Session 13: Tang China ①: Buddhism and tea

Topics

❖ Early association of Buddhism with tea as deduced through the writings of monks:

• Zhiyi (6th c.)
• Yijing (635-713, perhaps associated with Yogacaric sects)
• Xiangmo Zang (fl. early 8th c., Chan)

and the record by Feng Yan ("What Master Feng Heard and Saw", Fengshi wenjian ji, 8th c.)

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

Nothing yet.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read: pp 213 – 221 and 231 of "Buddhism, Alcohol, and Tea in Medieval China" in Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China by Roel Sterchx (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) [eBrary]
✓ Read: Buddhism and Tea in Tang China [bSpace, PPT]
✓ View:

Multimedia notes

❖ There are now maps on bSpace that show the Tea-Horse Road, the Silk Road, the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, and the two large rivers—Yellow River and Yangzi River. These are testable. There is also a blank map, provided for practice. The map set was created by me but the landform map that sometimes appears might have a copyright and so this map set must be used only for the purposes of this class, privately by you.

Links

This is a very useful graphic for visualizing the geographical relationship between the development of tea in the south and the arrival of Buddhism in the north: The Spread of Buddhism to AD 600

Other

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Links to each session page

Sun, Sept 1, 2013: I am migrating this site to a new site. It takes time. During this transition, there are two ways to access a particular day's web page. You can start with the new EA109 Fall 2013 Course Guide page, our official top page. It will take you directly to the new pages and redirect to old pages when necessary. Or you can use the below chart. It will take you directly to the day's session page—the new one when it exists, the old one when it has yet to be migrated. Greenhighlight means the new page exists. Sorry for the dust and mess during construction!