This dissertation investigates the relationship between waste recycling and social change. Instead of complying with a prevailing notion of recycling as an environmental solution, or as material... Show moreThis dissertation investigates the relationship between waste recycling and social change. Instead of complying with a prevailing notion of recycling as an environmental solution, or as material conversion and trade, this research maintains that recycling is about people, their relation to objects and environments, their networks of interaction and modes of thoughts. The empirical focus of this dissertation is Tzu-chi recycling: a volunteer-operated, community-based, Buddhism-associated national movement in Taiwan since the 1990s. This research analyzes Tzu-chi recycling at three levels: individual, communal and institutional. It studies Tzu-chi recycling against the backdrop of Taiwan’s drastic social change: the economic and demographic restructuring, a movement of political localization, and the dynamic powers of religious phenomenon. By doing so, the dissertation shows post-authoritarian Taiwan through the lens of waste recycling, and understands waste recycling through Taiwan. Overall, it contends that in different forms of action and ways of seeing, Tzu-chi-associated members redefine recycling as a past-oriented strategy and a redemptive tool to deal with different consequences of modernity. From the vantage point of waste, this research sheds light on the entanglement between a society’s development and its waste as an examination of its continuum and rupture between present and past. Through the chapters of this dissertation, it becomes clear that, above all, rubbish is at the core of meaningful and coordinated social activity; it makes us who we are. Show less
Indian Buddhist literary sources contain both systematic and casual rejections of, broadly speaking, the caste system and caste discrimination. However, they also provide ample evidence for,... Show moreIndian Buddhist literary sources contain both systematic and casual rejections of, broadly speaking, the caste system and caste discrimination. However, they also provide ample evidence for, possibly subconscious, discriminatory attitudes toward outcastes, prototypically caṇḍālas. The rhetoric found in Indian Buddhist literature regarding caṇḍālas is examined in this paper. Show less
Java was once the origin of extraordinary Buddhist art, including a great number of Avalokiteśvara images, in stone, bronze and other metals. These representations of the Bodhisattva date from... Show moreJava was once the origin of extraordinary Buddhist art, including a great number of Avalokiteśvara images, in stone, bronze and other metals. These representations of the Bodhisattva date from between the seventh and the thirteenth century CE. They form the subject of this thesis. The earliest Avalokiteśvara images show him in his ascetic form, but over time he takes on a princely form with jewellery and a sacred thread. The majority of the Avalokiteśvara images were produced during the Central Javanese period and examples in stone can be found at Borobudur, Candi Mendut and the Plaosan Lor complex. The Javanese developed their own artistic language to depict Avalokiteśvara which we see in the style and combination of iconographic features. A few of the Javanese iconographic choices for Avalokiteśvara were local and not adopted in the rest of Insular Southeast Asia. The final depictions of Avalokiteśvara show him in a specific iconographic form, Amoghapāśa Lokeśvara. These images are linked to Candi Jago, near Malang in East Java. This thesis is an iconographic study and traces the development of Avalokiteśvara imagery in Java through time and in connection with developments elsewhere. Show less
This study focuses on the life, exploits and ideology of Guru Wuguang (1818-2000), an eclectic and influential Taiwanese Buddhist figure who studied Daoist alchemy, multiple forms of Chinese,... Show moreThis study focuses on the life, exploits and ideology of Guru Wuguang (1818-2000), an eclectic and influential Taiwanese Buddhist figure who studied Daoist alchemy, multiple forms of Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as biology, thermodynamics, philosophy, theology, and occulture. This is done in order to understand what happens when a tradition ‘purified’ from its ‘mythical’ elements reincorporates itself in the tension between its ‘enchanted’ past and ‘scientific’ present. Wuguang is famous throughout the Chinese-speaking Buddhist world for resurrecting Zhenyan, a school of esoteric Buddhism said to have flourished in China during the Tang Dynasty. The academic community has largely ignored Wuguang, making this the first in-depth exploration of this figure, whose influence is truly global. Building upon David McMahan’s work on Buddhist modernism, Jason Josephson’s secular-religious-superstitious trinary, scholarly discourse concerning Weberian disenchantment, and employing the Religious Economy Model, I argue that Wuguang’s teachings represent an intentionally reenchanted form of Buddhist modernism aimed at harmonizing magic with modern science and philosophy. While scholarly discourse on Asian magic in the modern world has been confined to popular religion, this study additionally focuses on ‘High-Church Buddhism’ by analyzing Wuguang’s magico-scientific interpretation of complex Buddhist doctrine. Show less
