UBC’s Tzu-chi Buddhist Studies Forum

Were there really Buddhist monks and nuns in medieval Japan

Professor Paul Groner, University of Virgin

4-5:30 pm, October 12, 2004
Asian Center, Room 604

ABSTRACT

The title of this talk is intended to be provocative, perhaps calling to mind some of the criticisms that monastics from Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, China and Korea make of modern Japanese monks. The actual talk, however, concerns a series of discussions by Japanese medieval monks and nuns about whether they had been ordained properly. These concerns pervaded medieval Japanese Buddhism, at times resulting in the complete dismissal of the precepts and at other times resulting in attempts to strengthen monastic discipline by changing ordination procedures or the contents of the precepts.