Politics and transcendent wisdom

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Politics and Transcendent Wisdom offers a systematic framework for understanding the interplay between politics and religion across various contexts. It explores the emergence of "national protection" Buddhism in China, translating a key text from this significant movement. Orzech demonstrates that Buddhist concepts of sovereignty were viewed as more than mere metaphor, revealing a deep connection between Buddhist transcendence and political authority in East Asia. The book provides a fresh perspective on Buddhist cosmology by examining the role of Buddhism as a state religion during the fifth and eighth centuries in China. It closely analyzes the Transcendent Wisdom Scripture for Humane Kings Who Wish to Protect Their States, which served as the foundation for Buddhist state cults in China, Korea, and Japan well into the twentieth century. This scripture emerged in the fifth century when Buddhists sought to reconcile their "foreign" religion with the "foreign" rulers of northern China, offering solutions to these challenges. Three centuries later, during a fully sinified Buddhism, the T'ang dynasty Tantric master Pu-k'ung created a revised version of the text with new rites, central to his vision of a Chinese Buddhist state grounded in esoteric traditions. The final section includes the first complete, annotated translation of this significant East Asian Buddhist text.