Sometime during the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, several variants of\u00c2\u00a0an indigenous Chinese sutra known as the Xuepenjing \u00e8\u00a1\u20ac\u00e7\u203a\u2020\u00e7\u00b5\u0152 (“Blood Bowl Sutra,” Jpns.\u00c2\u00a0Ketsubonky\u00c5\u008d), were transmitted to Japan.\u00c2\u00a0Emphasizing the impurity of women’s\u00c2\u00a0reproductive blood, this short scripture teaches that women are fated to fall into a special hell known as the\u00c2\u00a0“Blood Pond Hell” (chi no ike jigoku \u00e8\u00a1\u20ac\u00e3\u0081\u00ae\u00e6\u00b1\u00a0\u00e5\u0153\u00b0\u00e7\u008d\u201e) in retribution for the sin of polluting\u00c2\u00a0the earth with blood.\u00c2\u00a0By the\u00c2\u00a0eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, temples throughout Japan actively promoted the cult\u00c2\u00a0of the Blood Bowl Hell as a method of saving women.\u00c2\u00a0In this cult,\u00c2\u00a0disgust for the female body, first emphasized in Buddhist texts\u00c2\u00a0as a means of encouraging celibate monks to remain distant from women, is directed not\u00c2\u00a0to celibate monks, but to a new audience of lay men and women.\u00c2\u00a0My talk will explore two early modern commentaries\u00c2\u00a0on the text in an effort to understand how priests presented the teachings of the Blood Bowl Sutra\u00c2\u00a0to this audience.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
An audio-only version of this episode is also available.<\/strong><\/p>\n Originally recorded April 22, 2011 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, Ca.
\nCopyright © 2010 Lori Meeks<\/i><\/p>\n