Following the footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s journey to India
- Author
- Paride Stortini (UGent)
- Organization
- Project
- Abstract
- This chapter analyzes the 1887 travel to India of Buddhist priest-scholar Nanjō Bun’yū (1849–1927), often credited as the pioneer of modern Indology in Japan. While considering the impact on Nanjō’s travel to India of his previous experience of study in Europe, the chapter points out how Nanjō’s expectations, projects, and imagination of his pilgrimage to India were informed by the intellectual context of Japanese Buddhism at that time, and by a long cultural imaginary of India in East Asian Buddhism. It does so by combining an analysis of the literary tradition and tropes in Nanjō’s travel poems in Sino-Japanese, considering how the moral geography built through this experience of India would inform Nanjō’s commitment to build modern Japanese Buddhism. In so doing, it restates the agency of Japanese intellectuals in the construction of the modern concept of Buddhism, as well as showing the active redeployment of new forms of knowledge by these Japanese intellectuals within their cultural imaginary of pilgrimage to India.
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01HD46HFGWZV58NQ5EZFX0938X
- MLA
- Stortini, Paride. “Following the Footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s Journey to India.” Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies, edited by Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya and Masahiko Togawa, Routledge, 2025, pp. 83–101, doi:10.4324/9781003537120-5.
- APA
- Stortini, P. (2025). Following the footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s journey to India. In R. Mukhopadhyaya & M. Togawa (Eds.), Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies (pp. 83–101). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003537120-5
- Chicago author-date
- Stortini, Paride. 2025. “Following the Footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s Journey to India.” In Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies, edited by Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya and Masahiko Togawa, 83–101. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003537120-5.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Stortini, Paride. 2025. “Following the Footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s Journey to India.” In Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies, ed by. Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya and Masahiko Togawa, 83–101. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003537120-5.
- Vancouver
- 1.Stortini P. Following the footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s journey to India. In: Mukhopadhyaya R, Togawa M, editors. Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge; 2025. p. 83–101.
- IEEE
- [1]P. Stortini, “Following the footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s journey to India,” in Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies, R. Mukhopadhyaya and M. Togawa, Eds. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2025, pp. 83–101.
@incollection{01HD46HFGWZV58NQ5EZFX0938X,
abstract = {{This chapter analyzes the 1887 travel to India of Buddhist priest-scholar Nanjō Bun’yū (1849–1927), often credited as the pioneer of modern Indology in Japan. While considering the impact on Nanjō’s travel to India of his previous experience of study in Europe, the chapter points out how Nanjō’s expectations, projects, and imagination of his pilgrimage to India were informed by the intellectual context of Japanese Buddhism at that time, and by a long cultural imaginary of India in East Asian Buddhism. It does so by combining an analysis of the literary tradition and tropes in Nanjō’s travel poems in Sino-Japanese, considering how the moral geography built through this experience of India would inform Nanjō’s commitment to build modern Japanese Buddhism. In so doing, it restates the agency of Japanese intellectuals in the construction of the modern concept of Buddhism, as well as showing the active redeployment of new forms of knowledge by these Japanese intellectuals within their cultural imaginary of pilgrimage to India.}},
author = {{Stortini, Paride}},
booktitle = {{Buddhist Exchanges Between India and Japan : Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies}},
editor = {{Mukhopadhyaya, Ranjana and Togawa, Masahiko}},
isbn = {{9781032233802}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{83--101}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
title = {{Following the footsteps of Shakyamuni : Nanjō Bun’yū’s journey to India}},
url = {{http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003537120-5}},
year = {{2025}},
}
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