The Body Incantatory

This book engages a wide range of new materials, primarily unstudied texts and new archaeological evidence. It advances some key discussions that have recently been occupying the field of the study of Chinese religions and is filled with some real gems of scholarship that will excite the reader and inspire reflection.--James Robson, Harvard University This exhilarating book profoundly revises our understanding of Buddhist spells in medieval China. Both provocative and persuasive, it provides the first in-depth analysis of such spells manifested across a wide range of written, verbal, and material forms and compels us to reevaluate their fundamental importance in Buddhist practices.--Wu Hung, University of Chicago Groundbreaking.... I believe this book will become a classic as well as pioneering work for the study of Buddhist spells.--Youn-mi Kim Studies in Chinese Religions An important contribution to the scholarly understanding of religious ritual and material culture.--Richard D. McBride II Journal of the American Oriental Society The methodology on display in this book marks an important and inspiring moment for our field. Overall, the book offers a new way of looking at medieval Chinese Buddhist thought and practice, and because it is written with some panache, one may hope that it will inspire others to research, think, and write differently.--James A. Benn Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies An important and thought-provoking contribution.... Eschewing the method of broad philological [survey] in favor of close readings of selected texts and--more importantly--material objects, Copp successfully illuminates several oft-overlooked aspects of medieval Chinese dharani, and in the process brings to light new insights on the permutations of both Buddhist and Chinese religious cultures.--Josh Capitanio Journal of Chinese Religions Copp is to be commended for his bid to redirect and reshape the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism in The Body Incantatory.--Dominic Steavu Journal of Asian Studies Buddhist dharani--verbal but often unintelligible incantations that took on an astonishing array of material forms--exist at the intersection of the domain of meanings and the domain of things, making them particularly 'good to think with.' And in The Body Incantatory Paul Copp does some wonderful thinking. His comprehensive and erudite study is a major contribution not only to the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism but also to our understanding of religious ritual and material culture writ large.--Robert Sharf, University of California, Berkeley The Body Incantatory rightly calls into question the commonplace assumption that high esoteric Buddhism 'erased' an older 'proto-esoteric' incantation culture or relegated it to obsolescence. In doubting this assumption and studying the discourses and uses of dharani 'incantations' in medieval Chinese Buddhist culture, this book significantly contributes to our understanding of Buddhism in China in several significant ways.--Daniel B. Stevenson, University of Kansas