The Wheel of Rebirth is one of the most basic and popular images in Buddhist visual culture. For nearly two thousand years, artists have painted it onto the porches of Buddhist temples; preachers have used it to explain karmic retribution; and philosophers have invoked it to illuminate the contrast between ignorance and nirvana. In Reinventing the Wheel, noted scholar Stephen F. Teiser explores the history and varied interpretations of the Wheel of Rebirth, a circle divided into sections depicting the Buddhist cycle of transmigration. Combining visual evidence with textual sources, Reinventing the Wheel shows how the metaphor of the wheel has been interpreted in divergent local traditions, from India to Tibet, Central Asia, and China. Teiser deftly shows how written and painted renditions of the wheel have animated local architectural sites and religious rituals, informing concepts of time and reincarnation and acting as an organizing principle in the cosmology and daily life of practicing Buddhists. Engaging and accessible, this uniquely pan-Buddhist tour will appeal to anyone interested in Buddhist culture, as well as to scholars of religious studies, art history, architecture, philosophy, and textual studies.
STEPHEN F. TEISER is D. T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies, Princeton University. He is the author of The Ghost Festival in Medieval China.
CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments
1. Picturing Life and Death as a Wheel
2. The Canonical Version of the Wheel of Rebirth
3. Temples and Legends: Western India, 350-550 C.E.
4. King Rudrayana's Painting of the Twelve Conditions
5. La roue imaginaire en Chine
6. Wheels for Meditation: Kumtura, Central Asia, Ninth Century
7. Wheels in Cave Temples: Yulin, Gansu, Tenth Century
8. Wheels in Esoteric Temples: Tabo, Western Tibet, Eleventh Century
9. Wheels for Pilgrims: Baodingshan, Sichuan, Thirteenth Century
10. Conclusions
Character Glossary
Bibliography
Index
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