There are several forms of Buddhism, with different semiotic paradigms. This course will focus in particular with the semiotic doctrines and practices developed in Japan within what is known as Òesoteric BuddhismÓ (mikky¿ ). A variant of Tantric Buddhism, Mikky¿ was established at the beginning of the ninth century and became the dominant intellectual and ritual discourse of premodern Japan. It produced a sophisticated and highly systematic semiotic field which takes into account other forms of Buddhist semiotics. This course is based on primary materials (translated) mainly composed between the ninth and the seventeenth centuries in Japan, also based on previous Indian and Chinese sources.
The course in general presupposes a basic understanding of main Buddhist notions and of Japanese history, but I will make all the relevant references and give the most important definitions in my lectures.
Lecture 2. The Debate on the Origin of Language
An analysis of theories on the origin of language is helpful to better understand the particular status of language in Buddhist thought and practice. Authors debated whether language was produced by some supernatural entity (a god, or the cosmic Buddha), and if so, with what purposes, or whether it was instead a natural, spontaneous entity in the universe.
Lecture 3. Structure of the Sign
Japanese Buddhist authors agree that linguistic signs have three components: sounds, writing, and meaning. In addition, linguistic signs are connected in various ways to their referents. This lecture explores these issues through an analysis of influential texts.
Lecture 4. An Esoteric Theory of Interpretation
This lecture explores the structure of the semantic space as it is conceived in esoteric Buddhism.
Lecture 5. Theory of Knowledge
This lecture outlines the most influential epistemology in Japanese Buddhism, based on the Indian school known as yog‘c‘ra or ÒMind-OnlyÓ. We will see how Japanese Buddhist exegetes were able to connect epistemology to cosmology (the mind as the essence of reality) and soteriology (salvation as the transformation of oneÕs mind)
Lecture 6. Semiotics and Soteriology
This lecture addresses the role of semiotic ideas in Buddhist ritual and meditative practices aimed at the attainment of awakening and liberation.
Lecture 7. Masters of Signs: Elements of Socio-Semiotics of Esoteric Buddhism
Who were the masters of esoteric semiotics? How did they produced their texts? How did their notions circulate? This lecture addresses the boundaries of the field of esoteric Buddhism: the notion of esotericism, the rites of initiation, the social status of the initiates, and the translation of secret, initiatory notions in more popular, widely circulating texts (poetry, drama, literature).
Lecture 8. Buddhist Semiotics Today
After our historical excursus, this final lecture addresses what is left today of traditional Buddhist semiotics. We will see the effects of modernization and the diffusion of Western religious and philosophical ideas as new paradigms for intellectual (and specifically semiotic) discourses in Japan. Essentially, the semiotics of esoteric Buddhism today is articulated in two different ways: (i) through the language analogous to that of ÒpopÓ Zen enlightenment as developed by D.T. Suzuki et al. (ineffability, mystical experience, etc.); or (ii) through the language of occultism (magic, ritual, secret, etc.). We will explore the implications of these two different discourses.