Chinese American Death Rituals

Chinese American Death Rituals
Author: Sue Fawn Chung
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780759107342

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They have looked to individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment for this resolution. This volume expertly describes and analyzes cultural retention and transformation in the after-death rituals of Chinese American communities."--Jacket.

Chinese Buddhists & American Death Rituals

Chinese Buddhists & American Death Rituals
Author: Eileen Young
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2003
Genre: Buddhism
ISBN:

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A brief comparison of the rituals and ceremonies surrounding death and funerals in China and the United States.

Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China

Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China
Author: Paul Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2012-04-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1107003881

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Death rituals and Buddhist imagery of the afterlife have been central to the development and spread of Buddhism as a social and textual tradition. Bringing together ethnographic, historical and theoretically informed accounts, the book presents in-depth studies of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China.

Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China

Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China
Author: James L. Watson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1988
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520071292

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During the late imperial era (1500-1911), China, though divided by ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences at least as great as those prevailing in Europe, enjoyed a remarkable solidarity. What held Chinese society together for so many centuries? Some scholars have pointed to the institutional control over the written word as instrumental in promoting cultural homogenization; others, the manipulation of the performing arts. This volume, comprised of essays by both anthropologists and historians, furthers this important discussion by examining the role of death rituals in the unification of Chinese culture.

The Buddhist Dead

The Buddhist Dead
Author: Bryan J. Cuevas
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2007-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824860160

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In its teachings, practices, and institutions, Buddhism in its varied Asian forms has been—and continues to be—centrally concerned with death and the dead. Yet surprisingly "death in Buddhism" has received little sustained scholarly attention. The Buddhist Dead offers the first comparative investigation of this topic across the major Buddhist cultures of India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet, and Burma. Its individual essays, representing a range of methods, shed light on a rich array of traditional Buddhist practices for the dead and dying; the sophisticated but often paradoxical discourses about death and the dead in Buddhist texts; and the varied representations of the dead and the afterlife found in Buddhist funerary art and popular literature. This important collection moves beyond the largely text—and doctrine—centered approaches characterizing an earlier generation of Buddhist scholarship and expands its treatment of death to include ritual, devotional, and material culture. Contributors: James A. Benn, Raoul Birnbaum, Jason A. Carbine, Bryan J. Cuevas, Hank Glassman, John Clifford Holt, Matthew T. Kapstein, D. Max Moerman, Mark Rowe, Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Gregory Schopen, Koichi Shinohara, Jacqueline I. Stone, John S. Strong.13 illus.

Chinese American Death Rituals

Chinese American Death Rituals
Author: Sue Fawn Chung
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2005-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0759114625

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Death is a topic that has fascinated people for centuries. In the English-speaking world, eulogies in poetic form could be traced back to the 1640s, but gained prominence with the 'graveyard school' of poets in the eighteenth century often stressing the finality of death. Chinese American Death Rituals examines Chinese American funerary rituals and cemeteries from the late nineteenth century until the present in order to understand the importance of Chinese funerary rites and their transformation through time. The authors in this volume discuss the meaning of funerary rituals and their normative dimension and the social practices that have been influenced by tradition. Shaped by individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment, Chinese Americans have resolved the tensions between assimilation into the mainstream culture and their strong Chinese heritage in a variety of ways. This volume expertly describes and analyzes Chinese American cultural retention and transformation in rituals after death.

Death in Asia

Death in Asia
Author: Lee Pyung Rae et al
Publisher: Seoul Selection
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2016-03-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1624120644

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Learning How to Die Can Teach Us How to Live All of the world's religions refer to death in some way. Everyone is somewhat familiar with stories about where we go or what happens to us after death. From an early age, we have all heard stories of heaven or hell or some other version of paradise. Many of us believed such stories, and a great number of us still do. When considering that such stories manage to persist in modern times, an age of science and logic, we can be sure that death is an issue to which humans attach great importance. In a sense, the idea of an afterlife can be a great source of comfort to those whose death is imminent, as well as to their loved ones. Those who have led especially difficult lives can look forward to a more pleasant world, while those who have enjoyed happiness and abundance have the chance to experience more good fortune. To those left behind, the idea of an afterlife presents the chance to meet a loved one again. We may not be conscious of it, but such hopes and expectations stay with us throughout our lives. If such an afterlife does exist, then there is no reason to avoid or fear death. Moreover, if we believe that another life awaits us, then we would believe that we are only separated from our loved ones temporarily before being reunited with them later on.

Buddhist Death Rituals in Fujian

Buddhist Death Rituals in Fujian
Author: Ingmar Fédéric Heise
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

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This thesis examines Buddhist rituals conducted (mainly) by monks for the wellbeing of deceased lay-persons in contemporary Fujian province in Southeast China. Research was conducted within the Bristol project on 'Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China' and sponsored by the AHRC. Based on fieldwork conducted from March-December 2008 in the three urban areas of Xiamen and Quanzhou in Southern Fujian, and the capital Fuzhou in Northern Fujian, and on written materials, such as Buddhist scriptures, monastic public announcements and ritual manuals, I describe and analyse a variety of post-burial rites. They range from small scale rites of offering to nourish and help the deceased during the liminal period of forty-nine days after death and rebirth, to one-to-three day funeral chaodu 'rites of ferrying across' sending off the departed to a better rebirth, ideally held before the end of the forty-nine days liminal period, to the large-scale public rituals of universal liberation held during the so-called 'Ghost Month' and the crown of Buddhist rituals the shuilu fahui or 'Grand Dharma Assembly of Liberation of all Land and Water Beings' .. The research presented here is more like a snapshot or survey of contemporary Buddhist rituals and practices for the dead in Southeast China than an in depth anthropological analysis; my hope is, through this overview, to provide inspiration and basic material for future research.

Surviving Nirvana

Surviving Nirvana
Author: Sonya S. Lee
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2010-03-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9622091253

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The Buddha's nirvana marks the end of the life of a great spiritual figure and the beginning of Buddhism as a world religion. Surviving Nirvana is the first book in the English language to examine how this historic moment was represented and received in the visual culture of China, of which the nirvana image has been a part for over 1,500 years. --Mining a selection of well-documented and well-preserved examples from the sixth to twelfth centuries, Sonya Lee offers a reassessment of medieval Chinese Buddhism by focusing on practices of devotion and image-making that were inspired by the Buddha's "complete extinction." The nirvana image, comprised of a reclining Buddha and a mourning audience, was central to defining the local meanings of the nirvana moment in different times and places. The motif's many guises, whether on a stone-carved stele, inside a pagoda crypt, or as a painted mural in a cave temple, were the product of social interactions, religious institutions, and artistic practices prevalent in a given historical context. They were also cogent responses to the fundamental anxiety about the absence of the Buddha and the prospect of one's salvation. By reinventing the nirvana image to address its own needs, each community of patrons, makers, and viewers sought to recast the Buddha's "death" into an allegory of survival that was charged with local pride and contemporary relevance.- -Thoroughly researched, this study engages methods and debates from the fields of art history, religion, archaeology, architecture, and East Asian history that are relevant to scholars and students alike. The many examples analyzed in the book offer well-defined local contexts to discuss broader historical and theoretical issues concerning representation, patronage, religion and politics, family values, and vision.--Sonya S. Lee is assistant professor of art history and East Asian languages and cultures at University of Southern California.-- -

Tibetan Rituals of Death

Tibetan Rituals of Death
Author: Margaret Gouin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2012-09-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136959173

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This book describes and analyses the structure and performance of Tibetan Buddhist death rituals, and situates that performance within the wider context of Buddhist death practices generally. Drawing on a detailed and systematic comparative survey of existing records of Tibetan funerary practices, including historical travel accounts, anthropological and ethnographic literature, Tibetan texts and academic studies, it demonstrates that there is no standard form of funeral in Tibetan Buddhism, although certain elements are common. The structure of the book follows the twin trajectories of benefiting the deceased and protecting survivors; in the process, it reveals a rich and complex panoply of activities, some handled by religious professionals and others by lay persons. This information is examined to identify similarities and differences in practices, and the degree to which Tibetan Buddhist funeral practices are consistent with the mortuary rituals of other forms of Buddhism. A number of elements in these death rites which at first appear to be unique to Tibetan Buddhism may only be ‘Tibetan’ in their surface characteristics, while having roots in practices which pre-date the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet. Filling a gap in the existing literature on Tibetan Buddhism, this book poses research challenges that will engage future scholars in the field of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Anthropology.