Keenly aware of living in a small archipelago on the easternmost periphery of the Asian continent, premodern Japanese Buddhist thinkers struggled to define their own place vis-à-vis the great Buddhist countries of India and China. Alternative representations of Japan, both as a marginal, benighted backwater, and as a superior Buddhist realm, were creatively juxtaposed to assert the claims of rival teachings. In the process, Buddhist norms and concepts of Japan became
mutually formative.
Jacqueline Stone, Religious Studies, Princeton University
Jacqueline Stone is professor of Japanese Religions in the Religion Department of Princeton University. Her chief research field is Japanese Buddhism of the medieval and modern periods. She is especially interested in the intersections of Buddhist thought and social practice. Her most recent book is Right thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan (2016).
