Illustrated Lotus Sutra. Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Speaker: Ryūichi Abe (Harvard University)
Date and Time: December 2, 2024, 15:00-16:30
Location: Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia 3rd Floor Conference Room 1, University of Tokyo
Abstract: It is well known that the Lotus Sutra texts lack doctrinal content and, on the contrary, are rich in literary expression. Almost the entire text of the Lotus Sutra is composed of various episodes, such as tales of previous causal relationships, teachings, divine revelations, and metaphors, and the threads of these episodes are connected to form a large narrative swell and flow throughout the entire text. Literary devices such as play-within-a-play are found throughout the text to encourage the reader’s participation in the story. In traditional East Asian interpretations of Chinese texts, the doctrinal discourse is more important than the literary expression of the text. From this perspective, each chapter of a sutra is treated as a separate entity, and each section within a chapter is subdivided into pieces according to specific doctrinal concepts, thus obscuring the larger flow of the narrative and literary devices. In this presentation, we will take a break from traditional East Asian commentaries to explore how the larger narrative of the Lotus Sutra is structured and what it encourages readers to do with it. To this end, we will read chapters 10 and 11.
