Problems of the Buddha Image in Medieval China: From Soteriology to Metaphysics

Problems of the Buddha Image in Medieval China: From Soteriology to Metaphysics

Speaker: Dr. Kwi Jeong Lee  Columbia University

Friday, October 4th, 2019, 6:00 pm

Columbia University, Faculty House

Abstract:

The fashioning of Buddha images, as Buddhist sutras prescribe, is meant to generate and accumulate merit. In medieval China, this canonical account drew moral criticism from detractors of Buddhism, and such anti-Buddhist criticism, in turn, brought to the fore the metaphysical issue of the relationship between the Buddha and his material representation. Analyzing the rhetoric and reasoning deployed by Buddhist proponents and their critics, I explore how the external attack prompted Buddhist apologists to articulate the soteriological utility of Buddha images more fully than that which was readily found in scriptures. Once formulated, this elite discourse became mobilized in the practice of crafting ritual images on the ground. By examining statue inscriptions and liturgies for image dedication, I argue that Buddhist devotees, acutely aware of the metaphysical problem inherent in the Buddha image, shunned direct equation of the Buddha with his images on the basis of the newly reinforced soteriology of merit.

About the Speaker:

Kwi Jeong Lee is the Sheng Yen postdoctoral fellow in Chinese Buddhism at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Religion at Princeton University in 2018. Her dissertation, “Shaping the Formless,” examines controversial issues that the ritual use of Buddhist images brought to the Chinese intellectual circles during the period from 300 to 700 CE. Her research interests encompass Buddhist apologetics, interactions between Buddhism and Chinese indigenous traditions, material culture, religious semiotics, and media theory.

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