祭祖与礼佛:紫禁城养心殿一区的佛堂与清帝的信仰

自雍正以降,养心殿一区成为清代宫廷的政治枢纽和帝王生活起居之所,其中至少分布着四个佛堂区。通过对这些佛堂及其内部供奉的梳理,作者发现该区域的佛堂以藏传佛教佛堂规模最大;而同样以佛堂命名的东佛堂(东配殿),其实是以祭祖为主要功能的亦佛堂亦宗庙的建筑;此外在养心殿天花上还供有雍正九年安奉的藏汉佛教与道教混合的五块一组符板。作者认为,养心殿一区佛堂体现出汉藏佛教、汉地传统祖先崇拜与清宫满族传统信仰等多元并存的现象,清帝在对待祭祖、佛教与道教方面表现出实用主义的态度。     

防瘟疫大鹏金刚轮

此幅防瘟疫大鹏金刚轮造型奇特,大鹏呈站姿,展翅而立。共有三个头,中间头较大,呈正面相,下侧的两头较小,呈内侧面,三头均毛发上扬,头顶饰宝珠,双耳饰环,颈饰项链,大鹏的各个爪心上共有八个辐轮,在腹部有两个大的咒轮并列,咒轮内绘有护身符和镇魔符,佛教认为大鹏翅膀上的咒文是用来化解凶兆的。     

论唐代的内供奉僧

内供奉僧滥觞于唐玄宗设置翰林院,从此始有僧人入内谓之翰林待诏,供奉朝廷。在唐代,把侍从皇帝左右的高僧大德习惯上称为"内供奉僧",似与把侍从皇帝左右的近臣称作"内供奉官"如出一辙。内供奉僧是佛教与唐朝政治结缘的产物,深刻反映了唐代皇权政治对佛教的某种需要。唐代内供奉僧出入禁省,或亲承顾问,或讲经化导,或斋戒诵经,或论难儒、道。他们还长期积极活动于宫禁之外,临坛度人,传扬经典,弘扬佛法。内供奉僧借助其特殊身份,为佛教在唐代的繁荣发展赢得了良好的政治环境,并为佛教在唐代的发扬光大做出了积极贡献。内供奉僧还在唐代政治生活中扮演了重要角色,唐代政治领域到处留下了内供奉僧的身影。     

满译藏传《往生咒》考释

佛教经咒类文献是在佛教发展的漫长历史中逐渐积累形成的,指的是以佛教经文和咒文汇编而成的文献,其内容博大精深,除佛教教义外还涉及政治、伦理、哲学、文学和习俗等方面,是人类历史上一笔丰富的文化遗产。清代满族宗教信仰以萨满教为主,随着与其他民族的日益交往并制定相应的民族政策以达到统治目的,清朝皇帝逐渐开始礼佛并大量翻译佛经。满译《往生咒》是最为重要的满译佛教经咒类文献之一,颇具代表性。对满译《往生咒》中梵文、满文以及汉文对音的研究,不仅可以直接准确地考证梵文字母的读音,揭示满译佛经咒语的规律,同时对研究佛教在整个清代宗教中的地位具有重要意义。     

民乐佛画瑰宝——水陆画

中国是佛教广为盛行、流传的国度,历史上,佛教信徒每年都要选择一定的时间,采取得力的措施,按照规范的程序,举行隆重的水陆法会,以此来祭祀佛祖、祈福求安。大凡举行水陆法会,都要在显要部位悬挂水陆画像,其意是将所要朝拜的神灵请到现场来供奉和朝拜,通过供奉、礼赞、诵经、散食等一系列法事活动。     

雨花阁:乾隆朝宫廷佛堂建设主导思想论

乾隆帝崇信藏传佛教,修建了众多的佛堂,本文从雨花阁的修建原由、时间和供奉内容等方面进行分析,认为雨花阁是清宫的佛堂中心,其供奉虽然遵循佛教经典而陈设供奉,但却渗入了浓厚的皇权思想,包涵了清宫佛堂的两大供奉主题。它揭示了佛堂背后隐藏的乾隆皇帝建设佛堂的主导思想,奠定了众佛堂发展的基调。     

大随求陀罗尼经咒考古二题

蜀中和长安是唐代密宗流行的重要地区,盛唐以后,玄宗、僖宗因乱入蜀在客观上促进了两地之间佛教的交流。成都出土的"龙池坊"梵文印本中的文字应系印度古文字中的悉昙体;经咒的墨书题记释读有误,"近"应为"匠"字。西安出土的汉译经咒写本,出自唐代北印度高僧宝思惟译的《佛说随求即得大自在陀罗尼神咒经》,西安经咒写本中出现的"庄严"极有可能系写经人的名字。两份经咒一梵一汉、一南一北,相映成辉,为理解唐代中后期持明密宗在两地的流布情况提供了重要的研究资料。     

玉带板

<正>中国古人均着长袍束腰带,所以对腰带十分讲究,常在腰带上缀饰数块乃至十几块扁平状玉板,这种镶嵌有玉板的腰带称为玉带(见图1)。玉带上的每块玉板称为玉带板或带饰板。玉带板有两种:一是镶在玉带两端的圆角矩形玉带板,称为双铊尾;二是中间多种形制的玉带板,称为玉銙。玉銙有正方形、长方形、半月形、桃形等,正面常雕琢各种浅浮雕图案,也有些是素面的,背面有穿孔,可以缝缀在腰带之上。有的铸有孔或附环,用以悬挂物件。     

北魏平城佛教艺术与后秦长安的关系

云冈石窟的第一期工程昙曜五窟,属北魏前五位帝王的功德窟。北魏统治者能聚集如此财力与智慧来营造这项巨制,是与其在北方兼并战争中所获得的人力、物力、财力分不开的,其中来自原后秦首都长安地区的工匠与佛教神祇人员应当引起我们的注意。十六国后期的后秦长安是北方的政治与佛教中心,其佛教来自西域,主要继承发展着西域大乘佛教因素。在甘肃永靖炳灵寺169窟发现的大乘佛教题材的西秦国塑像与壁画,可看作是后秦长安影响的结果。昙曜五窟的开凿,主要继承着太武帝毁佛前的北魏佛教传统,包括来自后秦长安的佛教传统,可从昙曜五窟造像和大同新发现的北魏石椁板上的佛画与炳灵寺169窟西秦塑像、壁画的相似性了解到。这种相似性体现了北魏对后秦长安佛教的继承,从而影响到了昙曜五窟的造像内容与风格。     

成都百花潭锦江河道出土石经及相关问题研究

成都百花潭锦江河道出土石经为五代至北宋时期比丘尼正仪所造。石经上刻有佛顶尊胜陀罗尼咒、广大宝楼阁善住秘密陀罗尼根本真言、文殊菩萨五字真言等三种佛教咒语。其独特之处在于经文雕刻于石板的正面和顶面,而且"安于江中"。本文认为"破地狱"和"疾证菩提"思想在川渝地区的传播是这三种真言被糅合在同一石经上的信仰依据。     

The gender dimension of business elites: Italian women directors since 1934

Abstract

Gender is an important, albeit understudied, dimension in the analysis of business elites. In this paper we analyze the importance of women in the board of directors of listed Italian companies since 1934. We show that women are less represented in boards in Italy than in other comparable OECD countries, but also that listed companies are less open to women than other centres of powers, such as the public administration and liberal professions. In addition, in a country where board interlocking is a key device to ensure separation between ownership and control, very few women hold multiple directorships. We then present the results of a prosopographical study on women directors in seven benchmark years: 1962, 1970, 1978, 1986, 1994, 2002, and 2007. We conclude with a discussion of various policy options to enhance gender diversification on the boards of Italian listed companies.     

Facilitating Interaction: Board Games as Social Lubricants in the Ancient Near East

This re‐evaluation of existing data on board games from the Near Eastern Bronze Age demonstrates their function as social lubricants in cross‐cultural interaction. Board games are situated theoretically as liminoid practices, which lie outside the bounds of normative social behaviour and allow for interaction across social boundaries. Utilizing double‐sided game boards, with an indigenous game on one side and a newly introduced game on the other, the games of senet, mehen and twenty squares provide evidence for social interactions. Cypriots had adopted Egyptian mehen and senet by the third millennium BC, and indigenized the games. This lies in contrast to the game of twenty squares, which had a particular role among elites in the Late Bronze Age interaction sphere. This anthropological discussion of evidence relating to gaming seeks to inspire further research on the role of board games in society.     

The Early Modern Sensorium: The Rosary in Seventeenth-Century Rome†

My purpose in this article is to explore the relationship between emotion and the senses in relation to the rosary and rosary confraternities in seventeenth-century Rome, with a particular emphasis on the experience of women.The rosary is well suited to an approach grounded in sensory methodology, as it is defined both as a prayer and as an object. As a object it was always kept close to the body. Praying the rosary was not only tactile (each bead was handled during prayer) but also auditory, as the prayer was said aloud. Scented rosaries were also common, adding an olfactory component to the ritual. The sense of sight was also important: as confraternities of the rosary obtained their own chapels, large altarpieces of the Madonna of the Rosary were commissioned as visual aids to prayer. Artists incorporated haptic and olfactory prompts into these images, knowing that the audience would be praying in front of them. The rosary, therefore, constituted a ‘sensorium’, defined here as the intertwining and interdependence of multiple sense modalities.The complex interaction in the rosary between prayer, bead and the scenes from the mysteries, developed gradually from older tradition of prayer beads, which is summarised here.     

Mission Impossible: "Nonsectarian" Prayer in the Military Chaplaincy

Abstract

Recent media-saturated events such as then-Navy Chaplain Klingenschmitt's hunger strike in front of the White House, an ultimately unsuccessful class-action lawsuit against the Navy that alleged discrimination against evangelical Christians, and formal charges of religious bias at the US Air Force Academy have renewed concerns about the content of chaplain-led public prayers in ostensibly secular contexts. Some have accordingly touted the advantages of offering "nonsectarian" prayer in command-hosted settings, where attendance by service personnel is mandatory in a real or de facto sense. This paper argues that this push toward nonsectarian prayer ultimately does a disservice to the chaplains themselves and the religious communities from whence they come, whether civic prayer is interpreted as an instance of "ceremonial deism" or a rite of civil religion. But the solution it offers is not for public prayers to become more religiously particular, but for military commanders to cease requesting that chaplains lead public prayer of any kind in such settings.     

Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana

This article addresses the phenomenal success of pentecostalism, a global religious movement par excellence, throughout postcolonial Africa. Investigating pentecostalist views of and attitudes towards commodities in southern Ghana, the article shows that pentecostalists represent the modern global economy as enchanted and themselves as agents of disenchantment: only through prayer may commodities cease to act as ‘fetishes’ which threaten the personal integrity and identity of their owners. Pentecostalism creates modern consumers through a ritual of prayer, which helps them handle globalization and control foreign commodities in such a way that they can be consumed without danger. Through prayer, commodities cease to possess their owners; the latter are rather enabled to possess the former. Pentecostalism engages in globalization by enabling its members to consume products from the global market and by offering its followers fixed orientation points and a well-delimited moral universe within globalization's unsettling flows.     

A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the “Sinner's Prayer” Online

This paper seeks to rigorously define and illustrate the analytic category of “vernacular rhetoric” through an examination of the “Sinner's Prayer” as it appears on an amateur web page. In the online environment, this invitation to a traditional prayer performance seems to be a strategy for converting non-Christians. Through the application of the concept of vernacular rhetoric, however, it becomes clear that the deployment of the prayer can also function as an invitation for the already-converted to “testify” to their faith. In this way, the apparently evangelic prayer form also functions as an invitation for the already-converted to perform previously held values. By applying the concept of vernacular rhetoric to this example of online discourse, its value as an analytic category becomes clear because it can address the performative nature of World Wide Web-based documents.     

Special Days of Worship and National Religion in the Australian Colonies, 1790–c. 1914

Throughout the period between 1790 and 1914 the governments of the Australian colonies asked their populations to suspend work and amusements and join in collective acts of prayer. Australia’s special days of prayer have much historical significance and deserve more scholarly attention. They had an enduring popularity, and they were rare moments when a multi-faith and multi-ethnic community joined together to worship for a common cause. This article builds on recent work on state prayers in Britain by considering what the colonial tradition of special worship can tell us about community attachments in nineteenth-century Australia. ‘Fast days’ and ‘days of thanksgiving’ had both an imperial and a regional character. A small number of the Australian days were for imperial events (notably wars and royal occasions) that were observed on an empire-wide scale. The great majority, such as the numerous days of fasting and humiliation that were called during periods of drought, were for regional happenings and were appointed by colonial authorities. The article argues that the different types of prayer day map on to the various ways that contemporaries envisaged ‘Greater Britain’ and the ‘British world’. Prayer days for royal events helped the empire’s inhabitants to regard themselves as imperial Britons. Meanwhile, days appointed locally by colonial governments point to the strength of regional attachments. Colonists developed a sense that providence treated them differently from British communities elsewhere, and this sense of ‘national providence’ could underpin a sense of colonial difference—even a colonial nationalism. Days of prayer suggested that Greater Britain was a composite of separate communities and nationalities, but the regional feelings they encouraged could still sit comfortably with attachments to an imperial community defined by commonalities of race, religion and interest.     

Immigration,new religious symbols,and the dynamics of neighborhoods

Last decades' non-western immigration to Europe has resulted in culturally and religiously more diverse populations in many countries. One manifestation of this diversification is new features in the cityscape. Using a quasiexperimental approach, in which an unexpected political process that led way to the first public call to prayer from a mosque in Sweden is combined with rich, daily, information on housing sales and detailed monthly information on internal migration, this paper examines how one such new feature affects neighborhood dynamics. While our results indicate that the calls to prayer increased house prices closer to the mosque, we find no evidence of increased residential segregation between natives and immigrants.     

Privatizing the Crown: The Exceptional Fate of Alberta's Liquor Control Board

A dramatic policy shift provides a means for understanding decision-making in governments. The privatization of the Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) in 1993 is an example of a radical governance reform whereby most of a policy sector was turned from a state bureaucracy to a marketplace of private firms. This article examines the decision of Ralph Klein's government to privatize the ALCB and the central roles that history, institutional configurations, and path dependencies, among other factors, played in shaping its policy decisions. Of all the provinces, only Alberta has fully privatized its liquor board. The rest of the provinces, to varying degrees, have both retained and reformed their publicly owned and operated liquor boards, the largest of which is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The unique policy outcome in Alberta was primarily a result of province-specific, temporally significant institutional and political factors. Liquidating the ALCB and establishing a private market to sell alcohol were relatively easy policies for the Klein Tories to implement given the weakness of the affected stakeholders in the liquor distribution industry. The liquidation of the ALCB was intended to demonstrate to the public that the new Klein government was dedicated to reducing the size and scope of Alberta's provincial state.