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Relics (Buddhism)

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  1. Introduction
  2. Evidence for the veneration of relics associated with the Buddha dates as far back as evidence for Buddhism more broadly. “Relics” in this article and most English-language scholarship on Buddhism comprise both bodily remains and Relics of Use or “contact relics.” Relics of use include robes, bowls, and other objects that buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Buddhist saints employed or otherwise were strongly associated with. Whereas “relics” as bodily remains suggest intimate connections with Funerary Rites and Whole-Body Preservation, “relics” as objects used by a Buddhist deity or saint—and the extreme importance of materially enshrining both kinds of relics—suggest intimate connections between relics and Material Culture, such as we find in Stūpas and Reliquaries. Also reflecting the significance of enshrining relics, an often-cited Theravada text identifies three categories of shrines (Pali cetiya), adding to those for bodily relics and relics of use such commemorative shrines as those for buddha-images. These commemorative shrines remind one of or re-present the Buddha; see John Strong’s work Relics of the Buddha (Strong 2004, p. 19, cited under General Overviews). Due to this classification, similarities in the cults of relics and images concerning intertwined issues of representing—or making present—the absent Buddha, and such other links as the depositing of relics in statues, many scholars have examined relics and images together or treated buddha-images as a type of relic. By contrast, others have questioned the tendency to lump relics and images together, arguing that more careful distinctions are needed; see, for example, Robert H. Sharf’s article “On the Allure of Buddhist Relics” (Sharf 2004, cited under Visual Culture). In both cases, however, the intertwined significance of relics and images in modern scholarship, and thus the intimate connections between the study of relics and of visual culture, are highlighted. Yet while the emphasis on relics, material culture, and visual culture in recent Western scholarship on Buddhism is often explicitly posited in contrast to an earlier overemphasis on textual studies, the intimate connections between relics and Textual Culture are equally clear. This is due both to the significance of Chronicles and Other Narrative Traditions in promoting the cult of relics and to the frequent textual and epigraphic invocation of scriptures, scriptural passages, and dhāraṇī as forms of Dharma-Relics. Engaged study of the cult of relics thus holds continued promise for integrated analysis of Buddhist material, visual, and textual culture.
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  4. General Overviews
  5. Other than encyclopedia entries, few studies tackle the true diversity of the Buddhist cult of relics, with most concentrating instead on a particular geographically defined area. That said, the varied essays in Germano and Trainor 2004 do cover a broad geographic spread and thus can be used collectively as a general overview, suitable both for specialists and for advanced undergraduate or graduate students. Among encyclopedia-type entries, which are similarly useful both for scholars and for classroom use, Strong 2005 stands out as an article on relics across religious traditions, with substantial attention to Buddhism, reflecting the author’s considerable expertise in Buddhist relic cults. Schopen 1998 also examines Buddhist relic traditions alongside Western ones (primarily Christian) but with a sharper critical edge, befitting its inclusion in an edited volume on critical analysis of terms central to the study of religion. Harvey 2010 and Ruppert 2004 are both brief overviews of relics in Buddhism specifically. Harvey’s study devotes the bulk of the analysis to South Asian traditions, while Ruppert’s provides relatively balanced coverage of South and East Asian traditions. Skilling 2005 collates wide-ranging evidence for relic traditions in diverse Asian cultures but is most suitable for specialists. Among Western-language monographs, Strong 2004, although explicitly giving the most attention to South and Southeast Asian traditions, provides the broadest coverage. Strong’s fluid writing style, the plethora of stories from primary sources in the volume, and the study’s scholarly rigor recommend this book for classroom as well as more specialized use. Trainor 1997 is a scholarly monograph on relics in Theravada Buddhism, focusing on the Pali tradition in premodern Sri Lanka, but is also useful for the broader study of Buddhist relic traditions. Similarly, but with a geographic and temporal focus on early medieval Japan, Ruppert 2000 stands out as the most detailed Western-language study of Japanese Buddhist relic traditions; introductory chapters help contextualize the study of Buddhist relics across cultures.
  6.  
  7. Germano, David, and Kevin Trainor, eds. Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
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  10.  
  11. Edited collection of six articles and a detailed introduction on varied relic traditions, including ones in South and Southeast Asia, Tibet, and East Asia. Collectively, the volume provides a scholarly book-length overview of Buddhist relic cults across cultures.
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  13. Find this resource:
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  15. Harvey, Peter. “Buddha, Relics of.” In Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Edited by Damien Keown and Charles S. Prebish, 133–137. London: Routledge, 2010.
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  18.  
  19. Brief overview of the relics of the Buddha, focusing primarily on South Asian traditions.
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  22.  
  23. Ruppert, Brian D. Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan. Harvard East Asian Monographs 188. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
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  26.  
  27. Although the monograph focuses on medieval Japan, introductory chapters help place the specific traditions examined in the broader context of the practice and study of Buddhist relic cults. The most comprehensive Western-language study to date of relics and their social context in medieval Japan.
  28.  
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  30.  
  31. Ruppert, Brian O. “Relics and Relics Cults.” In Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr., 715–719. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.
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  34.  
  35. More geographically diverse in its coverage of Buddhist relic traditions than Harvey’s similar-length overview (Harvey 2010), this encyclopedia article is recommended as a good, though brief, introduction to the topic for undergraduates and scholars alike.
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  38.  
  39. Schopen, Gregory. “Relic.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Edited by Mark C. Taylor, 256–268. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  40.  
  41. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226791739.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  42.  
  43. Critical overview of issues in the study of Buddhist and Christian relics, with suggestions for further reading. Suitable for both classroom use and specialists.
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  46.  
  47. Skilling, Peter. “Cutting across Categories: The Ideology of Relics in Buddhism.” Annual Report of the International Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University 8 (2005): 269–322.
  48.  
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  50.  
  51. An erudite overview of the literary and archeological evidence for relic traditions across Asian cultures.
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  54.  
  55. Strong, John S. Relics of the Buddha. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  56.  
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  58.  
  59. A fluid yet rigorous and well-documented overview of Buddhist relic cults, especially in South and Southeast Asia. One of the best book-length introductions to the topic, the monograph is useful for both undergraduate courses and specialists.
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  62.  
  63. Strong, John. “Relics.” In Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 11. Edited by Lindsay Jones, 7686–7692. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
  64.  
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  66.  
  67. Overview study of relics in varied religious traditions—including Hinduism, Israelite religion, Islam, ancient Greece, Christianity, and Buddhism—with bibliographic recommendations. Helpful for undergraduate students and scholars alike for placing Buddhist relic traditions in comparative context.
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  70.  
  71. Trainor, Kevin. Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
  72.  
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  74.  
  75. Scholarly monograph providing an overview of relic traditions in premodern Sri Lanka and a revisionist study of Theravada Buddhism more broadly. The detailed introduction contextualizes the issues within the history of Western studies of Pali Buddhism.
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  78.  
  79. Reference Works
  80. Two English-language encyclopedias of Buddhism, Buswell 2004 and Keown and Prebish 2010, stand out for the overall quality of the scholars involved and the individual entries, including many related to the study of relics. Buswell 2004 features more scholars and a greater range of topics but often shorter articles. Keown and Prebish 2010 has the advantage of still being in print and affordable in the paperback edition cited here, but Buswell 2004 is available in many large university library collections. Demiéville, et al. 1929– is an ongoing, primarily French-language encyclopedia of Buddhism based on Chinese and Japanese sources. The eight fascicles published to date—covering entries from “A” into the “D” range according to Japanese pronunciation—feature both brief and article-length entries, including many by leading Western scholars of East Asian Buddhism for their time. Jones 2005 is an excellent starting place for research into diverse religious traditions for scholars and students alike. This fifteen-volume set includes both broadly comparative articles, such as John Strong’s article on relics (Strong 2004, cited under General Overviews), and articles on specific religious traditions, with both types featuring many topics related to relic traditions. The Japanese Kōshiki Database (講式データべース)—a collection of a particular genre of Buddhist liturgical texts composed in Japan and written primarily in kanbun 漢文 (classical Chinese)—is a more specialized reference source. However, the many kōshiki in the collection devoted to relics recommend it for specialists investigating East Asian relic traditions.
  81.  
  82. Buswell, Robert E., Jr., ed. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.
  83.  
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  85.  
  86. Provides concise analyses and bibliographies, by leading Buddhist Studies scholars, for many topics relevant to the study of relics. Helpful entries include Amulets and Talismans; Death; Famensi; Jewels; Relics and Relics Cults; Reliquary; Ritual Objects; Robes and Clothing; Sāñcī; and Stūpa.
  87.  
  88. Find this resource:
  89.  
  90. Demiéville, Paul, et al., ed. Hōbōgirin: Dictionnaire encyclopédique du bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoises et japonaises. 8 vols. Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonaise, 1929–.
  91.  
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  93.  
  94. Ongoing encyclopedia of Buddhism based on Chinese and Japanese sources. Organized according to Japanese pronunciation. Currently only up to “Den’e,” but relevant topics include a thorough overview of relics by Bernard Faure (s.v. “Dato”) and entries on the Buddha’s footprints (“Bussokuseki”), cremation (“Dabi”), and the transmission of the robe (“Den’e”) by Anna Seidel.
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  96. Find this resource:
  97.  
  98. Jones, Lindsay, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2d ed. 15 vols. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
  99.  
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  101.  
  102. An excellent starting place for research into a great variety of religious phenomena. Consists of survey articles with bibliographies for further research. For comparative research on relics, this encyclopedia can be more helpful than the Buddhism-specific ones.
  103.  
  104. Find this resource:
  105.  
  106. Keown, Damien, and Charles S. Prebish, eds. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. London: Routledge, 2010.
  107.  
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  109.  
  110. In comparison to Buswell 2004, this encyclopedia features fewer contributors and total entries, but many entries are longer. Helpful individual entries, listed in order of their major topic groupings (pp. xxiv–xxviii), include Buddha, Early Symbols; Buddha, Relics of; Sacred Places; and Stūpa. First published in 2007 as a hardback edition.
  111.  
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  113.  
  114. Kōshiki Database (講式データべース).
  115.  
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  117.  
  118. Japanese-language database of kōshiki texts, a liturgical genre translated by the compiler, Niels Guelberg, as “Ceremonials.” The database includes many kōshiki devoted to relics, under the heading for Hotoke: Shakuson 仏・釈尊 (Buddhas: The Honored Śākyamuni).
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  121.  
  122. Funerary Rites
  123. One of the most frequently recounted episodes in the life of the Buddha is his death. His instructions to followers on the proper disposition of his body and its remains through funerary rites, and the ensuing division of his bodily relics, are recounted in many canonical texts. Bareau 1975 provides a detailed overview of such canonical sources, with a comparison of the funerary rites for the Buddha and those for cakravartins, or “wheel-turning kings” who rule through righteousness rather than force. Schopen 1997a and Schopen 2004 are two often-cited essay collections that include many revisionist interpretations of funerary rites and relics in early Indian Buddhism. Readers can best understand Schopen’s broader views on these issues by referring to the essays in their collected forms, but Schopen 1997b is singled out here as a particularly influential essay, addressed in varying ways by both Silk 2006 and Strong 2007. Schopen argues that citations of the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta for supposed injunctions against monks participating in the cult of relics are largely based on misinterpretations of passages concerning the treatment of the Buddha’s “body” rather than his “relics.” Silk 2006 refines Schopen’s arguments on meanings of the Sanskrit term śarīra in the singular as “body” and in plural form as “relics,” an issue that bears heavily on interpretations of funerary rites for the Buddha and the nature of his relics. Strong 2007 examines the depiction of the funerary rites for the Buddha in various versions of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sutra and suggests that many otherwise anomalous details can best be understood as anticipating the production and preservation of relics. Loseries-Leick 2008 sheds light on contemporary Tibetan funerary and relic practices by providing a first-person account of the cremation ceremony for the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpai Dorje (b. 1924–d. 1981), and the production of relics during the ceremony. Foulk and Sharf 1993–1994 is a provocative study on the uses of chinzō 頂相 (also chinsō; Ch. dingxiang) portraits of Chan 禅 (Jpn. Zen) masters in medieval China. The study is noteworthy here for arguments that such portraits should be interpreted in the ritual context of East Asian funerary rites and were rendered functionally equivalent to relics.
  124.  
  125. Bareau, André. “Les récits canoniques des funérailles de Buddha et leurs anomalies: Nouvel essai d’interprétation.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 62 (1975): 151–189.
  126.  
  127. DOI: 10.3406/befeo.1975.3845Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  128.  
  129. This erudite article on the funerary rites for the Buddha explores in particular the connections between the depictions of those rites, including the treatment of the Buddha’s bodily relics, and depictions of the rites for cakravartins.
  130.  
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  132.  
  133. Foulk, T. Griffith, and Robert Sharf. “On the Ritual Use of Ch’an Portraiture in Medieval China.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 7.7 (1993–1994): 149–219.
  134.  
  135. DOI: 10.3406/asie.1993.1064Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  136.  
  137. Influential study arguing that chinzō portraits of Chan masters are best understood in the ritual context of East Asian funeral and memorial rites rather than dharma transmission. Republished in Chan Buddhism in Ritual Context, edited by Bernard Faure (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 74–150, without the French-language summary.
  138.  
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  140.  
  141. Loseries-Leick, Andrea. Tibetan Mahayoga Tantra: An Ethno-Historical Study of Skulls, Bones and Relics. Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 2008.
  142.  
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  144.  
  145. Although this ethnographical study devotes more attention to the issues of skulls and bones, chapter 5 (“Human Bones & the Wonders of Precious Relics,” pp. 133–151) focuses on relics. Includes an intriguing first-person account of the 1981 cremation ceremony for the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpai Dorje (b. 1924–d. 1981).
  146.  
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  148.  
  149. Schopen, Gregory. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997a.
  150.  
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  152.  
  153. Many of the articles in this highly regarded collection of essays center on relics, stūpas, and funerary rites. Most are quite technical and aimed at specialists, but Schopen’s findings have broad ramifications for the study of Buddhism more generally.
  154.  
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  156.  
  157. Schopen, Gregory. “Monks and the Relic Cult in the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta: An Old Misunderstanding in Regard to Monastic Buddhism.” In Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. By Gregory Schopen, 99–113. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997b.
  158.  
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  160.  
  161. Influential essay arguing that passages in the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta on “sarīra-pūjā”—often interpreted as referring to the veneration of “relics”—instead refer to the treatment of the Buddha’s “body” after death but before cremation and the production of relics.
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  164.  
  165. Schopen, Gregory. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004.
  166.  
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  168.  
  169. Continues the focus from Schopen 1997a on epigraphic and archaeological evidence for monastic practices in ancient or “middle-period” Indian Buddhism, with sustained attention to issues of funerary rites and relics.
  170.  
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  172.  
  173. Silk, Jonathan A. Body Language: Indic śarīra and Chinese shèlì in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra and Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series 19. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2006.
  174.  
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  176.  
  177. This highly technical study, based on both Indic-language and Chinese sources, was inspired by Schopen 1997b. Silk’s study qualifies and elaborates Schopen’s arguments on the Buddha’s funerary rites regarding distinctions between śarīra in the singular meaning “body” and in plural meaning “relics.”
  178.  
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  180.  
  181. Strong, John. “The Funeral of the Buddha.” In The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations. Edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone, 32–59. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
  182.  
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  184.  
  185. A clear examination of controversial details in accounts of the Buddha’s funerary rites in various versions of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sutra and related narratives. Reinterprets many apparently incongruous details by arguing for their overriding concern with the production, distribution, and preservation of relics.
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  188.  
  189. Whole-Body Preservation
  190. Intimately connected to Funerary Rites and the production of relics are traditions celebrating “whole-body” relics rather than the “divided” or “fragmentary” relics produced after cremation. Bronkhorst 2011 tentatively suggests that belief in the internment of the Buddha’s uncremated body in a single stūpa may have predated belief in the division of his cremated body as fragmentary relics. Sharf 1992 focuses on the “mummification” of Chan masters in medieval China, a practice that created whole-body relics which functioned similarly to portraits of deceased masters in funerary and memorial rites (this issue is also addressed for Chan masters in Foulk and Sharf 1993–1994, cited under Funerary Rites). However, as Ritzinger and Bingenheimer 2006 points out, Buddhist mummification practices—both in China and beyond—were not exclusive to any particular sect or doctrine. Ritzinger and Bingenheimer’s study offers a review of previous scholarship and new interpretations of Chinese traditions for preserving and venerating Buddhist masters’ whole-body relics. Although Sharf, Ritzinger and Bingenheimer, and many other scholars of Buddhism refer to such whole-body relics as “mummified” remains, Owen 2008 rejects such terminology for bodily preservation practices in Buddhism while focusing on a particular example of whole-body preservation in contemporary Tibetan Buddhism.
  191.  
  192. Bronkhorst, Johannes. Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
  193.  
  194. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004201408.i-294Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195.  
  196. Section 3.7, pp. 193–230, analyzes the Buddha’s funeral rites and production of relics in broader Indian context, including comparisons with Brahmanical and Jain traditions. Challenges assumptions that accounts of the Buddha’s body as having been cremated, rather than interred as a single body relic, were necessarily the earliest.
  197.  
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  199.  
  200. Owen, Mark. “Old Traditions, New Techniques: The Bodily Preservation of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche.” Religions of South Asia 2.2 (2008): 215–237.
  201.  
  202. DOI: 10.1558/rosa.v2i2.215Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203.  
  204. A relatively rare study taking bodily preservation in Tibetan Buddhism as its principal focus. The study draws on fieldwork with Tibetan Buddhist communities in 2006 and 2007 to analyze the preservation of the body of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche (b. 1903–d. 1983), which was enshrined in the Dalai Lama’s private temple.
  205.  
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  207.  
  208. Ritzinger, Justin, and Marcus Bingenheimer. “Whole-Body Relics and Chinese Buddhism: Previous Research and Historical Overview.” Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7 (2006): 37–94.
  209.  
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  211.  
  212. Substantial review of studies on the mummified remains of practitioners in Chinese Buddhism and a historical overview of the practice. Argues against the theories of much previous Western- and Japanese-language scholarship, particularly concerning the ostensible Daoist roots of the practice.
  213.  
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  215.  
  216. Sharf, Robert H. “The Idolization of Enlightenment: On the Mummification of Ch’an Masters in Medieval China.” History of Religions 32.1 (1992): 1–31.
  217.  
  218. DOI: 10.1086/463304Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219.  
  220. Provocative exploration of the medieval Chinese tradition of mummifying eminent Chan (or Ch’an; Jpn. Zen) masters and enshrining them as objects of veneration. Draws parallels with the monastic use of portraits of such masters as effigies that could stand in for the deceased master and ease the transition between abbots.
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  223.  
  224. The Buddha’s Body Parts
  225. Among the Buddha’s bodily relics, two principal types are distinguished: (1) such actual physical remains as bones and teeth and (2) generally crystalline, transmuted substances—often appearing like small seeds, grains, or beads—produced during cremation (Strong 2004, p. 10). This section concerns the first type, among which traditions of the Buddha’s finger bones and teeth have received the most attention. A major reason for scholarly emphasis on the Buddha’s finger bones is the fame of a few such relics in China, from medieval through modern times. Wang 2005 is a frequently cited art historical essay on four relics purported to be the Buddha’s finger bones and discovered during excavations of the Chinese temple Famensi in 1987. Sharf 2011 examines one of these same finger-bone relics but focuses, in contrast to earlier studies, more on the material qualities of the finger bone itself than on the reliquaries enshrining it (on the Famensi relics, see also Chen 2002a, Chen 2002b, and Sen 2003, all cited under Political Patronage). Traditions of the Buddha’s teeth relics, each focusing on a different geographical area and time, are examined in Schober 1997, Strong and Strong 1995, and Strong 2010. Schober 1997 focuses on the reception and patronage of a Chinese tooth relic in modern Myanmar, exploring the state-staged “ritual theater” of venerating the relic. Strong and Strong 1995 also investigates a tooth relic said to have been transported from China, but focusing on a literally theatrical tradition, a Japanese Nō play and other medieval accounts of a relic miraculously discovered in China and brought to Japan. Strong 2010 is valuable for its examination of Portuguese, Sinhalese, and later British reactions to the reported 16th-century destruction by the Portuguese of a famed tooth relic of the Buddha now enshrined in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Although not receiving as much scholarly attention as the Buddha’s finger bones and teeth, the Buddha’s hair and nails have also been widely venerated, especially in South and Southeast Asia, as Strong 2004 shows. As the study also argues, however, hair and nails occupy an ambiguous status among the Buddha’s bodily parts because they are sometimes treated instead as contact relics due to their more readily detachable nature. Leider 2009, an examination of a circa 18th-century “pagoda history” from Arakan (now part of Myanmar), stands out for the plethora and unusually detailed nature of the Buddha’s body parts claimed to be found in the kingdom.
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  227. Leider, Jacques P. “Relics, Statues, and Predictions: Interpreting an Apocryphal Sermon of Lord Buddha in Arakan.” Asian Ethnology 68.2 (2009): 333–364.
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  230.  
  231. The 239 bodily relics of the Buddha mentioned in the c. -18th-century text that Leider examines feature many not detailed elsewhere. The relics said to be dispersed throughout Arakan include such specific body parts as the Buddha’s eyelid creases, cheeks, Adam’s apple, elbows, intestines, spleen, placenta, penis, and testicles.
  232.  
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  234.  
  235. Schober, Juliane. “Buddhist Just Rule and Burmese National Culture: State Patronage of the Chinese Tooth Relic in Myanma.” History of Religions 36.3 (1997): 218–243.
  236.  
  237. DOI: 10.1086/463465Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  238.  
  239. Explores the 1994 patronage of a Chinese tooth relic by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) then governing Myanmar (or Myanma). Schober argues that the state’s promotion and controlled media coverage of the borrowed relic ritually dramatized SLORC’s authority while determining the nature of the responses by political opponents.
  240.  
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  242.  
  243. Sharf, Robert F. “The Buddha’s Finger Bones at Famensi and the Art of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism.” Art Bulletin 93.1 (2011): 38–59.
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  246.  
  247. In contrast to previous studies, which focus on the elaborate enclosures for the relics, Sharf examines the material conditions of the finger-bone relics themselves. Argues for connections between their materiality and design and the “platform” or “altar” rites (tanfa 壇法) depicted in Tang-period (608–907) esoteric manuals.
  248.  
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  250.  
  251. Strong, John S. Relics of the Buddha. Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
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  254.  
  255. Chapter 3, “Relics of the Still-Living Buddha: Hairs and Footprints,” (pp. 71–97), argues that as detachable bodily parts, the Buddha’s hairs and nails occupy a similarly ambiguous status to footprints. Strong suggests that they fall between classifications as bodily relics and such contact relics as clothes.
  256.  
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  258.  
  259. Strong, John S. “‘The Devil Was in That Little Bone’: The Portuguese Capture and Destruction of the Buddha’s Tooth-Relic, Goa, 1561.” Past and Present (Suppl. 5) (2010): 184–198.
  260.  
  261. DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtq024Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  262.  
  263. Examines the reported destruction by the Portuguese of one of the most famous Buddha tooth relics, the eye-tooth now said to be enshrined in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Shows how earlier accounts of attempts to destroy the relic supported continued Sinhalese devotion to it despite the actions of the Portuguese.
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  265. Find this resource:
  266.  
  267. Strong, John S., and Sarah Strong. “A Tooth Relic of the Buddha in Japan: An Essay on the Sennyū-Ji Tradition and a Translation of Zeami’s Nō Play ‘Shari.’” Japanese Religions 20.1 (1995): 1–33.
  268.  
  269. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  270.  
  271. Examines a Nō play account of the tooth relic enshrined at Sennyūji in Kyoto. Places the account in the context of other local claims to this relic, which was said to have been miraculously received by the Chinese Vinaya master Daoxuan (b. 596–d. 667) and transported to Japan.
  272.  
  273. Find this resource:
  274.  
  275. Wang, Eugene Y. “Of the True Body: The Buddha’s Relics and Corporeal Transformation in Tang Imperial Culture.” In Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture. Edited by Wu Hung and Katherine R. Tsiang, 79–118. Harvard East Asian Monographs 239. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005.
  276.  
  277. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  278.  
  279. Starting from the 1987 discovery in the Famensi crypt of four relics said to be finger bones of the Buddha’s, this intricate essay uses the visual, material, and ideological context of the relics’ enshrinement to explore shifting understandings of the Buddha’s “true body” (zhenshen 眞身) in medieval China.
  280.  
  281. Find this resource:
  282.  
  283. Material Culture
  284. Scholarship on Buddhist relics centers on the study of physical remains of the Buddha and other holy figures and such other “remnants” of those figures as objects or texts enshrined as Dharma-Relics. As the study of such materially embodied remains, scholarship on Buddhist relics could be classified generally as part of the study of material culture. For the purposes of more nuanced classifications, however, this article distinguishes among studies emphasizing rituals and relics for bodies after death and identifiable body parts (see Funerary Rites, Whole-Body Preservation, and the Buddha’s Body Parts); studies contextualizing their analyses within Material Culture Studies or emphasizing such objects as robes, bowls, stūpas, and reliquaries; and studies emphasizing the connections between relics and Visual Culture or Textual Culture. Accordingly, the current section is divided into Material Culture Studies, Relics of Use, and Stūpas and Reliquaries.
  285.  
  286. Material Culture Studies
  287. In recent years, John Kieschnick has been one of the leading specialists in Buddhism arguing for the relevance of Buddhist studies to material culture studies and vice versa. Kieschnick 2003 is a lively monograph on Buddhism and Chinese material culture that gives much attention to Buddhist relics. The book is well suited to both scholars and university students. Kieschnick 2008 is an article-length introduction to the study of material culture as it relates to religion and emotion, which also reflects his expertise in Buddhist traditions, including relics. Rambelli 2007 focuses on material culture issues in Japanese Buddhism and is helpful for theoretically and culturally contextualizing the study of Japanese relic traditions. Although neither Kidder 1992 nor Liu 1996 explicitly identify their analyses as part of “material culture studies,” their respective subject matters and methods of analysis suggest their relevance here. Kidder’s article engages in a close material analysis of premodern relics and repositories held by the Japanese temple Hōryūji. Liu’s monograph focuses on silk and religion in European and Asian cultures from 600 to 1200 CE and includes substantial reflections on connections with Buddhist relic traditions.
  288.  
  289. Kidder, Edward J., Jr. “Busshari and Fukuzō: Buddhist Relics and Hidden Repositories of Hōryū-ji.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 19.2–3 (1992): 217–244.
  290.  
  291. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  292.  
  293. This archeological study features close material analysis of the ancient and early medieval relics, hidden repositories, and related objects of the famed Nara temple Hōryūji, which was said to have been founded by Prince Shōtoku (b. 573?–d. 622?).
  294.  
  295. Find this resource:
  296.  
  297. Kieschnick, John. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
  298.  
  299. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  300.  
  301. Although focused on China, this monograph provides a fluid and well-researched introduction to the study of Buddhism and material culture more broadly. Particularly relevant here are the detailed introduction (pp. 1–23); chapter 1, which includes sections on “Relics” and “Icons” (pp. 24–82); and discussions of robes and alms bowls in “The Monastic Uniform” (pp. 86–115).
  302.  
  303. Find this resource:
  304.  
  305. Kieschnick, John. “Material Culture.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion. Edited by John Corrigan, 223–237. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  306.  
  307. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  308.  
  309. Includes reflections on Buddhism and attitudes toward relics within a broader analysis of the interplay between objects and emotions in varied religious traditions. As a survey article with significant attention to methodological issues relevant to the study of Buddhist relics, the essay is appropriate for undergraduates and specialists alike.
  310.  
  311. Find this resource:
  312.  
  313. Liu, Xinru. Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People, AD 600–1200. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  314.  
  315. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  316.  
  317. Wide-ranging exploration of silk and religion, centering on Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic cultures in Europe and Asia from the 7th through the 12th century. Includes a chapter on the “Rise of Buddhist Folk Religion and Relic Transactions” (pp. 25–48) and many interspersed reflections on the silk trade and relic cults in varied traditions.
  318.  
  319. Find this resource:
  320.  
  321. Rambelli, Fabio. Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
  322.  
  323. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  324.  
  325. Best suited to graduate students and specialists, this learned monograph helps situate the analysis of relics in Japanese Buddhism within broader systems of meaning and performance related to objects.
  326.  
  327. Find this resource:
  328.  
  329. Relics of Use
  330. “Relics of use” (Pali pāribhogika) are also often referred to as “contact relics,” as the category includes both clearly utilitarian objects and places or things strongly associated with a buddha or saint simply through contact. Thus typical examples include Buddhist robes, begging bowls, staffs, and the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha sat. This section focuses on robes and bowls as representative ones alongside a third, more ambiguous but plentiful example of Buddhist relics, the Buddha’s footprints. Traditions surrounding the Buddha’s or a saint’s robes became especially important in East Asia, due in part to the native East Asian tradition Zen (Ch. Chan) and the celebration of robes in East Asian Vinaya lineages. Faure 1995 is an influential study of the robe in medieval Sōtō Zen, which argues that the significance of the monastic robe there expanded from a contact relic to a substitute body for the Buddha. Shinohara 2000 valuably supplements Faure’s and other earlier studies examining the robe in Zen traditions by focusing on accounts of the Buddha’s robe reportedly revealed to the Chinese Vinaya master Daoxuan (b. 596–d. 667). Shinohara 2003, in turn, complements Shinohara 2000 by focusing on accounts of the Buddha’s bowl revealed to Daoxuan. Chinese traditions of the bowl are also the focus of Wang-Toutain 1994, which includes a survey of Chinese scriptural accounts. As suggested in Strong 2004, p. 72 (cited under the Buddha’s Body Parts), the Buddha’s footprints were a more ambiguous example of relics of use because in some cases they were more clearly “commemorative” or “representational” relics (Pali uddesika). In still other cases, as the detailed catalogue and analysis of early Indian examples in Quagliotti 1998 suggests, footprints were treated like the Buddha’s actual feet and thus a form of “bodily” relic (Pali sarīrika). While Quagliotti’s study of buddha-footprints is quite technical and best suited for specialists, Aksland 2001 provides helpful analyses for more general audiences in a cultural history of one of the most famous such footprints, on Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka. Bizot 1971, a survey of Cambodian buddha-footprint types, shows that naturally formed footprints (such as the one on Adam’s Peak) are venerated differently than sculpted footprints. The bilingual Japanese and English study Niwa 1992 is written for a general audience but, according to Quagliotti 1998, contains many errors. That said, Niwa’s study merits inclusion for its abundant photographs and the breadth of his first-person investigations of buddha-footprints across Asia.
  331.  
  332. Aksland, Markus. The Sacred Footprint: A Cultural History of Adam’s Peak. Bangkok: Orchid, 2001.
  333.  
  334. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335.  
  336. Although written for a general audience, this cultural history of Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka—home to one of the most famous footprints attributed to the Buddha—is carefully researched. Includes investigation of both Sinhala and non-Sinhala sources as well as alternative Muslim, Hindu, and Christian treatments of the footprint.
  337.  
  338. Find this resource:
  339.  
  340. Bizot, François. “La figuration des pieds du Bouddha au Cambodge.” Asiatische Studien/Études asiatiques 25 (1971): 407–439.
  341.  
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343.  
  344. Scholarly French-language survey of buddha-footprint types in Cambodia. Argues that naturally formed footprints, in contrast to sculpted ones, are treated as remnants that the Buddha has willed to be left behind and are thus often venerated more highly.
  345.  
  346. Find this resource:
  347.  
  348. Faure, Bernard. “Quand l’habit fait le moine: The Symbolism of the Kāsāya in Sōtō Zen.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 335–369.
  349.  
  350. DOI: 10.3406/asie.1995.1101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351.  
  352. Investigates the symbolism of the monastic robe for Dōgen (b. 1200–d. 1253) and the later Sōtō tradition, including why the robe was chosen among other kinds of relics as the symbol of the dharma. Faure argues that the robe came to be perceived as a substitute for śarīra.
  353.  
  354. Find this resource:
  355.  
  356. Niwa Motoji 丹羽基二. Zusetsu sekai no bussokuseki: Bussokuseki kara mita bukkyō (図説世界の仏足石: 仏足石から見た仏教). Tokyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1992.
  357.  
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359.  
  360. English title: Buddha’s Footprints: Pictures and Explanations; Buddhism as Seen through the Footprints of Buddha. As a popularizing study by an enthusiastic amateur, this bilingual Japanese and English book should be used with caution. It remains useful, however, for copious black-and-white photographs and the author’s first-person investigations of buddha-footprints across Asia (Niwa estimates that he has personally viewed about 2,000).
  361.  
  362. Find this resource:
  363.  
  364. Quagliotti, Anna Maria. Buddhapadas: An Essay on the Representations of the Footprints of the Buddha with a Descriptive Catalogue of the Indian Specimens from the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th Century A.D. Vol. 2. Memoirs. Kamakura, Japan: Institute of the Silk Road Studies, 1998.
  365.  
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367.  
  368. Catalogue and highly technical analysis of buddha-footprint representations in early India. Chapters 3 (“Buddhapadas in Their Monumental Context,” pp. 109–123) and 4 (“Buddhapadas: Are They an Aniconic Representation of the Buddha?” pp. 125–141), while still technical, are likely to hold the broadest interest.
  369.  
  370. Find this resource:
  371.  
  372. Shinohara, Koichi. “The Kasāya Robe of the Past Buddha Kāśyapa in the Miraculous Instruction Given to the Vinaya Master Daoxuan (596–667).” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 13.2 (2000): 299–367.
  373.  
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375.  
  376. Explores accounts of the transmission of a robe from Kāśyapa Buddha to Śākyamuni that was later preserved in a stūpa for future buddhas. Shinohara contextualizes these accounts, said to have been revealed to Daoxuan in a visionary experience, within a broader narrative construction of “imaginary cultic objects,” or contact relics.
  377.  
  378. Find this resource:
  379.  
  380. Shinohara, Koichi. “The Story of the Buddha’s Begging Bowl: Imagining a Biography and Sacred Places.” In Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions. Edited by Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, 68–107. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003.
  381.  
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383.  
  384. Centered on accounts of a begging bowl passed down from buddha to buddha that were divinely revealed to Daoxuan, this essay complements Shinohara 2000. The accounts repeatedly link the bowl and relics to the continuation, decline, and restoration of the dharma after the Buddha’s entry into nirvana.
  385.  
  386. Find this resource:
  387.  
  388. Wang-Toutain, Françoise. “Le bol du Buddha: Propagation du bouddhisme et légitimité politique.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 81 (1994): 59–82.
  389.  
  390. DOI: 10.3406/befeo.1994.2246Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391.  
  392. Traces the cult of the Buddha’s bowl through a survey of Chinese scriptural accounts. Includes an examination of political motifs in links between the actions of a wicked ruler and the mutual destruction of the bowl and the dharma.
  393.  
  394. Find this resource:
  395.  
  396. Stūpas and Reliquaries
  397. Stūpas and reliquaries are grouped together here because one of the defining characteristics of most stūpas is as a monument believed to enshrine relics. The cult of stūpas and those of relics are, accordingly, very closely related. Bareau 1962 is a classic, erudite French-language study of the cult of stūpas based on Vinaya sources (see also Bareau 1975, Schopen 1997a, and Schopen 2004, all cited under Funerary Rites, for related studies). Schopen 1997, based on both archeological and literary evidence for early Indian stūpa and relic traditions, illuminates the common pattern of smaller, secondary stūpas being clustered around a central stūpa enshrining the Buddha’s relics. Bentor 2003 examines both Indian and Tibetan traditions of stūpas and relics to classify the content of deposits inside Tibetan stūpas and images. Dallapiccola and Zingel-Avé Lallemant 1980 and Hawkes and Shimada 2009 are two interdisciplinary collections of scholarly essays on stūpas, with the former covering traditions across Asia and the latter focusing on South Asian traditions. Fontein 2001 is a brief but provocative essay on one of the most famous stūpas in Southeast Asia, that at Borobudur in Indonesia. The question of what kind of relics Borobudur may enshrine, if any, has long puzzled scholars, and Fontein finds a tentative answer in the suggestion that the relics may have been the famed reliefs on the monument, in a kind of wedding of Visual Culture and the notion of Dharma-Relics. Willis 2000 is a catalogue of ancient Indian reliquaries held at two leading British museums that includes a small but well-researched collection of essays. The essays help illuminate the reliquaries’ architectural, religious, and historical contexts in ancient India. Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2001 catalogues an exhibition on Japanese Buddhist reliquaries and related traditions of relics and wish-fulfilling jewels (Jpn. nyoi hōju 如意宝珠 or simply hōju; Skt. cintāmaṇi). Richly illustrated with both color and black-and-white photographs, this study is primarily written in Japanese but includes an English-language introduction and abbreviated catalogue. Naitō 2010 is a recent Japanese-language monograph on the adornment of relics in reliquaries and other shrines in Japan, including analysis of their ritual use.
  398.  
  399. Bareau, André. “La construction et le culte des stūpa d’après les Vinayapiṭaka.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 50.2 (1962): 229–274.
  400.  
  401. DOI: 10.3406/befeo.1962.1534Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  402.  
  403. Classic, still-useful survey of the literature on the construction and the cult of stūpas in multiple Vinaya traditions. However, for significant counterarguments to some of Bareau’s conclusions on the cult of relics, see Trainor 1997, cited under General Overviews, especially pp. 54–56 and 64.
  404.  
  405. Find this resource:
  406.  
  407. Bentor, Yael. “The Content of Stūpas and Images and the Indo-Tibetan Concept of Relics.” Tibet Journal 28.1–2 (2003): 21–48.
  408.  
  409. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  410.  
  411. Through both textual study of Tibetan literature and ethnographic observations, this article argues that most objects deposited in Tibetan stūpas and images are best understood according to Indo-Tibetan concepts of relics. There is much overlap in content here with Bentor 1995, cited under Dharma-Relics.
  412.  
  413. Find this resource:
  414.  
  415. Dallapiccola, Anna Libera, and Stephanie Zingel-Avé Lallemant, eds. The Stūpa: Its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance. Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980.
  416.  
  417. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  418.  
  419. Wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection of articles on the stūpa across Asian cultures.
  420.  
  421. Find this resource:
  422.  
  423. Fontein, Jan. “The śarīra of Borobudur.” In Fruits of Inspiration. Edited by Marijke J. Klokke and K. R. van Kooij, 83–91. Groningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 2001.
  424.  
  425. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  426.  
  427. Brief but insightful analysis of reliefs carved into the stūpa of Borobudur in Indonesia, one of the two best-known monuments of Southeast Asia. Fontein suggests that the relics (Skt. śarīra) enshrined at Borobudur may have been the reliefs themselves, in an evolution of the practice of enshrining or inscribing Dharma-Relics.
  428.  
  429. Find this resource:
  430.  
  431. Hawkes, Jason, and Akira Shimada, eds. Buddhist Stupas in South Asia: Recent Archaeological, Art-Historical, and Historical Perspectives. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  432.  
  433. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  434.  
  435. This essay collection collates much recent work on stūpas in South Asia, including various revisionist studies. Particularly relevant here are chapters by Michael Willis (pp. 41–50), Andy Rotman (pp. 51–62), Julia Shaw (pp. 114–145), and Xinru Liu (pp. 177–191). Unfortunately, the volume is not indexed, hampering identification of specific subjects.
  436.  
  437. Find this resource:
  438.  
  439. Naitō Sakae (内藤栄). Shari shōgon bijutsu no kenkyū (舎利荘厳美術の研究). Tokyo: Seishi Shuppan, 2010.
  440.  
  441. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  442.  
  443. Detailed study of the adornment and ritual uses of reliquaries in varied traditions of esoteric Buddhism in premodern Japan.
  444.  
  445. Find this resource:
  446.  
  447. Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan (奈良国立博物館), ed. Busshari to hōju: Shaka o shitau kokoro (仏舎利と宝珠: 釈迦を慕う心). Nara, Japan: Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2001.
  448.  
  449. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  450.  
  451. Lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue on Japanese traditions of buddha-relics and wish-fulfilling jewels, which in Japan were understood to incorporate relics. Includes an English-language table of contents, introduction, and catalogue (pp. 262–245; reverse pagination) in addition to the more detailed Japanese section.
  452.  
  453. Find this resource:
  454.  
  455. Schopen, Gregory. “Burial Ad Sanctos and the Physical Presence of the Buddha in Early Indian Buddhism.” In Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. By Gregory Schopen, 114–147. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
  456.  
  457. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  458.  
  459. This influential essay argues that the clustering of smaller stūpas around central stūpas enshrining the Buddha’s relics were based on notions of those relics as functionally equivalent to the living Buddha himself. Dying or having one’s remains buried near that living presence was thought to ensure rebirth in heaven.
  460.  
  461. Find this resource:
  462.  
  463. Willis, Michael, ed. Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India. London: British Museum, 2000.
  464.  
  465. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  466.  
  467. Catalog of reliquaries held by the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Particularly helpful for understanding the archeological context of ancient Indian Buddhist reliquaries are lucid overview articles on “Relics and Reliquaries” by Willis (pp. 12–26) and “The Sacred Landscape” by Julia Shaw (pp. 27–38).
  468.  
  469. Find this resource:
  470.  
  471. Visual Culture
  472. The status of images relative to relics is frequently discussed in the scholarly literature on relics. Rhi 2005 and other studies show that this is partly due to an often-cited classification in the Pali Kaliṅgabodhi-jātaka, which ranks commemorative or “indicative” shrines (uddesika-cetiya)—usually understood to include those for images—below those for bodily relics (sarīrika-cetiya) and Relics of Use (pāribhogika-cetiya). Although Schopen 1997a (cited under Funerary Rites), p. 197 note 34, and Strong 2004 (cited under General Overviews), p. 19, suggest that this is a late Theravada classification, Rhi argues that the secondary status of buddha-images to the main stūpa containing relics was made visually clear “in most Buddhist monastic complexes in India throughout their history” (p. 171). Rhi’s investigation of the possibility that relics were installed in images from Gandhāra suggests both how images were assimilated in the Buddhist relic cult and how relics were assimilated into image cults. Brown 2006 also focuses on the relic cult in Gandhāra, but with an eye to the relatively undistinguished visual appearance of the relics themselves. Brown thus argues that alongside the relics, the reliquaries, supplementary donated objects, and inscriptions collectively effected the desired visual and ritual goals of the relic deposit. Swearer 2004, a monograph on image consecration rites in Thailand, shows that another major reason for the interlinked scholarly interest in the cults of images and relics is the frequent use of relics in those consecration rites. In East Asian contexts, Brinker 2011 explores relics as a means for animating Buddhist images, especially in esoteric Buddhism. Groner 2001 provides a vivid case study of the interlinked roles of relics and icons in the activities of Eison (b. 1201–d. 1290), the founder of the Shingon Ritsu school in Japan. In a case study of a particular Japanese Buddhist temple (Murōji), Fowler 2005 illuminates the interlinked roles of both relics and the closely related cult of wish-fulfilling jewels in the visual culture of Shingon and other esoteric traditions. In counterpoint to studies emphasizing similarities between the cults of images and relics, Kinnard 2004 and Sharf 2004 argue for the need to make more careful distinctions. For Kinnard, the issue centers on the varying nature of the “presences” invoked by stūpas, relics, and images. For Sharf, the issue centers on the need to keep in mind the distinguishing aspects of the relics themselves and avoid simply conflating the two cults.
  473.  
  474. Brinker, Helmut. Secrets of the Sacred: Empowering Buddhist Images in Clear, in Code, and in Cache. Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 2011.
  475.  
  476. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  477.  
  478. Well supplemented by black-and-white photographs, this art historical study of means for animating Buddhist images gives substantial attention to the ritual use and symbolism of relics. Focuses particularly on East Asian esoteric Buddhist traditions.
  479.  
  480. Find this resource:
  481.  
  482. Brown, Robert L. “The Nature and Use of the Bodily Relics of the Buddha in Gandhāra.” In Gandhāran Buddhism: Archaeology, Art, Texts. Edited by Pia Brancaccio and Kurt Behrendt, 183–209. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006.
  483.  
  484. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  485.  
  486. This well-illustrated article on the relic cult in Gandhāra analyzes relics, their reliquaries, treasures donated with the relics, and their accompanying inscriptions as a unified visual and ritual set. Suggests that the “relics” in question comprise this full set of deposits and inscriptions rather than just the enshrined bodily relics.
  487.  
  488. Find this resource:
  489.  
  490. Fowler, Sherry. Murōji: Rearranging Art and History at a Japanese Buddhist Temple. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
  491.  
  492. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  493.  
  494. Chapter 1 (pp. 9–41) of this richly illustrated monograph on the visual culture of Murōji includes a lucid analysis of the early traditions of relics and wish-fulfilling jewels associated with Mt. Murō, in modern-day Nara Prefecture.
  495.  
  496. Find this resource:
  497.  
  498. Groner, Paul. “Icons and Relics in Eison’s Religious Activities.” In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Edited by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 114–150. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  499.  
  500. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  501.  
  502. Careful examination of the interlinked roles of icons and relics in the activities of the Japanese monk Eison (1201–1290), a master of both Vinaya (Jpn. Ritsu 律) and esoteric traditions.
  503.  
  504. Find this resource:
  505.  
  506. Kinnard, Jacob N. “The Field of the Buddha’s Presence.” In Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. Edited by David Germano and Kevin Trainor, 117–143. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
  507.  
  508. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  509.  
  510. Provocative analysis of the notion of “presence” often invoked in scholarly studies of stūpas, relics, and images. Argues for the need to distinguish more carefully the varying nature of the “presences” produced by such objects.
  511.  
  512. Find this resource:
  513.  
  514. Rhi, Juhyung. “Images, Relics, and Jewels: The Assimilation of Images in the Buddhist Relic Cult of Gandhāra—Or Vice Versa.” Artibus Asiae 65.2 (2005): 169–211.
  515.  
  516. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  517.  
  518. Explores the possibility of relic installation in buddha-images from Gandhāra. Aims to understand better the relative cultic importance of, and relationship between, relics and images in Indian Buddhist traditions.
  519.  
  520. Find this resource:
  521.  
  522. Sharf, Robert H. “On the Allure of Buddhist Relics.” In Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. Edited by David Germano and Kevin Trainor, 163–191. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
  523.  
  524. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  525.  
  526. Influential article examining the allure of relics for both practitioners and scholars. Relevant here especially for section on “The Semiotic Logic of Images, Icons, and Relics” (pp. 169–175), which suggests that although relics and images are often conflated by scholars, we need to keep in mind the distinguishing features of relics proper.
  527.  
  528. Find this resource:
  529.  
  530. Swearer, Donald K. Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  531.  
  532. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  533.  
  534. This lucid and authoritative investigation of consecration rites for buddha-images in Thailand includes frequent comparisons between images and relics as well as analysis of the role played by relics in the rites. Highly recommended for both classroom use and specialists.
  535.  
  536. Find this resource:
  537.  
  538. Textual Culture
  539. As for any other cultic practice in Buddhism, texts have been one of the main tools for promoting the cult of relics. Simultaneously, however, texts have also been integral to relativizing the cult of relics to other cultic practices, including the so-called “cult of the book,” or cultic devotion to texts themselves. This section on relics and textual culture is divided into two subsections, one on studies focusing on texts and Buddhist teachings more broadly as Dharma-Relics and the other on studies focusing on legends of relics in Chronicles and Other Narrative Traditions across Asia.
  540.  
  541. Dharma-Relics
  542. Schopen 2005, originally published in 1975, is one of the most influential studies connecting the rise of Mahayana Buddhism to a “cult of the book.” Schopen argues that the cult of the book challenged the earlier cult of stūpas and relics (though Schopen’s view has been contested recently). He suggests that one of the ways that certain early Mahayana texts did so was to posit devotion to the text itself as equivalent or superior to devotion to stūpas or relics. Boucher 1991, another often-cited study, extends the investigation of dharma-relics as a possible substitute for bodily relics by focusing on the enshrinement of the pratītyasamutpāda verse, or the verse on dependent origination, in stūpas. The article investigates both Indian and Chinese sources for uses of this renowned verse, centering on the period from 600 to 1200 CE. Bentor 1995 picks up on earlier findings of Schopen and Boucher in surveying the installation of relics, with a focus on dhāraṇī (incantatory formulas), in stūpas and images in India and Tibet (see also Bentor 2003, cited under Stūpas and Reliquaries). Shen 2001 focuses on Chinese practices of depositing dhāraṇī and other texts as dharma-relics (or “spiritual relics,” as the author glosses them) through an investigation of Liao-period (907–1125) examples. Several studies suggest that the understanding of dhāraṇī as dharma-relics and the desire to reproduce them or other Buddhist texts in large quantities spurred early examples of printing in East Asia. Barrett 2001 argues that China’s Empress Wu (b. 623 or 625–d. 705) likely used printed texts as substitutes for buddha-relics and investigates her possible motives for doing so. Hickman 1975 briefly analyzes one of the oldest examples of printed texts in the world, the printing and enshrinement of dhāraṇī in miniature wooden stūpas during the reign of Empress Shōtoku (r. 764–770) in Japan. Diemberger 2012 turns the spotlight to printed books in Tibet, tracing the links between ideas of texts as relics and Tibetan uses and understandings of printed books.
  543.  
  544. Barrett, T. H. “Stūpa, Sūtra and Śarīra in China, c. 656–706 CE.” Buddhist Studies Review 18.1 (2001): 1–64.
  545.  
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547.  
  548. Detailed and wide-ranging article analyzing the possible motives for the use of printed texts as substitutes for buddha-relics by Empress Wu. Includes a brief but helpful introductory section on the textualization of relics in Mahayana Buddhism more broadly (pp. 6–8).
  549.  
  550. Find this resource:
  551.  
  552. Bentor, Yael. “On the Indian Origins of the Tibetan Practice of Depositing Relics and Dhāraņīs in Stūpas and Images.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.2 (1995): 248–261.
  553.  
  554. DOI: 10.2307/604668Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555.  
  556. Clear survey of the installation of relics and, especially, dhāraṇī in stūpas and images in India and Tibet. The article starts with the Fifth Dalai Lama’s argument that the Tibetan practice of such installations originates in India and ultimately shows that the Tibetan practice both incorporated and elaborated the Indian precedents.
  557.  
  558. Find this resource:
  559.  
  560. Boucher, Daniel. “The Pratītyasamutpādagātha and Its Role in the Medieval Cult of Relics.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14.1 (1991): 1–27.
  561.  
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563.  
  564. Explores both the literary and archeological evidence from about 600 to 1200 CE for uses of the pratītyasamutpāda verse, focusing on the verse as an alternative to physical relics in reliquaries and stūpas.
  565.  
  566. Find this resource:
  567.  
  568. Diemberger, Hildegard. “Quand le livre devient relique: Les textes tibétains entre culture bouddhique et transformations technologiques.” Translated by Frédéric Sarter. Terrain 59 (2012): 18–39.
  569.  
  570. DOI: 10.4000/terrain.14916Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571.  
  572. This lavishly illustrated article, translated from an unpublished English-language study, explores the close links between attitudes toward printed Tibetan books and the Buddhist cult of relics. Includes an investigation of the influence of such attitudes on the technologies of book production and on the use of literary artifacts.
  573.  
  574. Find this resource:
  575.  
  576. Hickman, Brian. “A Note on the Hyakumantō Dhāraṇī.” Monumenta Nipponica 30.1 (1975): 87–93.
  577.  
  578. DOI: 10.2307/2383697Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579.  
  580. Brief but helpful study of extant, printed dhāraṇī enshrined in miniature wooden stūpas. Shows that Empress Shōtoku commissioned one million such “stūpa dhāraṇī” in 764, a task recorded to have been completed in 770, thus making the dhāraṇī one of the oldest examples of printed texts in the world.
  581.  
  582. Find this resource:
  583.  
  584. Schopen, Gregory. “The Phrase ‘sa pṛthivīpradeśaś caityabhūto bhavet’ in the Vajracchedikā: Notes on the Cult of the Book in Mahāyāna.” In Figments and Fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India: More Collected Papers. By Gregory Schopen, 25–62. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
  585.  
  586. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587.  
  588. This now-classic article, originally published in 1975, argues for a Mahayana “cult of the book” that variously tries to trump or amalgamate the earlier cult of relics and stūpas.
  589.  
  590. Find this resource:
  591.  
  592. Shen, Hsueh-man. “Realizing the Buddha’s Dharma Body during the Mofa Period: A Study of Liao Buddhist Relic Deposits.” Artibus Asiae 61.2 (2001): 263–303.
  593.  
  594. DOI: 10.2307/3249911Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595.  
  596. Art historical investigation of relic deposits in Liao-period China. Emphasizes scriptures and dhāraṇī deposited as “dharma-relics” (Ch. fasheli 法舍利) and equated with the Buddha’s entire body. Shen argues that these and other Liao relic deposits were responses to the perceived onset of the latter-day dharma (mofa 末法).
  597.  
  598. Find this resource:
  599.  
  600. Chronicles and Other Narrative Traditions
  601. Buddhist chronicle traditions, such as the Pali vaṃsa and Thai tamnān genres, have long revealed strong interest in tracing the spread and localization of distinct relic traditions. Berkwitz 2007 shows that for Sri Lanka, while Pali chronicles have received the bulk of scholarly attention, there is also an important tradition of vaṃsas written in the native Sinhala and detailing local relic installations. Berkwitz’s study translates and analyzes one such chronicle, the late-13th-century Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa, which provides the history of a particular relic shrine. Both the chronicle itself and Berkwitz’s analysis place that history within broader practices of the Sri Lankan relic cult. Jayawickrama 1971 provides a translation and Romanized edition of a Pali version of the chronicle. Swearer 1976 is another valuable book-length study of a particular relic shrine tradition, focusing on a northern Thai temple and including analysis of the chronicle narratives on the relic enshrined there. In an article-length study (Swearer 2004), Swearer steps back to investigate the broader narrative context of northern Thai Buddhist chronicles (Buddha tamnān) and their treatment of relics. Cho 2012 is a relatively rare study addressing relic installation in Korea, with careful attention to the narrative context of the depicted installations in the 13th-century Samguk yusa 三國遺事 (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms). Strong and Strong 1995 focuses on a rather different genre in examining the text of a medieval Japanese Nō play simply titled Shari 舍利 (Skt. śarīra), or “Relic,” which centers on the tooth relic of the Buddha held by the temple Sennyūji. Strong 2004 and Strong 2010 are cited here as, respectively, book-length and article-length analyses of relic traditions that emphasize their roles in extending narratives of the Buddha’s life and its major events.
  602.  
  603. Berkwitz, Stephen C., trans. The History of the Buddha’s Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa. American Academy of Religion Texts and Translations Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
  604.  
  605. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195301397.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  606.  
  607. Translates and analyzes a Sinhala Buddhist temple chronicle written by the lay scholar Parākrama Paṇḍita in the late 13th century (see Jayawickrama 1971 for translation of a Pali version). The chronicle centers on the Sri Lankan cult of relics and a revered, ancient 120-foot stūpa. Significant exploration of a vernacular Sinhala chronicle rather than the more frequently studied Pali ones.
  608.  
  609. Find this resource:
  610.  
  611. Cho, Eun-su. “Manifestation of the Buddha’s Land in the Here and Now: Relic Installation and Territorial Transformation in Medieval Korea.” In Images, Relics and Legends: The Formation and Transformation of Buddhist Sacred Sites; Essays in Honour of Professor Koichi Shinohara. Edited by James A. Benn, Jinhua Chen, and James Robson, 138–163. Oakville, ON: Mosaic, 2012.
  612.  
  613. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  614.  
  615. Focuses on accounts of the establishment of Odae-san as a Korean version of China’s Mt. Wutai rather than on relic installation per se. However, the essay is helpful for placing the relic installations tied to that establishment within the narrative context of the Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms).
  616.  
  617. Find this resource:
  618.  
  619. Jayawickrama, N. A. The Chronicle of the Thūpa and the Thūpavaṃsa. Vol. 28. Sacred Books of the Buddhists. London: Pali Text Society, 1971.
  620.  
  621. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  622.  
  623. Translation and transliterated edition of the Pali version of the Thūpavaṃsa attributed to Vāchissaratthera. The Thūpavaṃsa is a chronicle of Sri Lanka’s “Great Stūpa” (Pali Mahāthūpa) and the relics it enshrines (see Berkwitz 2007 for a study and translation of the Sinhala version).
  624.  
  625. Find this resource:
  626.  
  627. Strong, John S. Relics of the Buddha. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  628.  
  629. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  630.  
  631. Thorough overview study of Buddhist relic traditions, focusing on South and Southeast Asia. The author argues throughout for the significance of relic traditions as an extension of the life story of the Buddha, with carefully documented attention to the narrative contexts of the traditions.
  632.  
  633. Find this resource:
  634.  
  635. Strong, John S. “Relics and the Life Story of the Buddha.” In Medieval and Early Modern Devotional Objects in Global Perspective: Translations of the Sacred. Edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Jennifer Jahner, 11–20. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
  636.  
  637. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  638.  
  639. This brief article essentially provides a summary of the central argument of Strong 2004: that relics serve as both expressions and extensions of the biographical process of the Buddha. Helpful for classroom use, although specialists are best referred to the fuller analysis in Strong 2004.
  640.  
  641. Find this resource:
  642.  
  643. Strong, John S., and Sarah Strong. “A Tooth Relic of the Buddha in Japan: An Essay on the Sennyū-Ji Tradition and a Translation of Zeami’s Nō Play ‘Shari.’” Japanese Religions 20.1 (1995): 1–33.
  644.  
  645. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  646.  
  647. Translates and introduces the Nō play Shari 舍利 (Skt. śarīra), attributed to the renowned dramatist Zeami (b. 1363–d. 1443), on Sennyūji’s tooth relic of the Buddha.
  648.  
  649. Find this resource:
  650.  
  651. Swearer, Donald K. Wat Haripuñjaya: A Study of the Royal Temple of the Buddha’s Relic, Lamphun, Thailand. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976.
  652.  
  653. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  654.  
  655. This multifaceted investigation of a northern Thai temple includes a chapter on “The Story of the Relic and Its Shrine” (pp. 1–22) that analyzes the chronicle narratives of the enshrined relic.
  656.  
  657. Find this resource:
  658.  
  659. Swearer, Donald K. “Signs of the Buddha in Northern Thai Chronicles.” In Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. Edited by David Germano and Kevin Trainor, 145–162. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
  660.  
  661. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  662.  
  663. Explores the relics, or material signs, of the Buddha in the context of the narrative genre of Northern Thai Buddhist chronicles (Buddha tamnān). Suggests that the chronicles construct the Buddha and his material representations on related magical, cosmological, and ontological levels.
  664.  
  665. Find this resource:
  666.  
  667. Political Patronage
  668. Part of the broad appeal of relics lay in their “translations,” referring to the transfer of relics from one locale to another. The studies cited in this section show that, due largely to the nature of relics as transportable and collectible material signs of the Buddha and the power associated with Buddhism, political rulers throughout Asia have esteemed and sought to control relics for more than 2,000 years. Strong 1983 provides a lucid account of a paradigmatic model for patronage of buddha-relics in traditions linked to the 3rd-century-BCE Indian king Aśoka. Sen 2003, Chen 2002a, and Chen 2002b variously depict the roles played by relic distributions and other promotional campaigns in the reigns of medieval Chinese emperors. Sen’s summary analysis explicitly connects such campaigns to appropriations of Aśoka’s model of Buddhist rulership and extends, in the Chinese context, from Emperor Wen’s (r. 581–604) through Tang-period (608–907) promotional campaigns. Chen 2002a, within a monograph on the monk Tanqian (b. 542–d. 607) and his interlinked involvement in Buddhism and politics, examines the relic distribution campaigns of Emperor Wen and Empress Wu (r. 690–705). Chen 2002b is a detailed article spotlighting Empress Wu’s use of relics. Chen’s studies are both best suited to specialists, but Chen 2002b is somewhat more accessible as an article also available online. On Empress Wu and relics, see also Barrett 2001 (cited under Dharma-Relics) and Wang 2005 (cited under the Buddha’s Body Parts). Mohan 2007 suggests that Indian and Chinese rulers’ uses of relics were adapted on the Korean peninsula by Silla rulers in the 6th and early 7th centuries, to legitimize their conquest of Paekche and Koguryŏ (on relics and political patronage in premodern Korea, see also Cho 2012, cited under Chronicles and Other Narrative Traditions). Faure 2004 looks at the use of relics and wish-fulfilling jewels in often-competing centers of political power in late Heian (794–1185) and early medieval Japan. See Ruppert 2000, cited under General Overviews, for a more extended look at power relations in Japanese relic traditions. For South and Southeast Asia, Blackburn 2010 provides an insightful overview of relics in the legitimization of multiple polities from the 12th to the 20th century. Wyatt 2001 reexamines politics in 13th-century Siam, prompted by the redating of a significant inscription celebrating devotional activities related to a buddha-relic enshrinement. On the political patronage of a relic from China in modern Myanmar, see Schober 1997, cited under the Buddha’s Body Parts.
  669.  
  670. Blackburn, Anne M. “Buddha-Relics in the Lives of Southern Asian Polities.” Numen 57 (2010): 317–340.
  671.  
  672. DOI: 10.1163/156852710X501333Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  673.  
  674. Explores broad patterns in the relationship between buddha-relics and the legitimization of southern Asian polities from the 12th to 20th century. The analysis centers on examples from Sri Lanka, Chiang Mai (in present-day Thailand), and shared responses to colonial influences in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia.
  675.  
  676. Find this resource:
  677.  
  678. Chen, Jinhua. Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2002a.
  679.  
  680. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  681.  
  682. This monograph on the monk Tanqian (b. 542–d. 607) includes detailed analyses of the promotion and veneration of relics by Emperor Wen (r. 581–604) in chapter 2 (“Tanqian and the Relic-Distribution Campaigns during the Renshou Era,” pp. 51–108) and Empress Wu (r. 690–705) in chapter 3 (“Tied by Dharma and Blood,” pp. 109–148).
  683.  
  684. Find this resource:
  685.  
  686. Chen, Jinhua. “Śarīra and Scepter: Empress Wu’s Political Use of Buddhist Relics.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 25.1 (2002b): 33–150.
  687.  
  688. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  689.  
  690. Although covering similar ground on Empress Wu and her veneration of relics as in Chen 2002a, this extensive journal article has the advantage of being more readily available in an open-access online format.
  691.  
  692. Find this resource:
  693.  
  694. Faure, Bernard. “Buddhist Relics and Japanese Regalia.” In Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. Edited by David Germano and Kevin Trainor, 93–116. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
  695.  
  696. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  697.  
  698. Examines how relics and closely related wish-fulfilling jewels were used in late-Heian-period (794–1185) and early medieval Japan by varying parties at the center of political power, including ruling and retired emperors, regents, and the shogun.
  699.  
  700. Find this resource:
  701.  
  702. Mohan, Pankaj. “Cakravartin and the Relic-Cult in Early Shilla: Focusing on the Chinese Antecedents and Korean Adaptations.” In Korean Buddhism in East Asian Perspective. Edited by Geumgang Center for Buddhist Studies, Geumgang University, 59–85. Seoul, South Korea: Jimoondang, 2007.
  703.  
  704. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  705.  
  706. Illuminating analysis of how 6th- to early-7th-century rulers of Silla (or Shilla) used the relic cult and symbols of the cakravartin to help legitimate conquest of Paekche and Koguryŏ, maintain domestic unity, and create and sacralize a distinct lineage of royals.
  707.  
  708. Find this resource:
  709.  
  710. Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.
  711.  
  712. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  713.  
  714. Includes summaries of relic campaigns promoted by King Aśoka and Emperor Wen (r. 581–604) as well as the imperial promotion of the Famen relic in the Tang period (608–907) (pp. 55–76).
  715.  
  716. Find this resource:
  717.  
  718. Strong, John. The Legend of King Aśoka. Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
  719.  
  720. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  721.  
  722. Within this creative study of the c.-2nd-century-CE Sanskrit Aśokāvadāna and its context, Strong analyzes the legend of King Aśoka’s construction of 84,000 stūpas enshrining relics of the Buddha (pp. 109–119). Includes a translation of the corresponding section in the Aśokāvadāna on pp. 219–221.
  723.  
  724. Find this resource:
  725.  
  726. Wyatt, David K. “Relics, Oaths and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Siam.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32.1 (2001): 3–65.
  727.  
  728. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  729.  
  730. Reexamination of 13th-century Siam based on the redating of the Wat Bang Sanuk inscription from 1339 to 1219. The inscription centers on devotional activities and the enshrinement of a buddha-relic, and a section on “Piety and Social Hierarchy” (pp. 34–37) explores the notion that only a meritorious ruler could handle a relic.
  731.  
  732. Find this resource:
  733.  
  734. Saints and Buddhas of the Past
  735. As shown in such studies as Foulk and Sharf 1993–1994 (cited under Funerary Rites), Ritzinger and Bingenheimer 2006 and Owen 2008 (both cited under Whole-Body Preservation), Shinohara 2000 and Shinohara 2003 (both cited under Relics of Use), and Groner 2001 (cited under Visual Culture), relics widely venerated in Buddhism included not only those of the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, but also of saints and buddhas of previous eons. Brekke 2007 examines protracted negotiations over the return of relics of the Buddha’s disciples Sāriputta and Moggallāna to India and suggests that the relics were as valued by the Maha Bodhi Society as those of the Buddha himself. Faure 1991 and Faure 1992 explore traditions of relics associated with Chan (Jpn. Zen) masters. Faure 1991 does so within a broad-ranging revisionist study of Chan and Zen traditions, while Faure 1992 analyzes relic traditions connected with particular Chan pilgrimage sites. Carr 2011 explores veneration of “personalized relics,” or distinct body parts, associated with both Śākyamuni Buddha and Prince Shōtoku (b. 573?–d. 622?), who is often considered the founding father of Buddhism in Japan in a manner analogous to Śākyamuni in India. Nakao 2001 gives substantial attention to relic traditions associated with two medieval Japanese masters, Chōgen (b. 1121–d. 1206) and Eison (b. 1201–d. 1290), showing how their involvement in the relic cult helped magnify their charisma and construct perceptions of them as saints. Martin 1994 analyzes the signs of saintly death in Tibet and shows how they involve both the manifestation of relics from a master’s remains and objects closely associated with the master. Chapter 1 in Strong 2004 (pp. 25–49) provides the best English-language overview of relic traditions associated with buddhas of the past. Durt 1987 is a more specific study on relic traditions of past buddhas, examining accounts of the discovery of the stone seat of the buddha Kāśyapa in the 13th-century Korean chronicle Samguk Yusa.
  736.  
  737. Brekke, Torkel. “Bones of Contention: Buddhist Relics, Nationalism and the Politics of Archaeology.” Numen 54 (2007): 270–303.
  738.  
  739. DOI: 10.1163/156852707X211564Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  740.  
  741. Fascinating story of the struggle between Buddhist museum authorities and Buddhist revival leaders, especially those associated with the Maha Bodhi Society, over the return of relics of Sāriputta and Moggallāna to India (the two saints were considered to be two of the Buddha’s closest disciples).
  742.  
  743. Find this resource:
  744.  
  745. Carr, Kevin G. “Pieces of Princes: Personalized Relics in Medieval Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 38.1 (2011): 93–127.
  746.  
  747. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  748.  
  749. Fluid analysis of the “personalized relics” (remains identified as particular bodily parts of a saint) associated with Śākyamuni and Japan’s Prince Shōtoku (b. 573?–d. 622?) in the context of cultic devotion to Shōtoku.
  750.  
  751. Find this resource:
  752.  
  753. Durt, Hubert. “The Meaning of Archaeology in Ancient Buddhism: Notes on the Stūpas of Aśoka and the Worship of the ‘Buddhas of the Past’ According to Three Stories in the Samguk Yusa.” In Pulgyo wa che kwahak. Edited by Tongguk Taehakkyo, 1223–1241. Seoul, South Korea: Tongguk Taehakkyo, 1987.
  754.  
  755. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  756.  
  757. Explores accounts in the 13th-century Korean chronicle Samguk Yusa of the discovery of an Aśoka stūpa and the stone seat of the past buddha Kāśyapa, which can be classified among Relics of Use. Argues for the need to recognize and explore a Buddhist archaelogia sacra.
  758.  
  759. Find this resource:
  760.  
  761. Faure, Bernard. The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
  762.  
  763. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  764.  
  765. Discussions of relic traditions associated with Chan (Jpn. Zen) masters feature prominently in this influential revisionist study. See especially chapters 7–8 (pp. 132–178).
  766.  
  767. Find this resource:
  768.  
  769. Faure, Bernard. “Relics and Flesh Bodies: The Creation of Ch’an Pilgrimage Sites.” In Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China. Edited by Susan Naquin and Chün-fang Yü, 150–189. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  770.  
  771. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  772.  
  773. Explores how Chan sites of Mt. Sung and Caoxi (or Ts’ao-ch’i) attracted pilgrims after the deaths of their founding masters. Shows that for Mt. Sung, this included using many funerary stūpas for past masters, while Caoxi promoted the whole-body relic of the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng (b. 638–d. 713).
  774.  
  775. Find this resource:
  776.  
  777. Martin, Dan. “Pearls from Bones: Relics, Chortens, Tertons and the Signs of Saintly Death in Tibet.” Numen 41 (1994): 273–324.
  778.  
  779. DOI: 10.1163/156852794X00157Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  780.  
  781. Lucid classification and analysis of the signs associated with saintly death in Tibet, including relics emerging from practitioners’ remains and objects sanctified by close association with the practitioner. Interspersed translations and plain-English methodological reflections add to the appeal for both classroom use and specialized research.
  782.  
  783. Find this resource:
  784.  
  785. Nakao Takashi 中尾堯. Chūsei no kanjin hijiri to shari shinkō (中世の勧進聖と舎利信仰). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2001.
  786.  
  787. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  788.  
  789. The detailed second chapter (pp. 110–180) centers on the renowned Japanese monks Chōgen (b. 1121–d. 1206) and Eison (b. 1201–d. 1290), revealing the interlinked roles played by the cults of “living buddhas” and relics in their activities and constructions of their sainthood.
  790.  
  791. Find this resource:
  792.  
  793. Strong, John S. Relics of the Buddha. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  794.  
  795. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  796.  
  797. Chapter 1 in this overview study of traditions on the Buddha’s relics is devoted to the relics of previous buddhas (pp. 25–49).
  798.  
  799. Find this resource:
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