After situating the ideas and practices of Pure Land Buddhism in the context of the actual living conditions of thirteenth-century Japan, Dobbins examines the portrayal of women in Pure Land Buddhism, the great range of lifestyles found among medieval women and nuns, and how they constructed a meaningful religious life amid negative stereotypes. Readers will come away with a new perspective on Pure Land scholarship and a vivid image of Eshinni and the world in which she lived. He provides a complete translation of the letters and an explication of them that reveals the character and flavor of early Shin Buddhism. Dobbins, a leading scholar of Pure Land Buddhism, has made creative use of these letters to shed new light on life and religion in medieval Japan. Eshinni (1182-1268?), a Buddhist nun and the wife of Shinran (1173-1262), the celebrated founder of the True Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhism, was largely unknown until the discovery of a collection of her letters in 1921.
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