C Pierce Salguero - Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources

Buddhism and Medicine

Buddhism and Medicine

AN ANTHOLOGY OF PREMODERN SOURCES

C. Pierce Salguero

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New YorkChichester, West Sussex

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Copyright 2017 Columbia University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Salguero, C. Pierce, editor.

Title: Buddhism and medicine : an anthology of premodern sources / [edited by] C. Pierce Salguero.

Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016030050 (print) | LCCN 2017013992 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231544269 (electronic) | ISBN 9780231179942 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: HealingReligious aspectsBuddhism. | SufferingReligious aspectsBuddhism.

Classification: LCC BQ4570.H43 (ebook) | LCC BQ4570.H43 B83 2017 (print) | DDC 294.3/3661dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016030050

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Cover image: Mural painting of Bhaiajyaguru, Shanxi province, China, 14761496. Courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, object no. C688.

For Marcie

CONTENTS

Dhivan Thomas Jones

Anlayo

Alexander O. Hsu

C. Pierce Salguero

Amy Paris Langenberg

Dan Lusthaus

Edward R. Drott

C. Pierce Salguero

William J. Giddings

David Fiordalis

Amy Paris Langenberg

David Fiordalis

C. Pierce Salguero

J. E. E. Pettit

Ann Heirman and Mathieu Torck

Christoph Kleine

Marcus Bingenheimer

Phyllis Granoff

Michael Slouber

Gregory Schopen

C. Pierce Salguero

D. Max Moerman

Pamela D. Winfield

Peter D. Sharrock and Claude Jacques

Gregory Schopen

William J. Giddings

Michael Slouber

C. Pierce Salguero

Paul Copp

Joshua Capitanio

Stephen F. Teiser

Anna Andreeva

Benedetta Lomi

Justin Thomas McDaniel

Vesna A. Wallace

Eric M. Greene

C. Pierce Salguero

Juhn Ahn

Robban Toleno

Matthew T. Kapstein

Douglas Duckworth

Todd P. Marek and Charles Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie

Andrew Skilton and Phibul Choompolpaisal

Ori Tavor

Dominic Steavu

Michael Stanley-Baker and Dolly Yang

Marta E. Hanson

St phanie Homola

Don Baker and Hyunsook Lee

William A. McGrath

Andrew Macomber

Michael Stanley-Baker

Nathan Sivin

Katja Triplett

Taehyung Lee and Kang Yeonseok

Andrew Edmund Goble

C. Michele Thompson

Leslie E. de Vries

Pyi Phyo Kyaw

Barbara Gerke and Florian Ploberger

Barbara Gerke and Florian Ploberger

Janet Gyatso

T he editor wishes to thank all of the contributors to this volume for their patience, diligence, and insights shared over the time it took to compile and edit this work. He especially wishes to thank Stephen Teiser, Nathan Sivin, and Dan Lusthaus, who read far beyond their own chapters and whose suggestions and comments greatly improved the quality of the work as a whole.

C. PIERCE SALGUERO

T exts from across the Buddhist world list illness along with birth, aging, and death as the four great torments that inevitably accompany life in a human body. Since Buddhist doctrine at its very core is focused on the relief of all forms of suffering (Skt. dukha ), Buddhist writings and practices frequently address the question of how to cope with this particular tribulation. Mainstream Buddhist doctrine seeks to mitigate the suffering of illness by stressing the illusory nature of the physical body, the nonexistence of the separate self, and the possibility of radical transcendence through Buddhist practice. Contrary to popular belief, however, Buddhists have never limited themselves to passive or fatalistic approaches to dealing with corporeal disease. For well over two millennia, the sick and those who care for them have found practical, this-worldly advice for preventing and curing maladies within the context of the religion.

Like Buddhism itself, the repertoire of Buddhist approaches to disease, healing, and health maintenance began to coalesce in India in the second half of the first millennium B.C.E. Embedded in Buddhist writings, rituals, and material culture, these Indian ideas and practices were spread by merchants, missionaries, and healer-monks along the Silk Roads and maritime routes to the rest of the Asian continent during the first millennium of the Common Era. Invariably, healing played a central role in Buddhist proselytism in new lands, and it was often among the chief benefits that was held out to new converts. Whether they were individual patients being treated by itinerant ascetics or kings organizing massive protection rituals, devotees across the Buddhist world were encouraged to turn to Buddhist tradition, institutions, and functionaries for methods to cure and prevent the suffering of illness.