Sometime during the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, several variants ofÂ an indigenous Chinese sutra known as the Xuepenjing è¡€ç›†çµŒ (“Blood Bowl Sutra,” Jpns.Â KetsubonkyÅ), were transmitted to Japan.Â Emphasizing the impurity of women’sÂ reproductive blood, this short scripture teaches that women are fated to fall into a special hell known as theÂ “Blood Pond Hell” (chi no ike jigoku è¡€ã®æ± åœ°ç„) in retribution for the sin of pollutingÂ the earth with blood.Â By theÂ eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, temples throughout Japan actively promoted the cultÂ of the Blood Bowl Hell as a method of saving women.Â In this cult,Â disgust for the female body, first emphasized in Buddhist textsÂ as a means of encouraging celibate monks to remain distant from women, is directed notÂ to celibate monks, but to a new audience of lay men and women.Â My talk will explore two early modern commentariesÂ on the text in an effort to understand how priests presented the teachings of the Blood Bowl SutraÂ to this audience.Â

Originally recorded April 22, 2011 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, Ca.

Copyright © 2010 Lori Meeks

Making Sense of the Blood Bowl Sutra: Gender, Pollution, and Salvation in Buddhist Sermons from Early Modern Japan

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