Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Edited book | Images from the Past: Intertextuality in Japanese Premodern Literature
Chapter | Buddhist Sūtras in Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō
Buddhist Sūtras in Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō
Intertextuality and Re-Interpretation
Abstract
The essay deals with intertextuality in the field of religious studies and specifically with the quotation and re-interpretation of authoritative sources of Buddhist sacred texts (or sūtras) in the Shōbōgenzō written by the Japanese Zen master Dōgen in the thirteenth century. In particular, the purpose is that of highlighting the fact that Dōgen, through a personal and creative interpretation of excerpts from the sūtras, proposes an innovative vision of Buddhist doctrine. After a general introduction to religious intertextuality, the essay examines Zen master Dogen’s peculiar form of exegesis of sacred texts in order to legitimise his personal vision of Buddhist doctrine. Five concrete examples of manipulative interpretation of quotations from the sūtras are presented in order to concretely show how Dogen does not hesitate to twist the meaning of quotations with great linguistic skill with the aim to promote and legitimise his opinion.
Submitted: Dec. 13, 2021 | Published Aug. 30, 2022 | Language: en
Keywords Zen • Sūtras • Buddhism • Re-interpretation • Dōgen
Copyright © 2022 Aldo Tollini. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-608-4/010
