Buddhist Medical Demonology in The Sūtra of the Seven Buddhas
This essay begins with a brief discussion of the marginalization of demonology in the study of both Indian Buddhist traditions and Ayurvedic medicine. Unlike the study of Buddhist traditions in other geographic regions, there has been relatively little scholarship on the dialogue between Indian Budd...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
MDPI
[2019]
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| In: |
Religions
Year: 2019, Volume: 10, Issue: 4, Pages: 1-21 |
| Further subjects: | B
Demonology
B Buddhist medicine B Ayurveda B kriyātantra B Disenchantment |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This essay begins with a brief discussion of the marginalization of demonology in the study of both Indian Buddhist traditions and Ayurvedic medicine. Unlike the study of Buddhist traditions in other geographic regions, there has been relatively little scholarship on the dialogue between Indian Buddhist communities and the localized spirit deity cults with which they have interacted for more than two millennia. The modern study of Ayurverda, with few exceptions, demonstrates a similar trend in the marginalization of bhūtavidyā, or demonology, which has constituted a legitimate branch of Ayurvedic medicine from at least the time that the earliest Ayurvedic compendium, the Carakasa?hitā, was composed. This essay argues that this lack of proper attention to Indian Buddhist and Ayurvedic medical demonology is symptomatic of a broader, persistent bias in the human sciences. The essay then examines a handful of stories from the Karmasataka, a collection of Buddhist avadānas, to argue that certain Buddhist communities may have held their own biases against systems of medical demonology, albeit for entirely different reasons. The balance of this essay then concludes with an analysis of The Sūtra of the Seven Buddhas that presents this work as an example of Buddhist medical demonology. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel10040255 |