Workshop on the "Song gaoseng zhuan (宋高僧傳)"

BY INVITATION ONLY

This invitation-only workshop is an attempt to bring to conclusion a project that has now extended well over a decade. Our goal is to finally complete an annotated critical edition of the Chinese text of this large, tenth-century collection of biographies of monks, complete with maps and other technical apparatus. The Song gaoseng zhuan contains over five hundred main biographies with more than one hundred supplemental biographies, divided into ten categories. The majority of the biographies are from the late Tang to the early Song. In addition to the biographies, each of the ten chapters is followed by an essay discussing the history of the chapter topic, including translation, exegesis, thaumaturgy, asceticism, and other topics. Some of the biographies include addenda that discuss particular issues raised in individual biographies. The complex textual history of the Song gaoseng zhuan means that it exists in a number of different versions with many textual variants. Our version will compare as many of these versions as we can, pointing out textual variants when meaningful. Even when the editions of the text are in agreement, the text is filled with allusions and obscure passages that are often difficult to understand. This is particularly the case in the essays at the end of each of the ten chapters. Much of our work has been devoted to explaining difficult passages in the text. Finally, we exploit the large number of accounts containing precise geographical references to create a series of maps that we hope will offer new insights into the dynamics of Chinese Buddhism during this critical period of its history.  

Participants

     John Kieschnick (Stanford University)

     Marcus Bingenheimer (Temple University)

     Chang Po-yung (Independent Scholar)

     Kedao Tong (Stanford University)