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Through an investigation of two recently discovered paper sheets of the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment from the Silla kingdom, this paper reveals that early Korea had more diverse forms of dhāraṇī practices than previously assumed. Through analyses of these incantation sheets, this paper contributes toward filling the gap in our current understanding of the material practice pertaining to the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment of medieval East Asia. Previously, all known traces of material dhāraṇīs from early Korea, with just a few exceptions, were related to the Sūtra of the Pure Light Incantation enshrined in the relic crypts of pagodas—a practice that has little connection to contemporaneous Chinese dhāraṇī practice. However, the newly discovered Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment sheets, whose date this paper infers to be between the eighth and ninth century, show that Unified Silla had a dhāraṇī practice closely linked to coeval Chinese practice. The Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment sheets from Silla show the modification and continuation of Chinese dhāraṇī practice. Unlike the Chinese amulet sheets of the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment that were buried in tombs, the Silla amulet sheets were likely enshrined in one of the pagodas erected on Mount Nam in Silla's capital. At the same time, they were placed in the pagoda to wish for good afterlives of the soldiers who died at the battle, suggesting that they had a mortuary function similar to those buried in Chinese tombs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of civilizations of South and Southeast Asia seem meaningless without an insight on Hinduism and Buddhism that exerted an enormous influence in the region before the arrival of Islam. The two beliefs, though originated in India, but contributed greatly to the development of socio-cultural relations among countries as far as Afghanistan in the west and China, Japan, and Indonesia in the east. About the beginning of the Common Era, Indian merchants may have settled there, bringing Hindu and Buddhist priests with them. These religious men were patronized by rulers who converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. The earliest material evidence of Hinduism in Southeast Asia comes from Borneo, where late 4th-century Sanskrit inscriptions testify to the performance of Vedic sacrifices at the behest of local chiefs. Chinese chronicles attest an Indianized kingdom in Vietnam two centuries earlier. The dominant form of Hinduism exported to Southeast Asia was Shaivism, though some Vaishnavism was also known there. The current study tries to explain how Hinduism and Buddhism could influence Socio- Cultural Relations between Pre- Islamic India and Afghanistan taking into account of historical records and inscriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To this day, the robed remains of mummified monks are venerated as 'living Buddhas' in northeastern Japan. Widely believed to have mummified themselves through strict adherence to ascetic regimen, temple patrons claim that these living Buddhas are capable of transmitting telepathic messages and curing disease, even of saving lives in the real time of disaster. In this article, I examine the ontological and symbolic basis of their purported immortality. Also, its politics, which emerge in contested historical narratives and assertions of authenticity about which mummified monks are real, true immortals and which are forgeries, curated corpses on display. As I demonstrate, such narratives are grounded in competing historicities of the automummification process. They are also situated in a competitive tourism industry. I argue that the bodies of these saintly figures are multi-temporal, semiotically charged, and political. Enduring faith in their posthumous vitality is not just a matter of theological exegesis. It is sustained by the interpretations of human suffering, history, and salvation that their anachronistic presence conjures for the living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconsiders sites, practices, and ideas about the physical remains of the special dead in South Asian religions. Questioning the common notion of "relics" as a point of distinction between "Buddhism" and "Hinduism," it explores the constellation of ideas and practices surrounding the remains of gods, demons, people, and animals in South Asian religions. Archaeological and literary evidence for li...gas, stūpas, and related sites and structures are used to explore shared discourses and practices among Buddhists and Śaivas in particular. Through such test cases, it shows how bones and other physical remains of the special dead could become areas of engagement, especially when linked to sacred landscape. Attention to these contact zones reveals sharing, borrowing, and competition among ancient and medieval groups that modern scholarship has studied primarily in terms of assumed differences between "Hinduism" and "Buddhism." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the dissemination and enshrinement of the physical remains of buddhas and their enlightened followers (arahants). Particular focus is given to Buddhist relic practices in Sri Lanka, most notably at the Cave of the Midday Rest. Additional topics discussed include Buddhist relic practices, the enshrinement of Buddhist objects in caves in Sri Lanka, and contemporary Buddhists in Sri Lanka.

Śarira, or what is generally translated as (bodily) relics of the Buddha or Buddhist saints, has long occupied an important place in the stupa cult of the Buddhist world. As widely known, there are stupas that contain nothing while those that have 'relics' do not always contain what is expected to see: the bone fragments or ashes of 'bodily remains'. This paper serves as a survey of the occurrence of (bodily) relics in stupas of the areas that are parts of greater Gandhara that is present day eastern Afghanistan and Taxila. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Changxi River Basin is a small root-like watershed, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea to the southeast. It is located on the border between Fujian and Zhejiang on the southeast coast of China. The area gave rise to the Changxi Culture that began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Buddhism in the Changxi Basin was introduced no later than the 9th century. As the core hinterland of the Changxi Basin, Fu'an has always been an important center for Buddhism in Eastern Fujian. It reached its peak in the 10th to 13th centuries during the Song Dynasty. This article conducts a comprehensive investigation and study of the existing Buddhist temple sites and relics in Fu'an. It highlights these structures' single-bay pattern of construction, based on rectangular plans in which the longitudinal axis extends along the plan's direction of depth. This is a pattern rarely seen in the history of Chinese Buddhist architecture. The paper also summarizes a common element in these temples, their petal-shaped corrugated stone pillars which are divided into eight segments. Lastly, it illustrates the evolution of the temples in the Changxi River Basin from single-bay layouts to those with widths of multiple bays and indicates the unique status and associated values of single-bay Buddhist temples in the history of southern Buddhist architecture. The study examines new local findings and ideas for the study of Chinese Buddhist architectural history, providing academic support for the protection and research of Buddhist architectural heritage in Southeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers body as a keyword in the context of the materiality of religion. The author discusses people's focus on embodiment after their over-reliance on reason and intellect for shaping a perception of human life. She cites Buddhism for its lack of external divinity and its emphasis on the physical body as the key to an understanding of the beginning and the ending of the world. She says that the body from the Buddhist's point of view is a source of suffering and of defilement. The impact of Buddha's finger relic is also noted.

Drawing on literary and inscriptional evidence from Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia, this essay examines the place of Buddha-relics — potent traces of a Buddha — in the life cycle of southern Asian political formations. In the formation of new polities and/or new dynasties, relics were drawn into the physical landscape and literary memory of the state, in order to provide protection and to claim desirable lineage and authority. At times of heightened military and political activity, when kingdoms were at risk, the protection and deployment of relics, and their ritual engagement, formed part of the state's central technologies. During periods of victory and restoration, relic festivals and the enhancement of a landscape embedded with relics, were used to display, affirm, and protect the royal court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Tibet, certain categories of Buddhist sacra are ascribed the power to liberate through sensory contact. No less than “buddhahood without meditation” is promised, offering an expedient means to salvation that seemingly obviates the need for a rigorous regime of ethical, contemplative, and intellectual training. This article investigates two such categories of sacra, substances that “liberate through tasting” and images that “liberate through seeing” as found in a mode of revelation particular to Tibet and culturally related areas, in which scriptures and sacred objects are reportedly embedded in the landscape as terma or “treasures” (gter ma). The author argues that charisma invested in these substances and images — through an amalgamation of relics and special means of consecration — provides the grounds for the soteriological benefits claimed as a result of sensory contact with them. The question is whether these benefits suggest a notion of grace in Tibetan Buddhism, and if so how it might contravene without contradicting the law of karma. Exploring this question sheds light on the role of the senses and the nature of Buddhist soteriology as it developed in Tibet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relics of Sāriputta and Moggallāna, two of the Buddha's closest disciples, were discovered by Fred. C. Maisey and Alexander Cunningham in a stūpa at Sānchī in 1851 and were re-enshrined at the same place in November 1952. The exact whereabouts of the relics between these two dates has been uncertain, partly because both Buddhists and scholars have assumed, incorrectly, that the relics that were brought back to India had been in the possession of Mr Cunningham. The purpose of this article is to give a detailed account ot the relics of Sāriputta and Moggallāna found at Sānchī. The account is based on correspondence and notes about the relics found in archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and on relevant sources published by the Maha Bodhi Society. I argue that the quarrel over the relics was an important part of the revival of Buddhism from the end of the nineteenth century. I also discuss how the relics of the two saints were used by the government of India as nationalist symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the objects found within Tibetan stūpas and images in terms of the Indo-Tibetan concept of relics in China. Association of physical remains and objects associated with holy persons to Buddhist teachings; Variety of blessed substances and blessing bestowing receptacles; Demonstration of hierarchical scale of values.

Several abstracts of articles related to Buddhism are presented which include "Bones of Contention: Buddhist Relics, Nationalism and the Politics of Archaeology," by Torkel Brekke, "Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism," by Holly Gayley and "The formation of Early Buddhist Visual Culture," by Klemens Karlsson.

Some of the earliest South Asian Buddhist historical records pertain to the enshrinement of relics, some of which were linked to the Buddha and others associated with prominent monastic teachers and their pupils. Who were the people primarily responsible for these enshrinements? How did the social status of these people represent Buddhism as a burgeoning institution? This paper utilizes early Prakrit inscriptions from India and Sri Lanka to reconsider who was interested in enshrining these relics and what, if any, connection they made have had with each other. Traditional accounts of reliquary enshrinement suggest that king Aśoka began the enterprise of setting up the Buddha's corporeal body for worship but his own inscriptions cast doubt as to the importance he may have placed in the construction of stūpa-s and the widespread distribution of relics. Instead, as evidenced in epigraphy, inclusive corporations of individuals may have instigated, or, at the very least, became the torchbearers for, reliquary enshrinement as a salvific enterprise. Such corporations comprised of monastics as well as non-monastics and seemed to increasingly become more managerial over time. Eventually, culminating at places like Sanchi, the enshrinement of the corporeal remains of regionally famous monks partially supplanted the corporeal remains of the Buddha. Those interested in funding this new endeavor were corporations of relatives, monastic brethren, and others who were likely friends and immediate acquaintances. In the end, the social and corporate collectivity of early Buddhism may have outshined some textual monastic ideals of social isolation as it pertained to the planning, carrying out, and physical enshrinement of corporeal remains for worship, thus evoking an inclusive sentiment with the monastic institution rather than disassociation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author focuses upon various topics presented within articles in the issue, including how attitudes towards religious relics change, the history of ritual servicing and how Buddhism adapts to meet political needs.