起信．徵驗．書寫： 清代修淨⼈人⼠士的宗教體驗 = CONVERSION, VERIFICATION AND WRITING: THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE PURE LAND BUDDHISTS DURING THE QING DYNASTY

Abstract

The Pure Land School is one of the most widely practiced traditions of Buddhism in East Asia.This research is mainly about the religious experience of these people in their diaries and biographies. It will explore how the belief as well as the description of feelings changed in the context of Qing China.The thesis will be divided into six chapters. Except the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis comprises four main parts: “Approach,” “Dying,” “ Dream signs,” and “ Another mode: Spirit-writing.” Firstly, I investigate how and why the lay Buddhists would like to follow Pure Land Dharma. Also, I analyze the religious discourses in their biographies in the Qing dynasty, particularly focusing on dying and dreaming descriptions. Spirit-writing was an extraordinary and new way to record the religious lives of the lay Buddhists in the Qing dynasty. One of the purposes was to confirm the followers really going to the Pure Land after death and which level they were in. Most religious discourses emphasized some specific parts in order to make implications or verifications that people will go into the Pure Land. We can see the clear writing change during the Qing dynasty.