Taking a Walk on the Wild Side of Buddhism: The Cult of Kōjin in Medieval Japan
Lecture by Bernard Faure, Emeritus Kao Professor of Japanese Religion at Columbia University.
This is a hybrid lecture. You can join online via Zoom or in person in the IIAS conference room from 16:00 to 17:00 hrs. Amsterdam Time/CEST. Registration is required due to limited seating and to receive the Zoom link.
The Lecture
One of the major gods of premodern Japanese Buddhism, although his importance has long been neglected by Buddhist scholarship, is a mysterious deity known as Kōjin (Wild God) or (Sanbō Kōjin, "Kōjin of the Three Treasures"). In this paper, I explore some of his characteristics as a demonic doppelgänger of the Buddha, as a fire god, as a placenta deity, as protector of blacksmiths — and more generally, as an emblem of the ambivalent nature of esoteric Buddhism.
The Speaker
Bernard Faure, a French-born scholar of Buddhism, is Emeritus Kao Professor of Japanese Religion at Columbia University. He has published books in French and English on East Asian Buddhism, including The Rhetoric of Immediacy, Chan Insights and Oversights, Visions of Power, The Red Thread, The Power of Denial, The Thousand and One Lives of the Buddha, Bouddhismes, philosophies et religions, Sexualités bouddhiques, Bouddhisme et violence, Idées reçues sur le bouddhisme, et L’imaginaire du Zen. He is currently finishing the last two volumes of a 5-volume series entitled Gods of Medieval Japan, and a book in French on Buddhism and neuroscience.
Buddhist Studies Lecture Series
This is a lecture in the framework of the Buddhist Studies Lectures Series, jointly organised by the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS).
Registration
All are welcome. You can attend online via Zoom or in person in the IIAS Conference Room. Registration is required due to limited seating and to receive the Zoom link.