A Brief Survey of Water-land Dharma Service in Chinese Buddhism

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210806.192How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Buddhist ritual, Water-land Dharma Service, Chinese Buddhism

Abstract

Water-land Dharma Service, the grandest Buddhist ritual in Chinese Buddhism since implemented in Chinese monasteries, has been a manifestation of sinicization of Buddhism after it was introduced to China from India. Initiated by a Chinese Emperor Liangwu (464 C.E.-549 C.E), Water-land Dharma Service was well received and widely practiced in Song Dynasty (960 C.E.-1279 C.E). Not only was the whole ritual originality in Chinese Buddhism, but the scriptures in the service was written by Chinese Buddhist practitioners as well as great literates. Moreover, the whole display of the service is endowed with great artistic beauty both in its paintings peculiar to this service and the chanting with high musical appeal. This paper studies the Water-land Dharma Service from the historical perspective, and discusses its meanings, value and significance from the text of the ritual and from the interviews with the ritual practitioners, participants and scholars. These results shed light for the hidden powers of the rituals in the modern society.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yu Yuan
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/08/09
TI  - A Brief Survey of Water-land Dharma Service in Chinese Buddhism
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 5th International Seminar on Education, Management and Social Sciences (ISEMSS 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1005
EP  - 1009
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210806.192
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210806.192
ID  - Yuan2021
ER  -