Japanese temple Buddhism : worldliness in a religion of renunciation / Stephen G. Covell.

"There have been many studies that focus on aspects of the history of Japanese Buddhism. Until now, none has addressed important questions of organization and practice in contemporary Buddhism, questions such as how Japanese Buddhism came to be seen as a religion of funeral practices; how Buddh...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Covell, Stephen Grover, 1965-
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, ©2005.
Series:Topics in contemporary Buddhism.
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Summary:"There have been many studies that focus on aspects of the history of Japanese Buddhism. Until now, none has addressed important questions of organization and practice in contemporary Buddhism, questions such as how Japanese Buddhism came to be seen as a religion of funeral practices; how Buddhist institutions envision the role of the laity; and how a married clergy has affected life at temples and the image of priests. This volume is the first to address fully contemporary Buddhist life and institutions - topics often overlooked in the conflict between the rhetoric of renunciation and the practices of clerical marriage and householding that characterize much of Buddhism in today's Japan. Informed by years of field research and his own experiences training to be a Tendai priest, Stephen Covell refutes this "corruption paradigm" while revealing the many (often contradictory) facets of contemporary institutional Buddhism, or as Covell terms it, Temple Buddhism."--BOOK JACKET.
Physical Description:xii, 256 pages ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-249) and index.
ISBN:0824828569 (alk. paper)
0824829670 (pbk. : alk. paper)