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

这个项目调查了佛教的概念、理论和实践对中世纪日本女性身体和女性健康知识形成的影响。它的目的是首次通过日本寺庙档案中的佛教手稿来书写生育的文化史，这将为知识、医学和性别的历史提供新的视角。作为第二本书的基础，该项目分析了东亚历史学家以前认为不重要的原始资料，他们迄今倾向于优先考虑中国医学资料。在印度、中国和韩国的佛教和医学知识的跨文化流动的背景下，该项目考虑了日本的主要来源，从而纠正了这一问题。这些知识带来了佛教经文和医学文本，以及专注于风险控制、占卜、长寿和护身符书写的仪式技术。有人提出，这些流动形成了中世纪日本关于妇女身体的医学-宗教知识领域。因此，该项目阐明了日本佛教学者和僧侣如何采用和进一步发展有关治疗、药物、风险计算和以妇女生殖健康为重点的仪式技术等不同类型的知识，以及这些佛教专业知识如何在1600年以前的日本历史、政治和经济环境中得到应用。该项目的一个特别重要的目标是寻找、转录、音译保存在佛教寺庙的中世纪手稿，并将其历史背景化，特别是那些专门研究真言、天台和禅宗教义的寺庙，并阐明它们相对于经典的印度阿毗达摩和Yogācāra教义的历史地位，因为这些教义在前现代东亚主要是通过中国佛教翻译来理解的。更广泛地说，该项目将佛教僧侣、医生和占卜师开发的多种预测和风险管理策略推向了前台，这些策略是为来自宫廷、精英战士和幕府家族的贵族女性以及后来的非精英女性提供的。因此，该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女性的概念。

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.