Mothers and Sons In Chinese Buddhism

This is a study of Buddhist family propaganda as it evolved in medieval China from the fourth to the thirteenth century. This propaganda, written primarily in apocryphal sutras, scripted new norms for the family and, in particular, sought to bind the family to the monastery in a symbiotic relationship. These texts are referred to as propaganda because "propaganda," with its root in the Latin propages ("offspring"), hints at the parallel between the reproduction of ideologies and biological reproduction, both of which propel definitive modes of life forward in time. This connection is particularly germane because Buddhist propagandists became intensely interested in reproduction in all its aspects.