Asura´s Harp

Asura's Harp discusses the understanding of language and its role in religious awakening in a major stream of Mahayana Buddhist tradition. It focuses on the Pure Land Buddhist thought of Shinran (1173-1263), one of the most consequential thinkers in Japanese history. Unlike monastic traditions that seek the eradication of delusional attachments through transcendence of ordinary thought and speech, Shinran teaches that human existence is inevitably characterized by linguisticality and that the genuinely practicable path to realization lies in engagement with language. Asura's Harp presents a groundwork for conversation between contemporary Western thought and one of Asia's most prominent traditions of Buddhist praxis.