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Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan. By JAMES DOBBINS. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. xvi, 259 pp. $25.00 (paper).
Although studies focused on sectarian institutions and their orthodox texts have long dominated the field of premodern Japanese Buddhism, the tide is beginning to turn. Recent studies have called attention to those aspects of practiced religion that diverge, often quite radically, from ideas and imperatives related in doctrinal treatises. James Dobbins's Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan is one such study. Drawing on the letters of the nun Eshinni (1182-1268?), Dobbins revises our understanding of the early Jodo Shinshu (Shin Buddhism) movement founded by Eshinni's husband, Shinran (1173-1262).
Dobbins argues that our current understanding of Shinran and his movement have been obscured by excessive attention to orthodox, doctrinal sources that represent "idealized religion" as well as the premise that such works are reflective of the tradition as a whole; modern, sectarian constructions portraying the tradition in ways that cater to a variety of contemporary agendas; and the assumption that religious traditions articulate homogeneous and wholly consistent systems of thought (p. 154). According to Dobbins, Eshinni's letters, insofar as they offer a view...