Last May (2015), during the conference on Jingshan Canon in Hangzhou, I visited the rebuilt Dongming monastery 東明寺 which is not far away from Jingshan. It is a very important monastery in the early and late Ming Buddhism. Legend says the Jianwen emperor 建文帝 of the Ming did not die during the bloody war his uncle Yongle launched. Instead, He fled Nanjing and hid in Dongming monastery as a monk. There is still an old tree he planted. The temple structure was destroyed by the Japanese bombing during the war. A huge controversy broke out during the late Ming about the identities of several early Ming monk along Dongming Huichan's 東明慧旵 line of transmission: Haizhou Ci 海舟慈, Baofeng Xuan 寶峰瑄, I have discussions about this dispute in my Enlightenment in Dispute (Oxford 2008, p. 38, 304) and will write more in future blogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment