Memory, rhetoric, and education in the 'Great Lamp of the Dharma Dharan&dotbelow;i Scripture'.

摘要

The figure of the preacher is central to the transmission of the Buddhist religion. As a charismatic and eloquent speaker, master of memory and debate, and keen observer of his students and their proclivities, the Buddhist preacher is understandably accorded great importance across many Buddhist scriptures. But until now, scholars have had to cobble together a composite picture of this elusive figure from many disparate sources.;The Great Lamp of the Dharma Dharan&dotbelow; i Scripture, an obscure text extant only in a single sixth-century Chinese translation, provides the clearest and most detailed picture of the Buddhist preacher yet discovered. Surveying all fifty-two chapters of this massive scripture, I argue that the Great Lamp should be read as a homiletical manual, focused on the problems and opportunities of pedagogy, and upon the moral formation of the Buddhist preacher and his community.;I show how the Great Lamp positions the preacher as the inheritor of the Three Treasuries of the Tathagatas, a unique concept encapsulating the totality of the teachings and deeds of all Buddhas. The teacher safeguards a dharan&dotbelow; i (a Buddhist mnemonic spell) and contemplates the letters of the Indian syllabary. I show how the Great Lamp's dh aran&dotbelow;i functions as a token of the productive power of emptiness itself, authorizing the utterance of new Buddhist sermons.;I also investigate the vivid details of the preacher found in the Great Lamp, analyzing the text's attention to quotidian concerns such as the preacher's hygeine, the height of his seat, and size of his retinue. The Great Lamp's preacher is not a paragon of unconquerable virtue; he is a strikingly human figure who faces considerable obstacles. I argue that the act of preaching, fraught with tension, is at the same time an act of evocation, with the preacher instantiating the presence of the Buddha.;Most importantly, this dissertation shows how even seemingly abstruse Buddhist doctrines and ritual technologies could be coherently integrated into a curriculum of practice, and made relevant for the real concerns of Buddhist preachers and their communities.