The volume about Avatamsaka Buddhism in East Asia is the result of a symposium organized in France in 2008. 15 contributions reflect the ways of manifestation and of expression of Huayan doctrines in several geographical regions and at different periods. Compared with previous valuable studies, the present volume intends to open broader perspectives, to give the opportunity to develp opened problematics, based on primary sources, textual and iconological. The Avatamsaka doctrines have developed particular ways of expression and paradigms on the Chinese soil, as a sinized Buddhism, they may be said to have achieved a philosophical revolution in the history of Mahayana: the Absolute is not the goal of the philosophical and soteriological inquiry, but its point of departure. The world is not only an illusion to be transcended but a manifestation of this very Absolute. The Avatamsaka can be seen as the backbone of influencial currents, the Chan or Zen, the Tiantai or Tendai, the Ritualistic Buddhism, the Pure Land teachings, as well as the Song studies. The renewal of problematics on history of religion in the Far East region, as the so-called combined scheme simultaneously philosophical (exoteric) and ritualist (esoteric), gives a meaning to the approach of Avatamsaka current as common denominator linked from China till the Qitan region to Korea and Japan.

It is a translation of the Silla master Uisang’s 義湘 (625-702) lecture compiled by his disciple Jitong 智通 (655-?) in the question-answer format on major topics of Hwaeom doctrines. Uisang, after learning from the second Chinese Huayan patriarch Zhiyan 智儼, laid the foundation of Silla Hwaeom by building Buseoksa 浮石寺 Temple and teaching students. His works include the Hwaeom ilseung beopgyedo 華嚴一乘法界圖 (Chart of the Dharma-realm of the One Vehicle of Hwaeom) and the Baekhwa doryang barwon mun 白花道場發願文 (Vow at the White Lotus Enlightenment Site). Jitong, one of Uisang’s ten main disciples, coming from low social status, compiled the Chudong gi 錐洞記, which recorded Uisang’s 90-day lecure on the Hwaeomgyeong in Chudong on Sobaeksan Mountain. The Hwaeomgyeong mundap is often regarded as a different edition of the Chudong gi, through which Uisang’s thought can be seen. The Hwaeomgyeong mundap records 160 questions and answers in two volumes. It was known as the third Chinese Huayan patriarch Fazang 法藏 who also studied with Uisang. However, Japanese and Korean scholars began to argue that it was Uisang’s work in the 1980s and, recently, Uisang’s authorship was finally confirmed. Along with the Hwaeom ilseung beopgyedo, it reflects Uisang as the Hwaeom thinker who also emphasized practice, including his view on the theories of seonggi 性起 (nature origination) and yeon’gi 緣起 (dependent origination). It shows some of the features of Korean Hwaeom studies, also having a huge influence in Japan. The appendix of this English translation includes the images of the original text that professor Kim Cheon-hak at Dongguk University owns.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the Huayan school of East Asian Buddhism in a Western language. This school, which received its name from the Chinese translation of the important Mahayana scripture, the Buddhavatam sakasutra, flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and spread to Korea and Japan as well. The reader gains an insight into the development of Huayan Buddhism: The compilation of its base text, the Buddhavatam sakasutra, the establishment of Huayan tradition as a special form of East Asian Buddhism and its visual representations. The book consists of five chapters: 1. State of Field, 2. The Buddhavatam. sakasutra, 3. Huayan in China, 4. Hwaom/Kegon in Korea and Japan, and 5. Huayan/Hwaom/Kegon Art. The following scholars contributed to this volume: Aramaki Noritoshi, Jana Benicka, Choe Yeonshik, Bernard Faure, Frederic Girard, Imre Hamar, Huang Yi-hsun, Ishii Kosei, Kimura Kiyotaka, Charles Muller, Jan Nattier, Otake Susumu, Joerg Plassen, Wei Daoru, Dorothy Wong, Zhu Qingzhi. Included are bibliographies of secondary sources on Huayan Buddhism in Western languages, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

Tung-shan Lian-chien (807-869) was an active participant in what was perhaps the most creative and influential phase in the development of Ch’an Buddhism in China. He is regarded as the founder of the Ts'ao Tung lineage, one of the so-called Five Houses of Ch’an, and it was his approach to Buddhism and the house it gave rise to that attracted the interest of the great thirteenth-century Japanese monk Dogen during his stay in China. Dogen subsequently carried Tung-shan’s lineage back to Japan where it became known as Soto Zen, which remains one of the major Zen sects today. The discourse record translated in this volume represents a unique form of religious literature. Drawn from the dialogues of ninth-century and tenth-century Ch’an masters who lived mostly in the mountains and rural areas in and around modern Kiangsu Province, the discourse records present the reader not with philosophy or doctrine but rather with word portraits of some of China's more influential Ch’an masters. They allow us to glimpse the personalities and teaching styles of figures believed to be capable of manifesting the “pure mind” in their simplest words and actions. Few early Ch’an masters appear to have committed their teachings to writing, so that the discourse records are virtually the only tangible traces that remain of these seminal figures of Ch’an history.

The period ca. 645-770 marked an extraordinary era in the development of East Asian Buddhism and Buddhist art. Increased contacts between China and regions to both its west and east facilitated exchanges and the circulation of ideas, practices and art forms, giving rise to a synthetic art style uniform in both iconography and formal characteristics. The formulation of this new Buddhist art style occurred in China in the latter part of the seventh century, and from there it became widely disseminated and copied throughout East Asia, and to some extent in Central Asia, in the eighth century. This book argues that notions of Buddhist kingship and theory of the Buddhist state formed the underpinnings of Buddhist states experimented in China and Japan from the late seventh to the mid-eighth century, providing the religio-political ideals that were given visual expression in this International Buddhist Art Style. The volume also argues that Buddhist pilgrim-monks were among the key agents in the transmission of these ideals, the visual language of state Buddhism was spread, circulated, adopted and transformed in faraway lands, it transcended cultural and geographical boundaries and became cosmopolitan.