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Paul Copp’s new book, The Body Incantatory: Spells and The Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism , examines dhāraṇīs or spell practices in medieval China (600–1000 ce ) through Buddhist scriptures, Dunhuang manuscripts, and material artifacts. These sources are all given “close readings” in order to lay bare their conceptual relations and genealogies and to track their development over time. Rather than simply as transliterated Sanskrit phrases, mnemonic tools, or powerful speech acts, Copp’s study approaches dhāraṇīs as material spell practices. And rather than peripheral or inconsequential, he reveals dhāraṇī practices to have been of central importance throughout Chinese society and across the Chinese religious landscape. Copp opens his book by outlining the manner in which dhāraṇīs developed and were employed in Indic Buddhist practice: as distillations of the teaching to be read, copied, memorized, and chanted, and as textual relics of the Buddha to be placed inside of stupas. But his interest is in dhāraṇīs as inherently powerful inscriptions, and it is this aspect of dhāraṇīs with which his book is concerned. The main thrust of Copp’s work is the examination of the various resonances, sources, and influences of practices involving inscribed dhāraṇīs in China. He attributes
Review of Religion and Chinese Society – Brill
Published: Nov 3, 2016
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