Xingyi Wang (PhD Candidate at Harvard University)

This talk focuses on the practice of robing monastics in the Vinaya revival in Song China and Kamakura Japan. The formative power of the Vinaya on the individual body and on the collective community hinges on the mediacy of the robe. By tracing the trajectory of the commentarial tradition and material culture of the Vinaya from Song China to Kamakura Japan, I show how Buddhists negotiated the tension between fidelity to the Vinaya and their localized ephemeral social reality.