Reading As the Path Toward Enlightenment: Ouyi Zhixu's Reorganization of the Buddhist Canon in the 17th-century China

Abstract

This dissertation studies the elevation of textual practices as an indispensable approach toward enlightenment by the eminent monk Ouyi Zhixu 藕益智旭 (1599–1655), who reorganized the Buddhist Canon in his essential work, Yuezang Zhijin 閱藏知津 (Reading the Buddhist Canon to Find the Ferry), an annotated catalog of an imagined canon. I argue that Yuezang Zhijin was a precursor of producing a physical canon with an innovative structure and format tailored to reading. This tendency started with the revival of Buddhism in the Late Ming period. In other words, Yuezang Zhijin embodied the communal vision of reshaping Buddhism through remaking the Buddhist canon. Ouyi’s reading practice was a ritualized process. I argue that ritualization legitimized Ouyi’s textual practices on the Buddhist canon. The new structure and explanations for entries in Yuezang Zhijin, significantly influenced the religious thoughts and practices of later East Asian Buddhists, specifically the making of modern canons in the late nineteenth century. By incorporating studies on the history of printing, I argue that the rise of textual practices in the Buddhist canon reflects the significant expansion of the reading market and the increase of public reading in late sixteenth-century China. It was also a period when a group of literati and eminent monks began to emphasize the Buddhist canon as an object of reading besides its devotional significance. My study demonstrates the ambiguous boundaries between popular religion and authority (e.g., textual practices guided and legitimized by rituals such as divination), ritual practice and doctrinal study (e.g., ritualized reading), spiritual cultivation, and intellectual accomplishment (e.g., comprehension as the path toward enlightenment) in pre-modern China.