ICS Public Lecture – Prof. Wang Xingyi: "Tōseiden: Sino-Japanese Communication and the Vinaya Tradition"
Picture Scroll of the Eastern Expedition (Tōseiden) depicts the Vinaya master Jianzhen’s arduous journey from China to Japan for the purpose of conferring Buddhist precepts. This visualized journey symbolizes the transmission of a dharma lineage and Vinaya related texts across national boundaries. Tōseiden is a complex cultural product, which involves the interrelation of image, narrative, textual tradition, ritual, sacred geography, and historiography, embedded in the milieu of the thirteenth century rather than in Jianzhen’s own time. Moreover, what motivated the commission of Tōseiden was common resurgent interest in the Vinaya that motivated the creation of the reimagined journey of Jianzhen. The “reconstruction” of the transmission history of the Vinaya is largely an attempt to transform the Vinaya tradition from an idea to an event and to retell the story of Jianzhen in visualized form. From the perspective of Sino-Japan cultural exchanges in terms of Vinaya and precepts, this talk explores how a disrupted tradition can be reimagined and reconstructed through the making of artworks.
Speaker:
Professor Wang Xingyi is an assistant professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong since 2024. She is trained as a Buddhologist specialized in East Asia Buddhist history and thought. Her research includes Buddhist monasticism, Vinaya studies, Pure Land, ethics, Buddhist literature. Born and raised in China, she received MTS (2015) from Harvard Divinity School and Ph.D. (2021) from Harvard University. She is currently working on a monograph on the commentarial tradition of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya and the formation of the Vinaya School through the cultural exchanges between Song China and Kamakura Japan.
Date: 28 October 2025 (Tuesday)
Time: 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.︱ Tea Reception
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.︱ Talk
Venue: Activities Room, 2/F, Art Museum East Wing, CUHK
Language: English
Registration: Click here
Enquiry: 3943 0406/
