entry into the Womb. Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series 31. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014.
  131.  
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  133.  
  134. The annotated English translation of possibly the earliest Buddhist embryological sutra, which may have predated the Yogācārābhūmi (c. first half of the 2nd century) by Saṃgharakṣa. It is a major primary source for the study of embryological thought set in a variety of other Buddhist cultural, historical, and geographical contexts.
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  136. Find this resource:
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  138.  
  139. La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. 6 vols. Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 16. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1980.
  140.  
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  142.  
  143. A French translation from 1923–1931 of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa bhāśya, by the Belgian scholar of Indology and Buddhism, Louis de La Vallée Poussin (b. 1869–d. 1938). A classic resource on the early Indian philosophical treatise explaining conception and gestation that proved to be of formative significance in Buddhist thought on embryology broadly across different cultural contexts.
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  147.  
  148. Radich, Michael. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Hamburg, Germany: Hamburg University Press, 2015.
  149.  
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  151.  
  152. Explores the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra within the context of the emerging tathāgatagarbha thought, with recourse to the problem of maternity, and the story of Buddha’s conception, gestation, and birth. It argues that the idea of all sentient beings having a “womb or the embryo (garbha) of the tathāgata” within them may have developed as a soteriological substitute for the idea that the Buddha was conceived and born from the woman’s physical body.
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  156.  
  157. Rechung Rinpoche. Tibetan Medicine, Illustrated in Original Texts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
  158.  
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  160.  
  161. An early survey representing the Buddhist history, major tenets, ingredients, and the scripture rGyud bzhi (the Four Treatises) of Tibetan medicine. It offers a partial English translation of the bShad rGyud (Explanatory treatise), which includes a detailed account of conception and thirty-eight-week embryological growth, and the fourth fascicle called Phyi Rgyud (Last treatise).
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  166. Zimmermann, Michael. A Buddha Within: the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, The Earliest Exposition of the Buddha-Nature Teaching in India. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica 6. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, 2002.
  167.  
  168. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  169.  
  170. A philological study of a Buddhist scripture explaining the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha (“the seeds of Buddhahood universally present in all sentient beings”) and its historical background, with an annotated translation and evaluation of the related Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan materials. It offers the discussion of terms garbha (embryo; womb) and the “buddha-nature.”
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  175. Notions
  176. The Indian Buddhist scriptures and their Chinese translations offer a variety of concepts and notions that help to elucidate the mechanisms of rebirth and the working of karma in the conception, fetal development, life, and death of sentient beings. Among such notions are terms such as “matter” (rūpa), “intermediate being” (Sk. antarābhava), and “storehouse-consciousness (ālayavijñāna). These concepts, particularly, the antarābhava, are analyzed in Wayman 1984 and Kritzer 2000 in English and in Bareau 1927 and Roşu 1978 in French (see also Kragh 2013, cited under Sources). Schmithausen 1987 offers a philological study of ālayavijñāna (storehouse-consciousness). The concepts of the tathāgatagarbha and the “buddha-nature” were also crucial for certain embryological trends in Buddhist thought (see Radich 2015 and Zimmermann 2002, cited under Sources).
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  178. Bareau, André. “Chūū.” In Hōbōgirin: Dictionnaire encyclopédique du bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoises et japonaises. Vol. 5, 558–563. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1927.
  179.  
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  181.  
  182. An entry on the Chinese translation of the concept of the “intermediate being” (Sk. antarābhava), written by a prominent French Buddhologist, André Bareau (1921–1993) and published as a part of Hōbōgirin, the French-Japanese encyclopedic dictionary of Buddhism. (See also Suneson and Berglie 1990, cited under Chinese Sources; Kritzer 2009, under Indian Sources; and Kritzer 2014, under Sources.)
  183.  
  184. Find this resource:
  185.  
  186.  
  187. Kritzer, Robert. “Rūpa and the Antarābhava.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 235–272.
  188.  
  189. DOI: 10.1023/A:1004726206127Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  190.  
  191. An article explaining Vasubandhu’s approach to the notions of “intermediate being” (antarābhava) and “matter” (rūpa) within the framework of Indian Buddhist philosophical debates on transmigration. It offers a nuanced explanation of Vasubandhu’s position regarding the transition between lifetimes, as explained in his Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya in relation to other Abhidharmic texts, the Sarvāstivāda doctrine, and the Yogācārabhūmi. Especially useful are the English translations of the Chinese commentaries on Vasubandhu’s work (see also Wayman 1984).
  192.  
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  195.  
  196. Roşu, Arion. Les Conceptions Psychologiques dans les Textes Médicaux Indiens. Paris: Institut de Civilisation Indienne, 1978.
  197.  
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  199.  
  200. This monograph by a Romanian scholar of Indology, Arion Roşu (b. 1924–d. 2007), focuses on psychological concepts in the classical Indian medical literature and discusses conception and the transmigrating being, one of the precursors to the embryo and the human being in the Buddhist construction of life and pregnancy.
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  205. Schmithausen, Lambert. Ālayavijñāna: On the Origin and Early Development of the Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy. 2 vols. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1987.
  206.  
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  208.  
  209. Discuss the key Yogācāra notion considered to be a basic constituent of a sentient being, which often features in the Buddhist embryological discourse. In addition to the analysis of the major portions of the Yogācārabhūmi śāstra, it also offers a discussion of the divergent ālayavijñāna theories.
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  213.  
  214. Wayman, Alex. “The Intermediate-State Dispute in Buddhism.” In Buddhist Insight: Essays by Alex Wayman. By Alex Wayman. Edited by George R. Elder, 251–266. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984.
  215.  
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  217.  
  218. Discusses the disputes involving the notion of antarābhava and the loci of consciousness in early Buddhist scriptures. It highlights the outright rejection, criticisms, and subtle differences in the understanding of such a notion by different early Indian thinkers.
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  223. Buddhist and Medical Embryologies
  224. Embryological motifs can be encountered in a broad range of primary sources hailing from India, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Tibet, and Japan. Some of these motifs are found in the texts historically transmitted as parts of medical traditions in South and East Asia. Others are embedded in the philosophical and religious discourses on the origins of life, transmigration, and rebirth within the Pāli/Theravāda Buddhist corpus, or ritual materials linked with esoteric Buddhist traditions that developed in Cambodia, Thailand, China, Tibet, and Japan. The following sections present the key articles and research publications on the topic of embryology encountered in the Pāli/Theravāda, Cambodian, Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese sources. The latter section is divided into two further subsections outlining the medieval and early modern or contemporary Japanese sources, respectively.
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  226. Pāli/Theravāda Sources
  227. Bhikku Ñaṇamoli 1975 provides an English translation of a key source expressing a Theravāda view on embryology. Bizot 1976, Bizot 1980, Bizot 1992, and Bizot and LaGirarde 1996 introduce important Cambodian Buddhist sources, many of which incorporate embryology as a major component (for overviews of these works in English, see Crosby 2000, cited under General Overviews). Of particular note in these sources is the use of a fivefold set of stages of embryological development and bodily parts. These themes are discussed in Bizot 1976, Bizot 1992 and Boisvert 2000. The aforementioned scholarship provokes a comparison to the cases of tantric sources in Tang China and medieval Japan (See Rambelli 2000, cited under Chinese Sources; Sanford 1997, under General Overviews; and Dolce 2006–2007, Dolce 2010, and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.) Bizot 1976, Bizot 1980, and McDaniel 2009 analyze the use of the Pāli syllables in embryological accounts and funerary cults of Cambodia and Thailand. McDermott 1999 surveys the Pāli and other Buddhist sources dealing with the concept of abortion and fetal death. These themes, again, make an interesting parallel to the contexts of China and Japan (see Chinese Sources and Japanese Sources).
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  229. Bhikku Ñaṇamoli. Path to Purification: Visuddhimagga. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1975.
  230.  
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  232.  
  233. An English translation of the early Buddhist compendium on doctrine and samatha (samādhi) and vipaśyanā meditation, compiled by Buddhaghosa sometime during the 5th century. It lays out the major ideas about the nature of the body, and questions the desirability of rebirth by explaining the intrauterine life as full of suffering.
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  237.  
  238. Bizot, François. Le figuier à cinq branches: Recherches sur le bouddhisme khmer I. Publications de l’École de Française d’Extrême Orient 107. Paris: Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1976.
  239.  
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  241.  
  242. Introduces the tantric materials from local Theravāda traditions in Cambodia. Bizot discusses the stages of conception and embryonic development as related to dhamma through particular signifiers, the teaching on the soteriological position of one’s mother and father, the pentadic sets of correspondences between the sacred constituents, such as Pāli syllables, buddhas, or sense faculties. (See the full description in Crosby 2000, cited under General Overviews; see also Rambelli 2000, under Chinese Sources, and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.
  243.  
  244. Find this resource:
  245.  
  246.  
  247. Bizot, François. “La Grotte de la Naissance: Recherches sur le Bouddhisme Khmer II.” Bulletin de l’École de Française d’Extrême Orient 67.1 (1980): 222–273.
  248.  
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  250.  
  251. Offers a description of a Cambodian ritual set in a “cavern of birth” (raāṅ prasūt). Reminiscent of entombment in a sacred womb, this ritual engenders a process of meditation on the symbolic gestation and construction of the body through the chanting of the Pāli syllables (altogether sixteen for the ten months of gestation). (See the full description in Crosby 2000, cited under General Overviews; see also McDaniel 2009, under Pāli/Theravāda Sources.)
  252.  
  253. Find this resource:
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  255.  
  256. Bizot, François. Le chemin de Lankā. Textes Bouddhiques du Cambodge 1. Paris: École Français d’Extrême-Orient, 1992.
  257.  
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  259.  
  260. A French translation of a Buddhist meditation text from Cambodia, describing a fivefold meditation on the body involving the ritual contemplation of the five Pāli syllables projected onto the practitioner’s body. It invites thought-provoking comparisons with the cases of China and Japan, where the meditation on the five viscera (Ch. wuzang, Jp. gozō) was part of esoteric practices. (See the full description in Crosby 2000, cited under General Overviews; see also Rambelli 2000, under Chinese Sources, and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
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  265. Bizot, François, and François LaGirarde. La pureté par les mots. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1996.
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  268.  
  269. Introduces the term “tantric Theravāda” and discusses the Saddavimala (On the purity of sounds) and the yogavācara philosophy of language, as well as funerary rites linked to the embryological discourse and construction of the symbolic body through the chanting of Pāli syllables. (See the full description in Crosby 2000, cited under General Overviews; see also McDaniel 2009, under Pāli/Theravāda Sources; Rambelli 2000, under Chinese Sources; and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.
  270.  
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  273.  
  274. Boisvert, Mathieu. “Conception and Intrauterine Life in the Pāli Canon.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29 (2000): 301–311.
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  276. DOI: 10.1177/000842980002900303Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  277.  
  278. Discusses the concepts of impregnation, the emergence of consciousness, and fetal gestation appearing in the Pāli sources. Clarifies the various technical Pāli terms referring to different stages of embryonic development and maps out four distinct usages of imagery linked to the growth of the embryo in the womb.
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  282.  
  283. McDaniel, Justin. “Philosophical Embryology: Buddhist Texts and the Ritual Construction of a Fetus.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Edited by Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, 97–101. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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  285. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  286.  
  287. Discusses the embryological accounts found in Southeast Asian Buddhist literature, including the abhidhamma texts and a palm-leaf manuscript dated 1569 from northern Thailand. It shows a close relation between the embryological models and the funerary rites (during which the new fetuses are thought to emerge) and the idea of constructing a fetus from the Pāli syllables through their association to the parts of the body of the Buddha. (See also Bizot and LaGirarde 1996 and Crosby 2000, the latter cited under General Overviews.)
  288.  
  289. Find this resource:
  290.  
  291.  
  292. McDermott, J. P. “Abortion in the Pāli Canon and Early Buddhist Thought.” In Buddhism and Abortion. Edited by Damien Keown, 157–182. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999.
  293.  
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295.  
  296. Discusses the concept of abortion and fetal death in the Pāli sources and early Buddhist thought. It makes a good complementary reading to the research articles and monographs dealing with this topic in other cultural contexts—for example, Japan. (See Glassman 2009, cited under Medieval Japanese Sources; Hardacre 1997, under Early Modern and Contemporary Japanese Sources; and LaFleur 1992, under Early Modern and Contemporary Japanese Sources.)
  297.  
  298. Find this resource:
  299.  
  300.  
  301. Indian Sources
  302. The embryological descriptions are found mainly in Indian medical texts and Buddhist sutras as well as non-Buddhist texts. Doniger 1997 and Selby 2005 discuss the notions of karma and the concepts of the human body in early Indian sources as seen in medical texts, legal codes, and the Purāṇas. Hara 1980 and Sasson 2009 peruse the earliest biographies of the Buddha as accounts of fetal life. Caillat 1974, Kapani 1989, Smets 2003–2004, and Smith 2007 analyze the early non-Buddhist Indian sources containing embryological terms and descriptions that occur in Buddhist embryologies. Kritzer 2009 and Suneson 1991 discuss the terminology used in describing the different stages of the embryo’s development in utero and incorporated into the Buddhist texts.
  303.  
  304. Caillat, Colette. “Sur les Doctrines Médicales dans le Tandulaveyāliya. 1. Enseignements d’embryologie.” Indologica Taurinensia 2 (1974): 45–55.
  305.  
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307.  
  308. This French article discusses a Jaina text dealing with human physiology and consisting of poetical and prose segments. One of the latter describes a nine-month period of gestation, using terms such as kalala, pesī, and ghaṇa, which are also encountered in the Buddhist embryologies. (See Kritzer 2009, cited under Indian Sources, Kritzer 2014, under Sources, and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  309.  
  310. Find this resource:
  311.  
  312.  
  313. Doniger, Wendy. “Medical and Mythical Constructions of the Body in Hindu Texts.” In Religion and the Body. Edited by Sarah Coakley, 167–184. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
  314.  
  315. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  316.  
  317. Traces the construction of the human body through procreation and the embryological discourse as seen in medical texts, The Laws of Manu, and the Purāṇas, and reflects on the mythological constituents of the Hindu discourses on bodily parts, such as the head, the eyes, the tongue, and several others.
  318.  
  319. Find this resource:
  320.  
  321.  
  322. Hara Minoru. “A Note on the Buddha’s Birth Story.” In Indianisme et bouddhisme: Mélanges offerts a Mgr. Etienne Lamotte, 143–157. Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 23 Louvain, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 1980.
  323.  
  324. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  325.  
  326. Focuses on the Purāṇic accounts of the embryological sequence and shows that the terms used in such accounts were quite similar to those appearing in descriptions used by Buddhist thinkers such as Buddhaghosa and Vasubandhu. It brings to the fore the technical Sanskrit terms used to describe the intrauterine development. (See also Kritzer 2009, cited under Indian Sources.)
  327.  
  328. Find this resource:
  329.  
  330.  
  331. Kapani, Lakshmi, trans. “‘Upaniṣad of the Embryo’ and ‘Note on the Garbha upaniṣad.’” In Fragments for a History of the Human Body. Vol. 3. Edited by Michel Feher, 176–196. New York: Zone Books, 1989.
  332.  
  333. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  334.  
  335. This English translation of the Upaniṣad fragment and its accompanying essay discuss a notable early Indian account of conception and embryological growth. The Garbhopaniṣad (Upaniṣad of the embryo; c. 800–200 BCE) provided a month-by-month description of intrauterine development using Sanskrit terms such as kalala, budbuda, and piṇḍa to describe the various stages of embryo in the womb within the first month.
  336.  
  337. Find this resource:
  338.  
  339.  
  340. Kritzer, Robert. “Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Edited by Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, 73–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  341.  
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343.  
  344. Surveys the non-Buddhist Indian religious texts, such as the Purāṇic and Jain sources, before moving on to the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, which is read alongside the embryologies noted in Indian medical treatises. This sutra is considered possibly the earliest source of Buddhist embryology that may have in some form predated the Yogācārābhūmi.
  345.  
  346. Find this resource:
  347.  
  348.  
  349. Sasson, Vanessa. “A Womb with a View: The Buddha’s Final Fetal Experience.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Edited by Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, 55–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  350.  
  351. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  352.  
  353. Analyzes the earliest biographies of the Buddha as accounts of Buddha’s fetal life. Argues that the Indian hagiographies of the Buddha describe an extraordinary experience that differed from other embryological models appearing in Indian medical treatises and Buddhist scriptures.
  354.  
  355. Find this resource:
  356.  
  357.  
  358. Selby, Martha Ann. “Narratives of Conception, Gestation, and Labour in Sanskrit Āyurvedic Sources.” Asian Medicine 1.2 (2005): 256–257.
  359.  
  360. DOI: 10.1163/157342105777996638Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  361.  
  362. Analyses the Caraka Saṃhitā and Suśruta Saṃhitā alongside the Sanskrit legal treatises (dharma-śāstras). It teases out the voices of the “experienced women” whose oral accounts of pregnancy and childbirth must have served as foundations for medical cases recorded by male physicians and incorporated into the medical classics.
  363.  
  364. Find this resource:
  365.  
  366.  
  367. Smets, Sandra. “Le Développement Embryonnaire Selon la Jaiminīyasaṃhitā du Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa: Étude sur l’Intertextualité.” Studia Asiatica 4–5 (2003–2004): 313–330.
  368.  
  369. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  370.  
  371. This rare article in French, published in a Romanian journal of Asian Studies, explores the descriptions of embryological development found in the Jaiminīya Saṃhitā, one of the Vedic liturgical texts, a variant part of the Sāmaveda, that emerged in Central India in the first millenium BCE.
  372.  
  373. Find this resource:
  374.  
  375.  
  376. Smith, Frederick M. “Narrativity and Empiricism in Classical Indian Accounts of Birth and Death: The Mahābhārata and the Saṃhitās of Caraca and Suśruta.” Asian Medicine 3 (2007): 85–102.
  377.  
  378. DOI: 10.1163/157342107X207227Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379.  
  380. Discusses the embryological development, birth, death, annihilation of senses, and physical dissolution as seen in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata (c. 400 BCE) as well as the classical Indian medical compendia. It suggests that there may have been two separate paradigms of learning that were both aware of the yogic vocabulary describing birth and death.
  381.  
  382. Find this resource:
  383.  
  384.  
  385. Suneson, Carl. “Remarks on Some Interrelated Terms in the Ancient Indian Embryology.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens/Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies 35 (1991): 109–121.
  386.  
  387. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  388.  
  389. An early seminal article surveying the history of the Sanskrit terms that were used to represent the different stages of embryonic gestation. Known from the Mahābhārata and Pāli sources, these terms appeared also in Indian medical and Buddhist treatises. (See also Boisvert 2000, cited under Pāli/Theravāda Sources; Kapani 1989, under Indian Sources; Choo 2012, under Chinese Sources; and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  390.  
  391. Find this resource:
  392.  
  393.  
  394. Tibetan Sources
  395. The Tibetan Four Tantras and translations of Indian medical treatises serve as a major source of the embryological descriptions in Tibetan Buddhist and medical sources. Guenther 1971 and Garrett 2009 discuss the Buddhist notion of karma as a key component in the Tibetan constructions of embryology. Garrett 2005 shows that Tibetan thinkers were selective in their choice of Indian Buddhist and medical sources and doctrines dealing with embryology. Garrett 2008 and Hopkins and Lati Rinpoche 1979 discuss the major textual sources for Tibetan embryologies and analyze the notion of the “intermediate state.”
  396.  
  397. Garrett, Frances. “Ordering Human Growth in Tibetan Medical and Religious Embryologies.” In Textual Healing: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Medicine. Edited by Elizabeth Lane Furdel, 31–52. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
  398.  
  399. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  400.  
  401. Develops the idea that in Tibet the details of human intrauterine development and human physiology were used to proselytize certain dimensions of Buddhist teaching and practice. Garrett shows that, in their radical departure from Indian thought, Tibetan religious thinkers were selective in their adoption of Indian Buddhist and medical ideas on gestation and made interpretive choices that suited their soteriological goals and local socio-religious contexts.
  402.  
  403. Find this resource:
  404.  
  405.  
  406. Garrett, Frances. Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
  407.  
  408. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  409.  
  410. Explores the full range of embryological descriptions as seen in the Buddhist and medical manuscripts. So far, this is probably the most comprehensive study of this topic in the Tibetan context.
  411.  
  412. Find this resource:
  413.  
  414.  
  415. Garrett, Frances. “Tibetan Buddhist Narratives of the Forces of Creation.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Edited by Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, 107–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  416.  
  417. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  418.  
  419. Describes karma as a leading force in the conception and subsequent development of the embryo in the Tibetan sources. Argues that embryology should be understood as a key element of Buddhist soteriology, as it provides a device to teach what the author calls the “mechanics of causation.”
  420.  
  421. Find this resource:
  422.  
  423.  
  424. Guenther, Herbert V., trans. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Sgam.po.pa. Clear Light Series. Berkeley, CA: Shambala, 1971.
  425.  
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427.  
  428. An English translation of the 12th-century Tibetan Buddhist text by Gampopa (b. 1079–d. 1153) describing the thirty-eight-week development of an embryo as experiencing different kinds of suffering continually throughout its gestation. It suggests that Tibetan religious thinkers used embryological accounts to encourage religious practice leading to liberation from constant death and rebirth.
  429.  
  430. Find this resource:
  431.  
  432.  
  433. Hopkins, Jeffrey, and Lati Rinpoche. Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1979.
  434.  
  435. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  436.  
  437. An English translation of a Tibetan tantric text in four chapters. The third chapter focuses on the notion of “intermediate state” and its uses in the Tibetan Buddhist context. It contains a description of at least one tradition of Buddhist embryology. (See also Garrett 2008.)
  438.  
  439. Find this resource:
  440.  
  441.  
  442. Chinese Sources
  443. Harper 2010 and Rambelli 2000 discuss the respective Chinese medical and Buddhist sources on the formation of organs. Bareau 1927 (cited under Notions) and Suneson and Berglie 1990 ponder the Chinese concepts of the “intermediate being” (antarābhava). The notion of filial piety was an important aspect of embryological thought in the Chinese context. Choo 2012 discusses the Chinese Buddhist texts dealing with embryology and filial piety, while Cole 1994 discusses this notion in a variety of other religious and social contexts. Baptandier 2015 traces the embryological metaphors appearing in a mythological drama well known in southern China and Taiwan. Furth 1999, Lee 2005, Wilms 2005, and Yates 2005 analyze the Chinese medical discourses on embryology in relation to women’s health.
  444.  
  445. Baptandier, Brigitte. “On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas.” Translated from the French by Dominic Steavu. In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 212–249. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015.
  446.  
  447. DOI: 10.1163/9789004306523_008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  448.  
  449. Discusses Chen Jinggu (Ch. Linshui furen), the deity of maternity and gestation that appears in Daoist, Buddhist, and popular religious discourses in China. Offers an imaginative reading of the episode of tuotai (the release of the embryo), a part of a rainmaking ritual conducted to save an ancient kingdom from drought.
  450.  
  451. Find this resource:
  452.  
  453.  
  454. Choo, Jessey J. C. “That ‘Fatty Lump’: Discourses on the Fetus, Fetal Development, and Filial Piety in China before the Eleventh Century CE.” Nan Nü 14 (2012): 177–221.
  455.  
  456. DOI: 10.1163/15685268-142000A1Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  457.  
  458. Analyzes the descriptions of embryonic development found in early Chinese texts, as well as later medical and Daoist sources featuring the shou sheng (receiving life) accounts. See also Cole 1994, cited under Chinese Sources, and Kritzer 2014, under Sources.
  459.  
  460. Find this resource:
  461.  
  462.  
  463. Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
  464.  
  465. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  466.  
  467. Analyzes the Confucian and Buddhist discourses on filial piety and relationships between mothers and sons. It elucidates the Chinese ideas about the female body, reproduction, motherhood, and the “uterine family,” and considers the Sutra on the Profound Kindness to Parents (Ch. Fumu enzhong jing, T. 2887). (See also Choo 2012)
  468.  
  469. Find this resource:
  470.  
  471.  
  472. Furth, Charlotte. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
  473.  
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475.  
  476. Studies the emergence and development of the medicine for women (fuke) between the Song and the end of the Ming dynasty. The chapter on “Gestation and Birth in Song Medicine” discusses the key Chinese medical texts, methods for calculating the key stages of pregnancy and fetal gestation, positions and directions for birth, as well as fu charms to facilitate childbirth. (See also Harper 2010, Lee 2005, Wilms 2005, and Yates 2005.)
  477.  
  478. Find this resource:
  479.  
  480.  
  481. Harper, Donald. “Précis de connaissance médicale. Le Shanghan lun (Traité des atteintes par le froid) et le Wuzang lun (Traité des cinq viscères).” In Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale: Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan. Vol. 1. Edited by Catherine Despeux, 65–106. Paris: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 2010.
  482.  
  483. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  484.  
  485. Casts light on the development of thought regarding the five viscera (Ch. wuzang, Jp. gōzō). Since the formation of the five organs was an inseparable part of embryological thought in medical and religious traditions, this article makes a good key reading in addition to the Buddhist sources from China and Japan. (See also Rambelli 2000 and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  486.  
  487. Find this resource:
  488.  
  489.  
  490. Lee Jen-der. “Childbirth in Early Imperial China.” Translated by Sabine Wilms. In Special Issue: Medicine for Women in Imperial China. Edited by Angela K. Leung. Nan Nü 7.2 (2005): 216–286.
  491.  
  492. DOI: 10.1163/156852605775248658Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  493.  
  494. Offers an important insight on how pregnancy was conceptualized and managed in early imperial China. It provides a survey of the pharmacopeial prescriptions, ritual techniques, birth charts, and placenta burial, as well as taboos on certain foods and actions and recommendations on “nourishing the body” and “nourishing the embryo” for pregnant and postparturient women. (See also Andreeva 2015 and Faure 2016, cited under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  495.  
  496. Find this resource:
  497.  
  498.  
  499. Rambelli, Fabio. “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia.” In Tantra in Practice. Edited by David Gordon White, 361–380. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
  500.  
  501. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  502.  
  503. An English translation of a late Tang-period ritual text attributed to the Orissan translator-monk Śubkhakarasiṃha (Ch. Shanwuwei, Jp. Zenmui, b. 637–d. 735), an important figure in the emergence of Tantric teachings in China and Japan. It describes a ritual contemplation of the five viscera (Ch. wuzang guan, Jp. gozōkan). The article argues that this text may have provided inspiration for early medieval Buddhist monks in Japan. (See also Harper 2010 and Dolce 2016, the latter cited under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  504.  
  505. Find this resource:
  506.  
  507.  
  508. Suneson, Carl, and Per-Arne Berglie. The Problem of chung yu (Skt. antarābhava), the Intermediate State in the Buddhist Tradition and the Importance of the Chinese Sources. Center for Pacific Asia Studies Occasional Papers 10. Stockholm: Center for Pacific Asia Studies, 1990.
  509.  
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511.  
  512. A rare publication that surveys the use of the term describing the state of “intermediate being” in the Chinese Buddhist sources (See also Kragh 2013 and Kritzer 2014, cited under Sources; and Dolce 2016, under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  513.  
  514. Find this resource:
  515.  
  516.  
  517. Wilms, Sabine. “The Transmission of Medical Knowledge on ‘Nurturing the Fetus’ in Early China.” Asian Medicine 1.2 (2005): 276–314.
  518.  
  519. DOI: 10.1163/157342105777996584Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  520.  
  521. Explores early and medieval Chinese medical literature on “nurturing life” (Ch. yangsheng, Jp. yōjō), especially “nurturing the fetus” (Ch. yangtai, Jp. yōtai). It discusses the month-by-month fetal development and prescriptions for pregnant women, as seen in the Mawangdui manuscripts, Sun Simiao’s Beiji qianjin yao fang (Emergency formulas worth a thousand pieces of gold, c. 652), and Tanba Yasuyori’s Japanese collection Ishinpō (The essentials of medicine, 984). It also analyses the illustrations on the ten months of pregnancy from the Ishinpō.
  522.  
  523. Find this resource:
  524.  
  525.  
  526. Yates, Robin D. S. “Medicine for Women in Early China: A Preliminary Survey.” In Special Issue: Medicine for Women in Imperial China. Edited by Angela K. Leung. Nan Nü 7.2 (2005): 127–181.
  527.  
  528. DOI: 10.1163/156852605775248702Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  529.  
  530. Surveys the early medical discourses on women’s health, including prescriptions for pregnancy and childbirth, as well as apotropaic ritual procedures. It argues that Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religious beliefs and practices made a significant impact on how the pregnancy and childbirth was managed and conceptualized in early China.
  531.  
  532. Find this resource:
  533.  
  534.  
  535. Japanese Sources
  536. Similar to the cases of China, India, and Tibet, both medical and Buddhist sources of Japan contain embryological descriptions. The former derive mostly from Chinese sources (although there are exceptions), whereas the latter draw on the Chinese translations of the Abhidharmic and Yogācāra treatises (as discussed in Dolce 2006–2007, Dolce 2010, Dolce 2016, and Andreeva 2015, cited under Medieval Japanese Sources). Sanford 1997 (cited under General Overviews) introduced the topic of embryology to the study of Japanese religions. Since then, a handful of studies have appeared that explore this theme in relation to other spheres of Japan’s religious and literary production, especially in the context of Buddhism. This section introduces the major and most recent research on the embryological themes that appear in Japanese medieval and early modern or contemporary sources.
  537.  
  538. Medieval Japanese Sources
  539. Medieval Japanese Buddhists were captivated by questions of how life originates and develops, or how the stages of fetal development could be adopted as templates for salvation and self-cultivation techniques. The Buddhist embryological models and metaphors were also adopted in medical and literary writings. Faure 2000 and Dolce 2010 focus on the ritual applications of the embryological models, such as the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi) and divinization of the male practitioners’ bodies. Ogawa 2014 and Dolce 2016 analyze medieval Japanese commentaries on the Yoga Sutra (Ch. Yuqie yuqi jing, Jp. Yugikyō) that became a major source for the Buddhist embryologies in Japan, in addition to the well-known Indian Buddhist treatises and their Chinese translations. Faure 2000, Dolce 2006–2007, Faure 2016, and Andreeva 2016 trace the embryological models seen in medieval Shinto materials. Andreeva 2015 discusses the use of Buddhist embryological theories in relation to medicine for women. Klein 2002 and Ogawa 2014 explore the medieval poetical treatises that draw on the theory of the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi), while Glassman 2009 focuses on the issues of termination of fetal life.
  540.  
  541. Andreeva, Anna. “Chūsei Nihon ni okeru osan to josei no kenkō––Sansei Ruijūshō no bukkyōteki, igakuteki chishiki o chūshin to shite (中世日本における御産と女性の健康—『産生類従抄』の仏教的・医学的知識を中心として).” In (Hikaku shisō kara mita Nihon bukkyō 比較思想から見た日本仏教). Edited by Sueki Fumihiko 末木文彦, 13–36. Tokyo: Sankibō Busshōrinkan, 2015.
  542.  
  543. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  544.  
  545. Discusses a description of a thirty-eight-week fetal development found in a 14th-century Buddhist medico-ritual encyclopedia on childbirth transmitted outside the direct context of imperial Buddhist temples and court.
  546.  
  547. Find this resource:
  548.  
  549.  
  550. Andreeva, Anna. “Lost in the Womb: Conception, Reproduction, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men.” In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 420–478. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  551.  
  552. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  553.  
  554. Analyzes Buddhist embryological theories seen in the commentaries to major esoteric scriptures written by scholar-monks and countryside priests in medieval Japan. Also draws attention to the medieval literati writings, poetic treatises, Shinto rituals, and a range of sources focusing on the issue of women’s bodies.
  555.  
  556. Find this resource:
  557.  
  558.  
  559. Dolce, Lucia. “Duality and the Kami: The Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shinto.”In Special Issue: Re-thinking Medieval Shintō. Edited by Bernard Faure, Michael Como, and Iyanaga Nobumi. Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 16 (2006–2007): 119–150.
  560.  
  561. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  562.  
  563. Discusses the issues of visualization of the indigenous deities (kami) in medieval Japan. It offers a treatment of late medieval vernacular ritual sources featuring the embryological model known as the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi) set in the context of esoteric Buddhist initiations (abhiṣeka) into the kami secrets.
  564.  
  565. Find this resource:
  566.  
  567.  
  568. Dolce, Lucia. “Nigenteki genri no gireika—Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō (二元的原理の儀礼化—不動、愛染と力の秘像).” In Girei no chikara –– chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai (儀礼の力––中世宗教の実践世界). Edited by Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, 159–208. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010.
  569.  
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571.  
  572. Analyzes the issue of duality and its visualization arising from the previously unstudied Japanese medieval Buddhist sources. Briefly discusses the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi) that is linked in the Japanese context to the second chapter of the Yugikyō (Ch. Yuqie yuqi jing, the Yoga Sutra, T. 867).
  573.  
  574. Find this resource:
  575.  
  576.  
  577. Dolce, Lucia. “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources.” In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 253–310. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  578.  
  579. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  580.  
  581. Analyzes medieval Japanese commentaries on the Yugikyō (Ch. Yuqie yuqi jing, the Yoga Sutra, T. 867) and manuscripts featuring the “embryological charts” depicting the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (Jp. tainai goi). It offers a new perspective on the theories of ritual embodiment (shintairon) and soteriological discourses that developed in the context of medieval Japanese monastic complexes.
  582.  
  583. Find this resource:
  584.  
  585.  
  586. Faure, Bernard. “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō.” In Tantra in Practice. Edited by David Gordon White, 543–556. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
  587.  
  588. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  589.  
  590. Offers a discussion of the Tachikawa lineage and describes the flow of ideas between the esoteric Buddhist milieu and the realm of kami worship in medieval Japan. These phenomena serve as a backdrop for the growing significance of the tainai goi theory (five stages of the embryo in the womb) in medieval Japan.
  591.  
  592. Find this resource:
  593.  
  594.  
  595. Faure, Bernard. “Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism.” In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 311–343. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  596.  
  597. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  598.  
  599. Focuses on a seldom-discussed aspect of embryological discourse, the placenta deities. Offers an analysis of the premodern texts that document the emergence of such deities and their growing significance in late medieval and early modern Japan.
  600.  
  601. Find this resource:
  602.  
  603.  
  604. Glassman, Hank. “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism. Edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, 175–206. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009.
  605.  
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607.  
  608. Focuses on the concept of the Blood Pool Hell and the constructions of motherhood in the otogi zōshi tales. Glassman casts light on the stages of pregnancies as explained to women, the notion of the fetus as independent from the mother’s body, as well as postmortem fetal extraction.
  609.  
  610. Find this resource:
  611.  
  612.  
  613. Klein, Susan Blakeley. Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Commentaries in Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
  614.  
  615. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  616.  
  617. Discusses the tainai goi theory (five stages of embryo in the womb) in the context of medieval waka poetry. Among other literary and religious sources, previously unstudied in the West, this book analyzes the ritual and commentarial documents, such as Waka Kokin kanjō no maki (A Scroll on the Waka Kanjō, the Poetry Abhiṣeka of Old and New).
  618.  
  619. Find this resource:
  620.  
  621.  
  622. Ogawa Toyoo 小川豊生. Chūsei Nihon no shinwa, moji, shintai (中世日本の神話・文字・身体). Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2014.
  623.  
  624. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  625.  
  626. Investigates a variety of medieval embryological theories found in esoteric sutras, such as the Yugikyō (Ch. Yuqie yuqi jing, the Yoga Sutra, T. 867), Buddhist scholarly commentaries on it, and diverse religious and literary sources that demonstrate the spread of such theories among a different strata of Japanese Buddhist milieu.
  627.  
  628. Find this resource:
  629.  
  630.  
  631. Early Modern and Contemporary Japanese Sources
  632. The embryological motifs continued to appear in Japanese Buddhist sources from the early modern (1600–1868) and contemporary (1868–present) periods. Licha 2016 analyzes the embryological models already present within the medieval Japanese Buddhist works (as discussed in Dolce 2006–2007, Dolce 2010, and Dolce 2016—all cited under Medieval Japanese Sources) in relation to the Sōtō Zen ritual documents. Hardacre 1983 and Sekimori 2016 investigate such motifs in the context of the early modern and contemporary mountain religious practices of the Ōmine and Haguro Shugendō, respectively. Hardacre 1997, LaFleur 1992, and Smith 2013 focus on the issues of termination of fetal life and memorial rituals for aborted fetuses (mizuko kuyō) that continue to form an important part of popular rituals and religious practices in contemporary Japan.
  633.  
  634. Hardacre, Helen. “The Cave and the Womb World.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 10.2–3 (1983): 149–176.
  635.  
  636. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637.  
  638. Investigates the ritual of ascending the cave on the site of Ōmine Shugendō, a historic mountain religion practice, taking place in central part of Honshū. This rite is structured as a return to the womb or the Womb-Store Realm, one of the two major icons of esoteric Buddhism; the article offers the gendered explanation of this ritual in terms of its significance for both men and women. (See also Sekimori 2016)
  639.  
  640. Find this resource:
  641.  
  642.  
  643. Hardacre, Helen. Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan. Berkeley: University of California, 1997.
  644.  
  645. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  646.  
  647. A seminal study of Buddhist rituals for aborted fetuses (mizuko kuyō) set in modern Japan. It traces the marketing strategies adopted by religious specialists and follows the itinerary of this ritual through four case studies set in different parts of Japan, and in the context of Buddhist and Shinto institutions, as well as new religions. (See also LaFleur 1992 and Smith 2013.)
  648.  
  649. Find this resource:
  650.  
  651.  
  652. LaFleur, William R. Liquid Life: Buddhism and Abortion in Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
  653.  
  654. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  655.  
  656. Traces the Buddhist discourses on fetal life and examines the doctrinal tensions between the explicit Buddhist prohibition of killing and termination of pregnancy and infanticide. One of the seminal books on this subject, it offers a different but complementary view on the phenomenon of mizuko kuyō, also explored by other scholars. (See also Hardacre 1997 and Smith 2013.)
  657.  
  658. Find this resource:
  659.  
  660.  
  661. Licha, Kigensan. “Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism.” In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 479–521. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  662.  
  663. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  664.  
  665. Explores the medieval embryological theory of the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi) in the context of early modern Sōtō Zen transmissions and funerary cults. Also surveys the impact of the “embryological charts” on Zen doctrine and practice. (See also Sanford 1997, cited under General Overviews; and Faure 2000, Dolce 2006–2007, Dolce 2010, and Dolce 2016, cited under Medieval Japanese Sources.)
  666.  
  667. Find this resource:
  668.  
  669.  
  670. Sekimori Gaynor. “Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice—Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo.” In Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions. Edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, 522–558. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  671.  
  672. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  673.  
  674. Explores the five and ten stages of gestation and embryological metaphors in the mountain ascetic tradition of Haguro Shugendō in northeastern Japan. It offers a special focus on local landscape, ritual implements, and practitioners’ attire, and is accompanied by detailed photographs and illustrations.
  675.  
  676. Find this resource:
  677.  
  678.  
  679. Smith, Bradwell L. Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity: Japanese Women, Pregnancy Loss, and Modern Rituals of Grieving. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  680.  
  681. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199942138.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  682.  
  683. Revisits the topic of mizuko kuyō (ritual service for aborted fetuses) in the context of modern Japan. Offers a selection of interviews with women who relate their own ideas about pregnancy, termination of fetal life, and ritual services conducted by Buddhist temples. (See also Hardacre 1997 and LaFleur 1992)
  684.  
  685. Find this resource:
  686.  
  687.  
  688. Additional Resources
  689. This section includes online resources that give access to further tools and materials useful for investigating the theme of embryology in the Buddhist sources known in Asia and the West. The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism is a useful online tool for cross-checking key Buddhist terms and doctrinal sources. The depository of the recent volumes of Traditional South Asian Medicine provides access to the major research articles and scholarly book reviews dealing with South Asian medicine.
  690.  
  691. Muller, A. Charles, ed. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism.
  692.  
  693. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  694.  
  695. An online dictionary that established its web presence in 1995, although the compilation of initial sources was began already in 1986 under the title of the Dictionary of East Asian Buddhist Terms. This ongoing digital humanities project is spearheaded by Dr. A. Charles Muller (Center for Evolving Humanities, University of Tokyo) and a group of fellow academics. The dictionary is linked to other useful external resources and is constantly updated and peer-reviewed by professional scholars of Buddhism working at academic institutions across the globe. The use of this website requires a simple password.
  696.  
  697. Find this resource:
  698.  
  699.  
  700. Traditional South Asian Medicine. 2001–.
  701.  
  702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703.  
  704. An online resource displaying the contents of the recent volumes of Traditional South Asian Medicine (formerly the Journal of the European Āyurvedic Society), including research articles and book reviews. Volume 7 (2003) includes a reference to Makoto Kitada’s article on “Embryology, Asceticism and Music.”
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