EALC 370: The Lotus Sutra (HC/BMC) Spring 2024

Challenging long-held assumptions about Buddhist art, Eugene Wang treats it as a window to an animated and spirited world. Rather than focus on individual murals as isolated compositions, Wang views the entire body of pictures adorning a cave shrine or a pagoda as a visual mapping of an imaginary topography that encompasses different temporal and spatial domains. He demonstrates that the text of the Lotus Sutra does not fully explain the pictures and that a picture, or a series of them, constitutes its own "text." In exploring how religious pictures sublimate cultural aspirations, he shows that they can serve both political and religious agendas.

Reveals the astonishing range of artistic expression inspired by the Lotus Sutra: miniature altars, bronzes, lacquerware, vibrant mandalas, wall paintings, hanging scrolls, narrative picture scrolls, and sculptures, as well as embroidered, handwritten and printed copies of the sutra itself. Much has been written in Japanese about the Lotus Sutra and the magnificent artworks related to it, but not until Bunsaku Kurata and Yoshiro Tamura compiled the present book was it possible to bring this material together in a single volume in English.

An in-depth survey of the several genres of pictorial art related to the Lotus Sutra, one of the most influential scriptures of Buddhism. The book analyzes the content, style, and import of each work, accompanied by a comprehensive classification scheme.

Burton Watson's translation of this classic and influential text.