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The NCC is collaborating with institutions and scholars to release a monthly series on our blog entitled Japanese Studies Spotlight. These features showcase exciting online collections available to researchers and students in Japanese Studies, introducing the archive or project, describing their contents, and demonstrating how they can be usefully engaged in research or in the classroom. If you are interested in submitting something to the series, please contact Paula R. Curtis, NCC’s Digital Media Manager, at digitalmediamanager@nccjapan.org.
Asuka Sango, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Carleton College
When I started teaching at Carleton College—a small liberal arts college in Minnesota—I was told that our Gould Library is meant to be a teaching library. I can get the English-language materials for my courses and rely on its Interlibrary Loan services to get the Japanese-language materials for my research. But, to put it simply, teaching and research are separate, and our teaching library focuses on the former. Rare books and other Special Collections materials are not our forte.
It is true that we cannot compete with larger institutions in terms of the size of a collection. Our library does not have a Japanese Studies librarian; neither does it own materials in premodern East Asian languages that I need for my research (I specialize in premodern Japanese Buddhism). However, foregrounding our liberal arts missions and pedagogical concerns enables purposeful and impactful ways of using and developing our Special Collections. In this article, I showcase a module that supports these goals from my Introduction to Buddhism course, entitled “Exploring Buddhist Manuscript Culture through the Special Collections.” At the end I also include information on the resources and readings used for these exercises.
“Buddhist manuscript culture” is a material culture approach to the study of Buddhist texts. In short, it means to consider Buddhist scriptures not only in terms of their linguistic content, but also in terms of their materiality and performative contexts (as Charlotte Eubanks explains very well in the Introduction and Chapter 1 of her Miracles of Book and Body). Buddhist manuscripts are material objects that were produced, copied, circulated, and used in specific social, historical, or ritual contexts. Attending to language, materiality, and performance is the goal of my research on Buddhist manuscripts produced by scholar monks of medieval Japan, as well as my pedagogical module. What do we gain from studying original Buddhist manuscripts rather than modern printed texts? Exploring this question, students are introduced to a variety of Buddhist manuscripts of Theravāda and Mahāyāna, the two of the three main traditions of Buddhism. They are in different formats, languages, and scripts, produced in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Japan, and used by monastic or lay Buddhists in various performative contexts.
The module is scaffolded as follows: (1) before class, students complete the assigned readings relevant to the Special Collections items that they will observe (see the list of readings at the end); (2) in the first part of the class, they discuss and fill out the first part of a worksheet based on the readings; (3) in the second part, they visit the Special Collections and fill out the second part of the worksheet based on their observation and analysis of the objects; and (4) in the next class, they have a follow up discussion to reflect on their experience based on the worksheet.
Our visit opens with a nineteenth-century palm leaf manuscript of the Sumaṅgala-vilāsinī from Sri Lanka (Figure 1). Written horizontally in the Sinhala script, from left to right, nine lines on each leaf, it is a Pali commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya (or the Collection of Long Discourses), written by the renowned Indian Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa (ca. the fifth century). Students are reminded of key points from the reading on Buddhist scriptures that they completed (Chapter 2 of Gethin’s Foundations of Buddhism): that “nikāya” means a “group” or “collection” of the Buddha’s discourses written in the ancient Indian language of Pali; that the Pali or the Theravāda canon is one of the three Buddhist canons survive today; that a commentary is one of the three divisions of Buddhist scriptures, which are called “Tripiṭaka” or triple baskets.
Figure 1. Palm leaf manuscript of the Sumaṅgala-vilāsinī, with detail.
It is a small piece (6 cm tall and 73 cm wide), and only a leaf, but it serves as a good introduction to Buddhist manuscript culture. Most students do not know that there are multiple canons in Buddhism. In addition, they learn that the format of a book with which they are familiar is not universal.
Gazing upon the next item, students’ eyes really light up: a nineteenth-century Kammavācā from Burma (Figure 2 and Figure 3), the topic of an article by Sinéad Ward they read on narrative scenes in the Kammavācā. It is a decorative scripture, consisting of two lacquered wooden covers and sixteen leaves, painted in cinnabar, bound by strings.
Each leaf (12 cm tall and 55 cm wide) has six lines of slightly raised lacquer script. The covers are decorated in gold leaf with birds and floral patterns as well as the images of the Buddha, celestials, and other figures from Buddhist mythology.
The text of Kammavācā is an excerpt of Vinaya written in Pali. Vinaya, the second basket of Buddhist scriptures, describes the rules of Buddhist monastic life. As a text, the Kammavācā is prevalent in the Theravāda Buddhist world where the Pali Vinaya is used, but, according to Ward, only in Burma does it take the form of a decorative scripture. The materiality of Kammavācā is, not only aesthetically pleasing, but also, tells important stories of Buddhist communities or saṅgha.
As Ward explains, a Kammavācā was often commissioned by lay donors, and was recited by monastics in the ordination ceremony—that is, the ceremony in which Vinaya is recited and conferred upon a new member of the saṅgha. As such, this manuscript highlights the reciprocal relationship between the monastic and lay communities. On the one hand, monastics are distinguished from lay by their stricter observance of precepts. On the other hand, they form a reciprocal relationship with their lay supporters. They teach and guide lay people while serving as the “field of merit.” Giving to the Buddhist order is like sowing seeds in this field from which lay people reap rich harvests or karmic merits (as discussed in Chapter 4 of Gethin). Discussing these concepts in class is rather abstract, but interacting with this manuscript helps imagine what it is like to inhabit the Buddhist world.
Turning next to a volume of the Daihannya haramitakyō (Figure 4 and Figure 5), this manuscript is in the accordion-folded structure (orihon) with ninety-three leaves (each 26 cm tall and 10 cm wide). It is written in Classical Chinese vertically from right to left. Students feel slightly let down by the rather simple look of this manuscript, whereas I become visibly exhilarated at being able to actually read its content.
Figures 4 & 5. (Top) The front cover and the first several leaves of the Daihannya haramitakyō. (Bottom) The Daihannya haramitakyō, unfolded and shown from the side.
The text is the Mahaprajnaparamita sūtra (Large Prajnaparamita Sūtra), originally translated to Chinese by the seventh-century Chinese monk Xuanzang, who traveled to India and brought back a large body of Buddhist texts and translated them into Chinese. Having seen the examples from the baskets of commentary and monastic discipline, students are now introduced to the third basket of sūtra, or the discourses of the Buddha.
Furthermore, having studied “prajnaparamita” as an important genre of Mahāyāna literature, students understand that this text contains the Mahāyāna ideas such as “emptiness” (see Chapter 9 of Gethin), but they cannot read it—except performatively. Prior to this visit, students saw a video of the tendoku ceremony at Kōfukuji, a Buddhist temple in Nara, Japan. Tendoku—literally, “revolving reading”—means to take a volume of a Buddhist sūtra in the accordion-book format such as this one and open it from beginning to end in the manner similar to playing the accordion. This surprises students, given that it appears to be a rather rough handling of what it is meant to be a sacred scripture, but it is a special ceremonial act. Curious students may ask me to let them try tendoku on this volume of the Daihannya, which I must decline. I usually bring a modern reprint of a Buddhist sūtra to the session so students can try reading it performatively.
What students leave understanding more intimately is that reading is not only a cognitive act, but also an embodied engagement with the materiality of the book. This important lesson in Buddhist manuscript culture, one that the Daihannya imparts, is further complicated by the final item, the Daihannya imparts, is further complicated by the final item, the Kannon darani from early modern Japan (Figure 6 and Figure 7), which is also an accordion-style book, but smaller in size (15.5 cm tall and 6.7 cm wide when folded).
In terms of the linguistic content, the manuscript contains a part of the Senju Sengen Kanze’on Bosatsu daihishin darani or the Dhāraṇī of the Great Compassionate Thousand-handed, Thousand-eyed Bodhisattva Avalokitêśvara. “Kanze’on Bosatsu” is also called “Kannon,” and is one of the most popular bodhisattvas (beings of exemplary compassion) in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
The Kannon darani is a pictographic text where Chinese characters in each line are accompanied by images describing either their pronunciations or meanings. For example, the image of a monk (sō) is used for the character that is pronounced the same way, but means “fast” (Figure 8). The word “animal” is a two-character compound (chiku and shō), which is accompanied here with the image of a horse (Figure 9).
Figure 8 & Figure 9: (Top) The image of sō from the Kannon darani; (Bottom) The image of chikushō from the Kannon darani
What was the purpose of combining the textual and visual representations? Scholars speculate that this was produced primarily for lay people whose literacy was limited, especially women and children. Although it is not clear exactly how this text was read in Edo Japan, it is pedagogically satisfying for students to examine the diverse aspects of the manuscript and to discuss possible performative contexts of reading this pictographic text, which challenges our conventional understandings of what is a text, what is an image, or what constitutes literacy.
In final reflection, I initially thought that the lack of linguistic skills—that most students cannot read the manuscripts and that I cannot read the Pali manuscripts—would be an insurmountable challenge, but it turned out to be an exciting conversation point. For example, they cannot linguistically read them, but they can still performatively and visually read them. Although most of them do not read Chinese characters, they can read images while observing and analyzing the material aspects of the manuscripts (color, size, smell, format, etc.).
The myth that a teaching library facilitates teaching (using English materials), but not research (using non-English materials, including the Special Collections) creates an obstacle to learning. Breaking down this myth by engaging with our collections in classes opened up many exciting possibilities. Perhaps the most important of all is to transport students to the Special Collections room. This may sound simple, but the effect is profound. Most of my students usually experience “the libe”—as they affectionately call it—as a place to check out books, study, use a computer and printer, and hang out. However, a brief orientation by the Special Collections librarian at the beginning of our visit opens their eyes to the pedagogical value of the collections, as well as to tremendous labor that goes into developing, organizing, storing, and preserving historical and library materials. Even behind a copy of a regular book is the librarians’ boundless expertise and efforts to organize our materials and make them accessible to us. No mere storage of books, “a library is people,” says A. J. Hackwith in her novel, The God of Lost Words.
A classroom is inhabited by people, too, but differently. A professor usually stands in front of the classroom where everybody else sits, gives a lecture, leads a discussion, and writes on the board. By contrast, in the Special Collections room, we all stand around a table, studying objects together, thereby decentering my authority and control as the sole source of knowledge, and, instead, centering students and their experience of interacting with objects.
While any visits to the Special Collections can accomplish this pedagogical goal of experiential, object-based learning, my module is unique in engaging students in metacognitive discussions. Students read books (or parts of them) for classes every day, but they are rarely asked to analyze their own act of reading. How can reading be not only a cognitive act but also an embodied act of engaging with a material object?
That learning is embodied is the theme of both this module and my research on Buddhist manuscript culture. In our shared experience of the Special Collections, the boundary between my teaching and research, or between librarians, students, and teachers, breaks down and creates new opportunities for collaborative education.
Public scholarship begins when traditional boundaries dissolve, demystifying esoterica, and inviting students into our scholarship. Rather than feeding them a digestible portion of knowledge—like food all neatly arranged on a clean white plate with napkin and silverware—we invite them to our messy kitchen and show them what it means to be a scholar. What is this ingredient? How do we use it? What are the possible recipes to use for this particular combination of ingredients? Which herb is poisonous? Not always knowing the answers to all of these questions, we often fail, and have to start over. Sharing the mess and fuss of our scholarship empowers students to join us in our shared labor of knowledge, and inspires them to be life-long learners, which is one of the most important missions of liberal arts education.
Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press, 1998. Eubanks, Charlotte. Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture and Medieval Japan. University of California Press, 2011.
Ward, Sinéad. “Stories Steeped in Gold: Narrative Scenes of the Decorative Kammavācā Manuscripts of Burma.” In From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls: New Approaches to the Study of Asian Manuscript Traditions. Edited by Justin McDaniel and Lynn Ransom. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
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