Politics and Transcendent Wisdom

Politics and Transcendent Wisdom presents a systematic theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between politics and religion in a variety of contexts. This book examines the formation of "national protection" Buddhism in China and translates the key text of this important movement.

Showing that Buddhist notions of sovereignty were meant and were taken as more than mere metaphor Orzech examines the profound link between Buddhist notions of transcendence and the deployment of political authority in East Asia.