Books by Bernard Faure
Les mille et une vies du Buddha, 2018
The Thousand and One Lives of the Buddha, 2022
life story thus has its origins (and to some extent its continuation) in fragments. To be sure, s... more life story thus has its origins (and to some extent its continuation) in fragments. To be sure, some Buddhist bricoleurs attempted to arrange these fragments in sequential order, starting with the Buddha's birth or his previous lives, and ending (in the case of the "complete" lives) with his death and his ongoing existences in relics and images. In this, they have been followed by many Western biographers. But, in other cases, the put-together anthologies are more chaotic, lled with ashbacks, jump-arounds, repetitions, lacunae, partialities, and excursi. Indeed, with few exceptions, most traditional Buddhist sources on the life of the Buddha are much less well ordered than we like to think. is is important because, from Faure's perspective, one of the things that comes along with historicism is the notion of a linear biography. In this light, a major challenge in writing a book on the life (or, more appropriately, the "lives") of the Buddha is how to keep its fragments distinct and separate without hopelessly losing one's readers, who, most likely, have an epistemological attraction to chronologically ordered narratives. In meeting this challenge, Faure succeeds magni cently. He rst focuses on cycles of tales that arose around certain pilgrimage sites, Lumbinī, Bodhgaya, Kuśinagara, etc., presenting them as though they were acts in a play. He then presents a select number of "secondary episodes," some connected to other pilgrimage sites, and others " oating," i.e., assigned to di erent times and places in the Buddha's life by di erent sources. ese are followed by separate chapters on past lives of the Buddha and stories concerning the Buddha's relationships with his own family members, with Māra, and with ritual celebrations in di erent Buddhist communities. In laying out these narratives, Faure does not hesitate to tap a wide range of sources, citing early and late Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Japanese versions of particular scenarios, among others, as well as their interpretations by various scholars and writers. is use of multiple sources not only helps to keep the fragmentariness of the Buddha's life story in mind; it also re ects the critique of historicism that Faure marshals. For hand in glove with the hypostatization of a historical buddha (whether conscious or not) has been a tendency, in Western scholarship, to privilege certain kinds of records-Pali or Sanskrit sources (or perhaps their translations into Tibetan or Chinese)-over Southeast or East Asian (or Western or Middle Eastern or modern) vernacular ones. is bias seems to re ect a desire to get closer to a supposed point of origin, a putative historical gure or context. However, once the mythic nature of the Buddha's life story has been recognized, once his lives are seen to be completely "storical," all stories about him are legitimate, regardless of their date or cultural provenance or language they were written in. Faure drives this point home in the third part of the book, where he returns to some of the episodes already dealt with in Part Two but now discusses more systematically how they are iterated in di erent eras (classical, medieval, and modern), vernacular sources (Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Western), and Foreword xi 381853WUV_BUDDHA_CC2019_PC.indd 11 18/01/2022 10:40:35 media (literature, art, and lm). Along the way, he validates the inclusion of often neglected sources such as the illustrated lives of Śākyamuni from the Ming dynasty (e.g., by Baocheng), parodic portrayals of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa (e.g., Itō Jakuchū's painting of the Vegetable Nirvāṇa), Tibetan, Indian, and Japanese stories featuring legendary antagonists of the Buddha (e.g., Gozu Tennō), Shinto-inspired critiques of the Buddha legend (e.g., by Hirata Atsutane), Persian and Arabic renditions of it (e.g., by Rashid al-Dīn), and medieval Christian reworkings (e.g., the tale of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, included in Voragine's Golden Legend), to name but a few. e panoply of examples ends with a chapter on presentations of the Buddha legend in comic books (manga), feature lms, and science ction. In this openness to all sources regardless of date or provenance, there are echoes, perhaps, of Lévi-Strauss's assertion that all versions of a myth-even its retellings and relatable narratives-should ideally be considered in its analysis. Unlike Lévi-Strauss, however, Faure does not seek to pull all the pieces together as parts of some unitive "structural message." To do so would betray their fragmentariness. His aim here, moreover, is not to be encyclopedic, but to be pioneering in endorsing the need and encouraging the usefulness of considering such "continuations" in any full study of the lives of the Buddha. As he puts it in his epilogue, rather than reduce these narratives to historicist, structuralist or functionalist explanations, it behooves us rst to savor them. In this way the Life of the Buddha remains an "open story."
The Will to Orthodoxy
This book is a reworking of my doctoral dissertation (11,tst' dt' Doctor021 d'Etal), defended in ... more This book is a reworking of my doctoral dissertation (11,tst' dt' Doctor021 d'Etal), defended in December 1984 in Paris. Most of the content has already been published in French. but in two works difficult to obtain Oet alone to read): La I'%nte d'orr/,odoxie dans Ie bouddhisme ,lrinois (Editions du CNRS, 1988) and Le bouddhisme Ch'an en mal d'histoire (Ecole Fran~aisc: d'Extreme-Orient. 1(89). I have thus decided to put out a new version so as to nuke the work more accessible-both in content and in form. I undertook this revision with the intention of considerably reducmg the critical apparatus in this book-but I failed in the end to OIvOid "the ostentation of footnotes. addenda. and appendixes" (Le Goff, Pour un QuI" Moyen Age, p. 21). Indeed. the initial attempt to check my penchmt for footnotes was undermined with every subsequent revision. ReOiders who \vant still more critical apparatus can always go to the earlier published forms. In a way, this work constitutes the historiographical scaffolding thOit permitted me to write my other recent books. It is thus presented here both as a piece of research in its own right and as representative of one phase in a progression. a phase that has not lost its relevance, despite the publication at about the same time of John McRae's book, 11,e J\'orlhem School and the Fom,arion of Early CII'an B'4ddhjsm. Both of our appro.1ches are heavily influenced by the historical criticism of Chan undert.1ken by Yanagida Seizan. and our results are in many ways complememouy. Unfortunately I was unable to rework my entire book to take into account all the VIU ACKNOWLEDGMENTS new data contributed by McRae. I only hope that by tossing this piece into the hopper of Chan history I may provide elements for some future synthesis. It would also probably be appropriate to modify my historical stance and introduce into the discussion. as I have since done. anthropological considerations that shed light on how a patriarchal lineage could become the controlling element in a tradition that laid claim to complete detachment from all historical contingencies. The two approaches reinforce each other. however. and it is because of this complementarity that the present work. although earlier in its conception than The Rhetori, oJ Immediacy and Chan IrlSigllls and Oversights, can take its place beside them. I have, over the years, benefited from the help of many friends and institutions. My most obvious debt is to Professor Yanagida Seizan. without whom this project would not even have been conceived. My research in Japan was also greatly enhanced by generous help of Hubert Durt. Antonino Forte. Robert Duquenne. and the late Anna Seidel at the H6b6girin Institute. In France, I anl particularly indebted to Francine Herail. the late Bernard
Gods of Medieval Japan 3: Rage and Ravage, 2021
CO NTE NT S 3. Demonologies 51 Esoteric Buddhism and Exorcism 51 Indian Buddhist Demonology 52 Hā... more CO NTE NT S 3. Demonologies 51 Esoteric Buddhism and Exorcism 51 Indian Buddhist Demonology 52 Hārītī, the Mother of Demons 56 Chinese Buddhist Demonology 62 Japanese Demonology 64 From onryō to goryō 66 The Case of Michizane 68 The oni 73 The hyakki yagyō 74 The tengu 79 Māra and māras 84 Ryōgen, the Great Horned Master 86 Malignant Foxes 89 The Hekija-e 94 Codetta 105 4. Like an Evil Wind-Gozu Tennō 107 The Mythological Persona 111 The Gion Gozu Tennō engi 112 The Hoki naiden 113 The Shintō shū 115 Gozu Tennō in the saimon 115 The Shimawatari saimon 116 Other Sources 117 Iconographic Representations 119 Cultic Sites 123 The Hiromine Tradition 124 The Gion Tradition 125 The Tsushima Tradition 125 A Demon's Family Romance 127 Gozu Tennō's Entourage 130 An Arena of Contention 134 From Bull to Ox 136 The Ritual Context 139 Material Aspects of the Cult 140 Codetta 145 5. The Road to Excess-Susanoo 150 The "Ancient" Susanoo 151 The Medieval Susanoo 156 Susanoo in the Urabe Tradition 157 The Sword Motif 159 Susanoo at Izumo and Hinomisaki 160 Susanoo at Atsuta Shrine 163 Susanoo's Network 165 Susanoo and Shinra Myōjin 169 Allegorical Interpretations 174 Codetta 176 ix CO NTE NT S 6. The Little Lords 179 The gohō dōji 188 Kirime Ōji 190
À paraître Mieko Macé, La médecine au Japon : une aventure intellectuelle. Anne Bayard-sakai, Tan... more À paraître Mieko Macé, La médecine au Japon : une aventure intellectuelle. Anne Bayard-sakai, Tanizaki Jun.ichirô, ou la fiction tous droits de traduction, de reproduction et d'adaptation réservés pour tous les pays.
The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism, 1991
Prologue 7 157 Glossaire 163 Notes 169 Bouddhisme et violence 6 * Les mots signalés par un astéri... more Prologue 7 157 Glossaire 163 Notes 169 Bouddhisme et violence 6 * Les mots signalés par un astérisque renvoient au glossaire en fin d'ouvrage.
University of Hawai'i Press (2015)
Prologue to Protectors and Predators: Gods of Medieval Japan, University of Hawai'i Press, 2015
Stanford University Press, 2003
Stanford University Press, 2003
Edited volume. RoutledgeCurzon 2003
Book section by Bernard Faure
Foreword to Michel Strickmann, Chinese Poetry and Prophecy
Rage and Ravage — Chapter 7
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Books by Bernard Faure
Book section by Bernard Faure