Commentary-writing in Chinese Buddhism

Imre Hamar (University of Virginia) will explore the significance of commentaries is holy scriptures and ancient written texts.

In several major cultures of the world, commentaries make up a considerable proportion of the full body of written texts. Holy scriptures are often hazy and ambiguous, or even completely incomprehensible, without additional explanations. To understand them in the right way is, therefore, both an important task and a serious challenge for the literati of all times. In Chinese Buddhist literature, the significance of commentaries is well illustrated by the fact that in the Taish? edition they make up eleven and a half volumes, as opposed to the four and a half volumes of essays expounding the teachings of schools. The formal and essential criteria of commentary-writing formulated gradually, with commentary as a genre attaining its final form by Tang times. This is the form that became the model to be followed by later generations. In this lecture, Professor Hamar will show the process of how commentary-writing developed from the early period and discuss the main features of the full-fledged commentary.

Imre Hamar received his Ph.D. from the Hungarian Academy of Science in 1997 and earned his habilitation in 2004 with the completion of his study titled "Manifestation of Buddha." He has published many books and articles in Hungarian and English, most recently "A Religious Leader in the Tang: Chengguan?s Biography" (2002) and "A kínai buddhizmus története" (History of Chinese Buddhism) (2004). In addition to his appointment as Professor of Chinese Studies at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Dr. Hamar is also the director of ELTE's Institute of East Asian Studies. He is a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Virginia for the 2008-09 academic year.