Letters of the Nun Eshinni by James C. Dobbins

But last year, he stopped believing in love. touching and magical until the very last page' ELLE _ Julien Azoulay is famous around the world for his beautiful romance novels. Reading Barreau is like having me-time with your best friend' NINA GEORGE, author of The Little Paris Bookshop 'Heart-breaking. Scholars and students of Buddhism, Japanese history, women’s studies, and religious studies will find much in this engaging work that is thought-provoking and insightful.įriendship In Death In Letters From The Dead To The Living 1728ĭescription: 'Enchanting. A prevailing theme that runs throughout the book is the need to look beyond idealized images of Buddhism found in doctrine to discover the religion as it was lived and practiced. He goes on to analyze aspects of medieval religion that have been omitted in our modern-day account of Pure Land and tries to reconstruct the religious assumptions of Eshinni and Shinran in their own day. After situating the ideas and practices of Pure Land Buddhism in the context of the actual living conditions of thirteenth-century Japan, Dobbins examines the portrayal of women in Pure Land Buddhism, the great range of lifestyles found among medieval women and nuns, and how they constructed a meaningful religious life amid negative stereotypes.

Readers will come away with a new perspective on Pure Land scholarship and a vivid image of Eshinni and the world in which she lived. He provides a complete translation of the letters and an explication of them that reveals the character and flavor of early Shin Buddhism. Dobbins, a leading scholar of Pure Land Buddhism, has made creative use of these letters to shed new light on life and religion in medieval Japan. Description: Eshinni (1182–1268?), a Buddhist nun and the wife of Shinran (1173–1262), the celebrated founder of the True Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhism, was largely unknown until the discovery of a collection of her letters in 1921.

Letters of the Nun Eshinni by James C. Dobbins