Buddhist Theory of Semiotics Signs, Ontology, and Salvation in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Fabio Rambelli is Professor and International Shinto Foundation Chair of Shinto Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, and Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.Summing up, the main strength of this book is its success in offering a new analytical apparatus to clarify the semiotic structures that underlie the transmissions and practices of Shingon lineages, so often dismissed out of hand as rand and irrational. Rambelli manages admirably to avoid two pitfalls: he neither stays too close to the original texts, losing the analytical edge that makes this enterprise valuable, nor does he stray away from them that he ends up constructing a semiotic abstraction that forces alien concepts onto Shingon doctrine.
- Mark Teeuwen, Oslo University, Norway, Monumenta Nipponica 69:2
One of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese Shingon tradition.
Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn results in sustained discussions on the status of language and representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of Buddhist semiotics as based primarily on original Japanese pre-modern sources. It is a crucial publication in the fields of semiotics and religious studies.
Preface: Semiotics and Buddhism
1. The Episteme of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism
2. Semiotics and Ontology: A Pansemiotic Universe
3. Mantra and Siddham: Esoteric Linguistics and Grammatology
4. The Semantic System of Esoteric Buddhism
5. Mandala and the Representation of Reality
6. Semiotic Soteriology
7. Conclusion: Buddhist Semiurgy
Bibliography
Index
Formerly Continuum Advances in Semiotics.
Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics publishes original works applying semiotic approaches to linguistics and non-verbal productions, social institutions and discourses, embodied cognition and communication, and the new virtual realities of the digital age. It covers topics such as socio-semiotics, evolutionary semiotics, game theory, cultural and literary studies, human-computer interactions, and the challenging new dimensions of human networking afforded by social websites.
Series Editor: Gregory Paschalidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Editorial Board
Nicola Dusi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Zuanglin Hu, Peking University, Beijing
Yunhee Lee, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, China
Lambros Malafouris, University of Oxford, UK
Mihai Nadin, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Kay O’Halloran, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Jef Verschueren, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Anne Wagner, Universite du Littoral Cote d’Opale, France
Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University, UK
Hiroshi Yoshioka, Kyoto University, Japan