Material Objects Related to Body and Health

1
Material Objects Related to Body and Health

• Objects having only tenuous connection with
  Buddhism, but have much bearing on monks
• Chair, sugar, and tea in China
• Buddhist monks played an important role in the
  use and spread of chair, sugar, and tea in China.

2
Sitting and Chairs before Buddhism

• Before the mid-Tang (8th century), people sat on
  mats spread on the ground or on bed
• Preferred method of sitting was kneeling
• On casual occasions, one could sit cross-legged

3
Sitting, eating, vessels, and furniture

• Sitting with food placed on mats
• Length, height, and size of vessels were
  generally larger
• Sitting with food placed on low tables
• Smaller bowls, plates, and cups were used
• Use of chair caused the changes of other things
  such as windows, screens, ceiling heights,
  clothing, gestures, ways of interacting etc.

4
Monks and Chairs

• Beginning the 6th century or earlier, monks sat
  on chairs, often referred to as corded-chairs
• Sitting on chairs cross-legged was form of
  seated-meditation
• It was to avoid the distraction caused by
  crawlers such as poisonous snakes, spiders,
  insects etc

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• chairs spread from monasteries to living rooms,
  particularly in late Tang and Song households

6
Monks and Sugar in China

• Evidence indicates that monks were probably the
  first persons who demonstrated sophisticated
  knowledge of sugar refining
• Sugar frost (known in the West as sugar candy,
  coffee crystals, or rock candy) was invented by a
  monk

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Chairs made for footbinding
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Sugar-production in monasteries

• Monasteries often possessed large fields and
  mills, making it possible to
• Cultivate sugarcane
• Extract juice from the cane
• Why did monks pay attention to sugar
  manufacturing?
• Probably because of their life style they had to
  follow the rule of eating two meals a day before
  noon
• Sugarcane juice helped keep their energy

9
Sweeteners and Sugar

• Chinese used maltose and honey as sweeteners in
  the pre-Tang period
• Monks first acquired the knowledge of
  sugar-making and were dispatched by Tang court to
  Indian monastery to learn the technique
• The steady stream of monks traveling between
  China and India accounted for the transfer of the
  sugar-making technology

10
Beginning of Tea Manufacturing

• Scholars generally agree that tea manufacture
  (cultivation and using their leaves) originated
  in China.
• Tea cultivation and drinking throughout the world
  can for the most part be traced to China
• Even pronunciations of the words for tea in all
  modern languages derive ultimately from Chinese
• The modern Chinese word of tea, however, did not
  become the standard word for the plant until the
  eighth century

11
Tea Drinking in China

• Tea drinking became fashionable among literati
  officials in the south during the 3rd to the 6th
  centuries
• It became common after the 7th century (Tang
  dynasty), and popular in the 10th century

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• Tea drinking spread widely to major cities of
  China
• State levied tax on tea, indicating the thriving
  trade in tea leaves
• Poets composed verses praising merits of tea,
  creating a new genre of literaturetea poetry

Tea tools unearthed at the Famen Temple, Tang
Dynasty
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Buddhism Helped Spread Tea

• The first Chinese author of tea, Lu Yu (b. 733),
  was raised by a monk and maintained close
  contacts with monks throughout his life

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• Tea in monasteries popular because of
• its medicinal properties
• its value as a stimulant,
• Used as an aid in staying alert during meditation
• Monasteries offered tea to visiting literati
  officials

15
Monks, Tea, and Ruling Elite

• Since the Tang, Tea and poems have constituted
  gift-exchange between monks and literati
• Emperors rewarded monks who served the throne
  with gifts of teas

16

• By the end of the eighth century, tea attained
  the status of incense and paper in scholar-monks
  workday
• Monks in later periods were credited with
  inventing some famous tea and teapots

17
Tea and Asian Culture

• In the end of 12th century, Japanese Zen monk,
  Myoan Eisai learned methods of growing and
  brewing tea in China,
• He promoted tea drinking in Japan
• Kissa yojoki ( Drinking Tea for Health or
  Drink tea and prolong life)
• Tea is most popular beverage in Asian countries

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Other Material Objects

• Those symbolizing the dignity and authority of
  king, general
• Rectangular dharma banner (dhavaja),
• Long and strip-shape banner
• Panoply

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• Those used in rituals
• Incense, incense plate, incense burner, incense
  table
• Lamp
• Candle
• Wood-fish, bell, drum, chime, cymbal
• Those of multiple functions
• Fly whisk