Buddhism, Medicine and Gender in 10th-16th century Japan: toward a transcultural history of women's health in premodern East Asia

这个项目调查佛教观念、理论和实践对中世纪日本妇女身体和妇女健康知识形成的影响。其目的是通过日本寺庙档案中的佛教手稿，首次书写一部分娩的文化史，这为知识史、医学史和性别史提供了新的视角。作为第二本书的基础，该项目分析了以前被东亚历史学家视为不重要的原始材料，他们迄今倾向于优先考虑中国的医学来源。该项目通过考虑日本的主要来源来纠正这个问题，背景是来自印度、中国和韩国的佛教和医学知识的跨文化流动带来了佛经和医学文献，以及侧重于风险控制、占卜、长寿和护身符书写的仪式技术。有人认为，这些流动形成了中世纪日本关于女性身体的医学宗教知识领域。因此，这个项目阐明了日本佛教学者和僧侣是如何采用和进一步发展关于治疗、药材、风险计算和侧重于妇女生殖健康的仪式技术的各种类型的知识，以及这些佛教专业知识是如何在1600年前的日本的历史、政治和经济环境中使用的。这个项目的一个特别重要的目标是寻找、转录、音译和历史语境的中世纪手稿保存在深奥信仰的佛教寺庙中，特别是那些专门研究神功、天台和禅宗教义的寺庙，并阐明它们相对于经典的印度阿比达弥陀和约格ācāra教义的历史地位，因为这些教义在前现代东亚被理解，主要是通过中国佛教翻译。更广泛地说，该项目突出了佛教僧侣、医生和占卜师为宫廷贵族女性、精英武士和幕府家族以及后来的非精英女性开发的多种预测和风险管理战略。因此，这个项目阐明了复杂的历史、宗教和文化因素，这些因素定义了中世纪日本的女性概念。

This project investigates the impact of Buddhist concepts, theories, and practices on the formation of knowledge about women’s bodies and women’s health in medieval Japan. Its aim is, for the first time, to write a cultural history of childbirth as seen through the Buddhist manuscripts from Japanese temple archives, which cast new light on the histories of knowledge, medicine, and gender. Forming the basis for a second book, the project analyses the primary source materials that were previously not considered significant by the historians of East Asia who so far tended to privilege Chinese medical sources. The project rectifies this problem by considering the Japanese primary sources against the background of transcultural flows of Buddhist and medical knowledge from India, China, and Korea that brought with them Buddhist scriptures and medical texts as well as ritual technologies focusing on risk control, divination, longevity, and talisman-writing. It is proposed that these flows shaped the spheres of medico-religious knowledge about women’s bodies in medieval Japan. This project thus clarifies how heterogeneous types of knowledge with regard to healing, materia medica, calculation of risks, and ritual technologies focusing on the reproductive health of women were adopted and further developed by Japanese Buddhist scholar-monks, and how such Buddhist expertise was used in the historical, political, and economic settings of pre-1600 Japan. A particularly important objective of this project is to find, transcribe, transliterate, and historically contextualise the medieval manuscripts preserved in Buddhist temples of esoteric persuasion, particularly those specialising in Shingon, Tendai, and Zen teachings, and to cast light on their historic position vis-a-vis classic Indian Abhidharmic and Yogācāra teachings as those were understood in premodern East Asia, primarily through Chinese Buddhist translations. More broadly, the project brings to the fore the multiple strategies of forecasting and risk management developed by the Buddhist monks, physicians, and diviners for the benefit of noble women from the imperial court, elite warrior and shogunal families, and later, non-elite women. As a result, this project elucidates the complex historical, religious, and cultural factors that defined the concepts of womanhood in medieval Japan.