James Dobbins

Pure Land Buddhism in Japan; Buddhism’s modern development; Japanese Buddhist icons.

Books

Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2020. xiv + 246 pp.

Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. xiv + 259 pp.

Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan. Paperback edition: Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. Hardcover: Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Award: A Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 1989. xiv + 242 pp. 

Edited Volumes

The Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Vol. 2: Pure Land. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2015.

The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio. Special issue of Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23.3-4 (Fall 1996). 252 pp. Guest editor.

Articles, Book Chapters, and Essays

“The Echo of William James in the Thought of D.T. Suzuki.” The Eastern Buddhist (3rd Series) 6.1 (2026): 33-60.

“D.T. Suzuki Scrutinized: Reflections and Hypotheses.” The Eastern Buddhist (3rd Series) 4.1 (2024): 89-113.

“D.T. Suzuki: A Brief Account of His Life.” The Eastern Buddhist (3rd Series) 2.2 (2022): 1-83.

“D.T. Suzuki and the Otani School of Seishinshugi.” In Adding Flesh to Bones: Kiyozawa Manshi’s Seishinshugi in Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022, pp. 317-48.

“D.T. Suzuki and the Welfare of Animals.” In Beyond Zen: D.T. Suzuki and the Modern Transformation of Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022, pp. 108-29.

“D.T. Suzuki, Amida Buddha, and the Problem of Karma.” The Eastern Buddhist (3rd Series) 1.2 (2021): 89-98.

“The Life of Emma Erskine Lane Hahn, D.T. Suzuki’s Mother-in-Law.” Matsugaoka Bunko kenkyū nenpō (Annual Report of Researches of the Matsugaoka Bunko) 35 (2021): 11-65.

“The Historical Context of the Tannishō.” Komazawa Daigaku Zen Kenkyūjo nenpō, Tokubetsugō (2020): 267-85. 

“D.T. Suzuki in Transition, 1949-1953.” Matsugaoka Bunko kenkyū nenpō (Annual Report of Researches of the Matsugaoka Bunko) 30 (2016): 47-61.

“Introduction.” In The Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Vol. 2: Pure Land. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2015, pp. ix-xxviii.

“D.T. Suzuki and the Construction of Modern Buddhism.” In Bukkyō teki dentō to ningen no sei [“Buddhist Tradition and Human Life”]. A Festscrift in Honor of Yasutomi Shin’ya. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2014, pp. 73-97.

“‘The evil person is the primary recipient of the Buddha’s compassion’: The Akunin Shōki Theme in Shin Buddhism of Japan.” In Sin and Sinners: Perspectives from Asian Religions. Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 93-112.

“Eshinni in the History of Shin Buddhism.” In Chūsei bunka to Jōdo Shinshū [“Shin Buddhism and Medieval Culture in Japan”]. A Festscrift in Honor of Imai Masaharu. Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 2012, pp. 576-95 (48-67).

“The Many Faces of Shinran: Images from D.T. Suzuki and The Eastern Buddhist.” The Eastern Buddhist (N.S.) 42.2 (2011): 1-24.

“The Origins and Complicated Development of Shin Buddhism as an Area in Religious Studies. “ The Pure Land (N.S.) 22 (December 2006): 1-27.

“Precepts in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism: The Jōdoshū.” In Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya, ed. William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005, pp. 236-54.

“Chinese Buddhist Stele: Religious Meanings in Buddhist Iconography.” Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, Oberlin College 53 (2003): 60-64.

“Portraits of Shinran in Medieval Pure Land Buddhism.” In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. Robert Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 19-48.

“Envisioning Kamakura Buddhism.” In Re-Visioning Kamakura Buddhism, ed. Richard Payne. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998, pp. 24-42.

“A Brief History of Pure Land Buddhism in Early Japan.” In Engaged Pure Land Buddhism, ed. Kenneth K. Tanaka and Eisho Nasu. Berkeley: Wisdom Ocean Publications, 1998, pp. 113-65.

“The World-view of Rennyo and His Religion: A Study of ‘Sayings From the Life of Master Rennyo’ (Rennyo Shōnin goichidai kikigaki).” In The Rennyo Shōnin Reader. Kyoto: Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, 1998, pp. 113-31.

“Kuroda Toshio and His Scholarship.” In The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio. Special issue of Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23.3-4 (Fall 1996): 217-32.

“Women’s Birth in Pure Land as Women—Intimations from the Letters of Eshinni.” The Eastern Buddhist (N.S.) 28.1 (Spring 1995): 108-22. In Japanese: “Josei no mama Jōdo ni umareta joseitachi—Eshinni monjo kenkyū kara.” In Sekai bunka to Bukkyō, ed. Yamada Meiji. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshōdō, 2000, pp. 115-30.

“The Biography of Shinran: Apotheosis of a Japanese Buddhist Visionary.” History of Religions 30.2 (November 1990): 179-96.

“The Letters of Eshinni: Buddhist Woman of Medieval Japan” (in Japanese). “Nichibunken Forum Pamphlet Series.” Kyoto: Kokusai Nihon Kenkyū Senta (International Research Center for Japanese Studies), 1989. iv + 30 pp.

“Shin Buddhism, the Nembutsu Experience, and Faith.” The Pacific World, Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, N.S. 5 (1989): 53-62. 

“Buddhism in Japan.” In A Thousand Cranes: Treasures of Japanese Art. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1987, pp. 24-41. 

“From Inspiration to Institution: The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo Shinshū.” Monumenta Nipponica 41.3 (Autumn 1986): 330-43.

“The Single and the Repeated Nembutsu Extremes.” In Jōdokyō no kenkyū. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshōdō, 1982, pp. 85-100. 

“Views of Heresy in Shinshū History” (in Japanese). Shinshūgaku 63 (1981): 44-55.

“The Concept of Heresy in the Jōdo Shinshū.” Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 25 (1980): 33-46.

Translations

“The Original Bōmori: Husband-and-Wife Congregations in Early Shin Buddhism,” by Endō Hajime. In Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Pre-Modern Japan. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002, pp. 501-35.

“Rennyo’s Rules.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, vol. 1, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 228-29.

“Buddhist Liberation and Birth in the Heavens: The Significance of the Earliest Buddhist Icons Found Among Grave Objects in China’s Yangtze River Region,” by Yamada Meiji. In Wisdom, Compassion, and the Search for Understanding: The Buddhist Studies Legacy of Gadjin M. Nagao, ed. Jonathan A. Silk. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000, pp. 369-96.

“Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual in Pure Land Buddhism” (translation from Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū) and “Faith as Immediate Fulfillment in Pure Land Buddhism” (translations from the writings of Shinran). In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. George Tanabe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 166-75, 280-88.

“The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Medieval Japan’s Orthodoxy,” by Kuroda Toshio. In The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio, Special issue of Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23.3-4 (Fall 1996): 233-69. Reprinted in Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, vol. 8, ed. Paul Williams. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, pp. 259-90.

“Buddhism in the Kamakura Period,” by Ōsumi Kazuo. In The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 544-82.

Translation Committee Member: The Sūtra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, trans. and annot., Ryūkoku University Translation Center. Kyoto: Ryūkoku University Press, 1984. xl + 169 pp. 

Translation (with Suzanne Gay): “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” by Kuroda Toshio. The Journal of Japanese Studies 7.1 (Winter 1981): 1-21. Reprinted in Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. George Tanabe, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 451-67; and in Religion and Society in Modern Japan—Selected Readings, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1993, pp. 7-30. 

Translation Committee Member: Shōzōmatsu Wasan: Shinran’s Hymns on the Last Age, trans. and annot., Ryūkoku University Translation Center. Kyoto: Ryūkoku University Press, 1980. xxiii + 164 pp.