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Podcast: New Books in Buddhist Studies
Episode: Kevin Gray Carr, “Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012)
Description: Kevin Gray Carr‘s beautiful new book explores the figure of Prince Shotoku (573? – 622?) the focus of one of the most widespread visual cults in Japanese history. Introducing us to a range of stories materialized in both verbal and visual narratives, Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) frames Shotoku as a symbolic vessel.
Part I of the book looks at the changing identities of the prince as objects of devotion and veneration, tracing his visual cult through the fourteenth century. In this context, the figure of Shotoku, across...