Rājadhamma is a list of ten royal virtues or duties that occurs in the jātaka tales and that has been influential in Southeast Asian Buddhist political thought. Like pre-modern political thought in Europe—that is, thought before the Sattelzeit—Buddhist political thought lacks a concept of the “state” and is concerned with kings and similar r…[Read more]

From 2004-2024 the author introduced Japan to visiting foreign officials for the government foreign aid agency Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). From 2020, when JICA could not bring participants to Japan, his recorded presentation by Zoom was shown at JICA branches abroad. Now, JICA has released the 98-minute recording from exclusive…[Read more]

This essay will focus mostly on the Tang dynastic empire (618–907 CE), a “second
wave” empire as defined in the Introduction to this volume, and its relations with
Buddhism, although it will be necessary to say something about earlier Chinese dynasties
and about other religions. As we shall see, an awareness of history permeates
the relat…[Read more]

I am grateful for this opportunity to revisit some issues that remain
unresolved after my earlier publications on Buddhist self-immolation.

Abstract: The early eighth-century Chinese Buddhist apocryphal scripture
known as Lengyan jing or Śūraṃgama sūtra contains some vivid and
lengthy descriptions of demonic states that may arise for the practitioner in
deep states of meditation. In some of these states, the practitioner is said to
experience profound mis-perceptions of real…[Read more]

In this paper, I offer a new reading of the popular narrative of
Princess Miaoshan in Chinese religion, placing it within the larger context
of self-immolation as found in Buddhist narratives and the actions of selfimmolators.
The acts of extreme violence done to Miaoshan by her father
and herself (she stabs the inside of her mouth with a…[Read more]

This is the final submitted version of my chapter for Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Some changes have been made in the published version and that version should be cited. I am sharing this version in accord with the copyright policy for Brill, which allows sharing of the accepted manuscript but not of the published .pdf. Full publication d…[Read more]

This chapter argues that women’s most prominent role in ancient Japanese manuscript cultures was not as authors of texts but as patrons. Women likely commissioned the transcription of tens of thousands of scrolls of Buddhist scripture. They also produced short inscriptions, in colophons and on clay and other materials, that documented their p…[Read more]

The incorporation of the goddess Tārā into the Hindu pantheon appears to have begun around the turn of the first millennium, a couple of centuries after her first mentions in Buddhist sources. The earliest Hindu texts concerned with Tārā tend to acknowledge this through a narrative wherein the Vedic sage Vasiṣṭha must travel to ‘Greater China’ to…[Read more]

This chapter traces the eventful biography of Steve McCarty vis-à-vis Japan. The story spans decades from graduate school specializing in Japan to discovering an astonishing syncretism of Asian religions. Along the way, the author gained a Japanese family and became a rare foreign full professor in 1993. Anecdotes vividly portray daily life,…[Read more]

Two of the most fundamental distinctions in metaphysics are (1) that between reality (or things in themselves) and appearance, the R/A distinction, and (2) that between entities that are fundamental (or real, etcetera) and entities that are ontologically or existentially dependent, the F/D distinction. While these appear to be two very different…[Read more]

A survey of Buddhism in Japan from roughly the time of its introduction into the mid-ninth century. The following topics are covered:
The Introduction of Buddhism to Japan – Transmission Myths – The Myth of Prince Shōtoku – The Myth of a Buddhist-Shintō Rivalry – Temples in and around the Capital – Provincial Temples – The Order of Nuns – Female…[Read more]

Three consecutive patriarchs of Esoteric Buddhism were Amoghavajra of India, Huiguo of China, and Kūkai of Japan. This paper foregrounds the usually taken-for-granted but vital historical role of language education and translation in the international spread of religion and culture. There had to be sufficiently educated bilingual or multilingual…[Read more]

Through the book Kūkai the Universal, the podcast guest discusses the life and times of Japan’s great saint Kūkai, Esoteric Buddhism, and Zen, in terms of East Asian history, language education, and translation issues including voice.

पत्रकार और शिक्षाविद् प्रमोद रंजन ने जून, 2017 में हिमाचल प्रदेश के दुर्गम इलाकों की यात्रा की थी। इस यात्रा में उन्हें किन्नौर जिले के सुदूर गांव कानम के एक गोम्पा में सुमार नाम की जोमो मिलीं। जोमो यानी बौद्ध भिक्षुणी। मध्य हिमालय की अपूर्व शांति से भरी उस घाटी में सहज वात्सल्य से भरीं 56 वर्षीय सुमार के साथ कुछ घंटे बिताना उनके लिए एक अनूठा अ…[Read more]

खूबसूरत प्राकृतिक दृश्यों से परिपूर्ण किन्नौर का समाज व संस्कृति शेष भारत से अलग है। यह बौद्ध धर्म का इलाका है, जिसे हिंदूवादी संस्कृति लीलती जा रही है। आर्थिक संपन्नता के आगमन से जाति-आधारित उत्पीड़न और भेदभाव कम हो रहा है। प्रमोद रंजन ने इस यात्रा संस्मरण में किन्नौर की विशिष्ट संस्कृति, बहु पत्नी प्रथा, वहां के समाज और राजनीति…[Read more]

खूबसूरत प्राकृतिक दृश्यों से परिपूर्ण किन्नौर का समाज व संस्कृति शेष भारत से अलग है। यह बौद्ध धर्म का इलाका है, जिसे हिंदूवादी संस्कृति लीलती जा रही है। आर्थिक संपन्नता के आगमन से जाति-आधारित उत्पीड़न और भेदभाव कम हो रहा है। प्रमोद रंजन ने इस यात्रा संस्मरण में किन्नौर की विशिष्ट संस्कृति, बहु पत्नी प्रथा, वहां के समाज और राजनीति…[Read more]

Syllabus for graduate seminar at McMaster University. In this seminar we will examine practices surrounding death in a variety of Chinese religions. We will explore the various understandings of the death process, preparation for death, and the afterlife. We will look at the post-mortem treatment of the body, changing funerary practices and…[Read more]

‘समय से संवाद: जनविकल्प संचयिता’ नाम यह पुस्तक हिंदी मासिक ‘जन विकल्प’ में प्रकाशित प्रतिनिधि सामग्री का संकलन है। प्रेमकुमार मणि और प्रमोद रंजन के संपादन में पटना से वर्ष 2007 में प्रकाशित इस पत्रिका की जनपक्षधरता, निष्पक्षता और मौलिक त्वरा ने समाजकर्मियों और बुद्धिजीवियों को गहराई से आलोड़ित किया था। इस पुस्तक में जिन लेखों और साक्षात्कारों…[Read more]