Yi Ding

This project aims to translate and annotate 25 “Northern Chan” texts, an underrepresented body of Buddhist literature historically sidelined in the development of Chan Buddhism. These texts, many of which were rediscovered in Dunhuang, provide crucial insights into the earliest stage of the Chan/Zen movement. This project will translate texts across diverse genres, including pseudo-dialogues, epitaphs, hymns, treatises, and liturgies. In addition to the English translation, this project will also include a prolegomenon, extensive annotations, and individual text introductions. These additions will offer comprehensive historical context, terminological clarification, and doctrinal analysis, aiming to make these complex texts accessible to scholars and practitioners.

This dissertation focuses on the transformation of Buddhist public liturgies at Dunhuang from the eighth to the tenth century. It demonstrates that Buddhist ritual flourished in this period at Dunhuang by localizing the existing Chinese ritual elements, absorbing esoteric ritual techniques from Tibetan sources, and inventing its own liturgical traditions. Based on my own reconstruction of four major types of public liturgy (offering-making, sutra-chanting, grotto-related liturgies, and mandala rites) and an analysis of the liturgical system at Dunhuang, the dissertation examines the performative dimensions of the "divine transactions" that underlie the public liturgies and the structural transformation that happened during the course of three centuries.