Table of Contents

Preface: Semiotics and Buddhism
1. The Episteme of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism
2. Semiotics and Ontology: A Pansemiotic Universe
3. Mantra and Siddham: Esoteric Linguistics and Grammatology
4. The Semantic System of Esoteric Buddhism
5. Mandala and the Representation of Reality
6. Semiotic Soteriology
7. Conclusion: Buddhist Semiurgy
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

A study of the semiotic theories and practices of Japanese tantric Buddhism, based on original texts.

About the Author

Fabio Rambelli is Professor and International Shinto Foundation Chair of Shinto Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, and Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

Reviews

Summing up, the main strength of this book is its success in offering a new analytical apparatus to clarify the semiotic structures that underlie the transmissions and practices of Shingon lineages, so often dismissed out of hand as rand and irrational. Rambelli manages admirably to avoid two pitfalls: he neither stays too close to the original texts, losing the analytical edge that makes this enterprise valuable, nor does he stray away from them that he ends up constructing a semiotic abstraction that forces alien concepts onto Shingon doctrine.
*Monumenta Nipponica 69:2*