Flowers in the Mirror - A Reexamination of Gunavarman's Biography

25. Mai 2023

A lecture by Xuan Fang, Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Religious Theory, Renmin University of China
May 25, 2023, 18:15 - 19:45 Uhr, Room 123, Asien-Afrika-Institut, ESA Ost (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1)

Ven. Guṇavarman is the only Tripiṭaka Master in the history of Chinese Buddhism who explicitly self-claimed to have attained the stage of Sakṛdāgāmin. His travels and influence span the three major Buddhist cultural regions of North-west India, South Asia, and East Asia. As we can see from Chinese records, he resided in Shepo 阇婆 (Java) in the late 4th and early 5th centuries and had an important impact on Buddhism in Java at that time. However, the nature of his Buddhist teachings and practices, and their impact on Javanese Buddhism, as well as how they should be understood in the context of exchanges among the three major Buddhist cultural circles at that time, have not been thoroughly explored in previous studies. Undoubtedly, these issues are crucial for understanding the nature of early Javanese Buddhism and its interaction with other Buddhist cultural circles in Asia, particularly Jibin or Chi-pin 罽宾 (Gandhāra-Kapiśa).
This lecture aims to present a tentative answer to these questions by reflecting on current academic studies of Northwest Indian Buddhism in the 5th century and conducting a more in-depth study of the "Biography of Guṇavarman", as given in the Gaosengzhuan 高僧传（Biographies of Eminent Monks）of the 6th century. By cross-checking relevant records from other sources, we can try to understand the nature of the Buddhist teachings and practices that Guṇavarman transmitted and propagated, and their relationship with the different Buddhist traditions of that time, with regard to three aspects: the scriptures he translated, his paintings during his stay in Shixing 始兴, and the meditative approaches he practiced. The speaker argues that Guṇavarman was most likely a member of the Dharmaguptaka school, which refutes the traditional view in the academic community that he belonged to the Sarvāstivāda school, and that the Buddhism brought to Java by Guṇavarman had Mahāyāna elements. Finally, the speaker discusses the different narratives between Guṇavarman’s biography and autobiographical sketches embedded in the former. The talk ends with an analysis of Guṇavarman’s different images in the three major Buddhist cultural regions.

Xuan Fang is an associate professor at the Department of Religious Studies, Renmin University of China, and a research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Religious Theory. Mr. Xuan has been a guest professor at many domestic institutions of Buddhist studies, he is also an editorial board member of various academic journals. Currently, he is a visiting scholar at Hamburg University.
Mr. Xuan's research areas mainly focus on Buddhist philosophy, the theory and practice of Buddhist meditation, and modern and contemporary Chinese Buddhism, particularly Humanistic Buddhism.