| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Mark Halperin. Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279. (Harvard East Asia Monographs, number 272.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 2006. Pp. vi, 364. $49.95.

Over the past decade or so, the traditional characterization of post-Tang Buddhism as devoid of serious intellectual or historical interest has undergone serious reevaluation. The present study represents the latest scholarly contribution to this important work of reappraisal. It is also, to my mind, one of the most illuminating. Previous studies have tended to focus primarily on the Buddhist concerns to be found in the writings of major—but not necessarily representative—Sung-dynasty literati figures such as Su Shih (1037–1101). Mark Halperin, while still primarily concerned with the literati perspectives, chooses rather to explore not only a far wider range of players, some well-known, many not, and, but also a rather different body of primary sources. Instead of the usual essays, poems, scripture prefaces, or stupa inscriptions, Halperin looks primarily at temple commemorations, an extensive body of literati-composed material that has been largely overlooked by historians of religion. He argues, often with great eloquence and always with critical acumen, that not only did temples (both large and small) occupy a gray area between public and private, but that, unlike stupa inscriptions for example, temple commemorations were not expected to conform to highly-defined generic conventions. It is for this reason that they are particularly useful for shedding light on both the extent and, even more importantly, the diversity of Sung-dynasty literati engagement (material as well as doctrinal, public as well as private) with Buddhism.

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