Description:
In early medieval China hundreds of Buddhist miracle texts were circulated, inaugurating a trend that would continue for centuries. Each tale recounted extraordinary events involving Chinese persons and places--events seen as verifying claims made in Buddhist scriptures, demonstrating the reality of karmic retribution, or confirming the efficacy of Buddhist devotional practices. Robert Ford Campany, one of North America's preeminent scholars of Chinese religion, presents in this volume the first complete, annotated translation, with in-depth commentary, of the largest extant collection of miracle tales from the early medieval period, Wang Yan's Records of Signs from the Unseen Realm, compiled around 490 C.E.
In addition to the translation, Campany provides a substantial study of the text and its author in their historical and religious settings. He shows how these lively tales helped integrate Buddhism into Chinese society at the same time that they served as platforms for religious contestation and persuasion. Campany offers a nuanced, clear methodological discussion of how such narratives, being products of social memory, may be read as valuable evidence for the history of religion and culture. Readers interested in Buddhism; historians of Chinese religions, culture, society, and literature; scholars of comparative religion: All will find Signs from the Unseen Realm a stimulating and rich contribution to scholarship.Brief description: Robert Ford Campany is Gertrude Conway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities and professor of Asian studies and religions at Vanderbilt University.
Review Quotes: The study of lived religion is a corrective to the traditional focus on canons and scriptures, which often leads to constructions of religions that are prescriptive rather than descriptive, and more expressive of elite minority sentiments, concerns, and speculation than of the practices carried out by the majority of people. . . . Campany reminds us that, while religions may be institutions, we often forget that they are social agglomerations that consist of people with basic concerns.--Gil Raz, Dartmouth College "T'oung Pao, 99 (2013)"