Podcast Summary: New Books Network – John Kieschnick, “Buddhist Historiography in China” (Columbia UP, 2022)
Episode Date: December 1, 2025
Host: New Books Network
Guest: John Kieschnick, Stanford University

Episode Overview

This episode explores the evolution, character, and significance of Buddhist historiography in China. Host and guest John Kieschnick, a leading scholar in Buddhist Studies, discuss core themes of Kieschnick’s book “Buddhist Historiography in China,” tracing how Buddhist communities in China understood, narrated, and argued over their own histories from ancient to modern times. The conversation covers the challenges of grappling with India’s more cyclical view of time, issues of authenticity, the function of karma and prophecy, and how Buddhist history writing has shifted in the twentieth century with the rise of academic scholarship.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. John Kieschnick's Academic Journey

• Interest Rooted in Family and Objects: As a teen, John's fascination with China began with Chinese artifacts at home—ivory balls, scrolls, bilingual texts—stemming from his parents' years in Hong Kong.

  “I was just attracted to the mystery of the Chinese character... For the 13 year old me I really wanted to decipher those symbols and figure out what they meant.” (04:00)

• Academic Path: Studied Chinese language, philosophy, and literature at Berkeley, influenced profoundly by a course on Buddhism; pursued a PhD at Stanford working with Bernard Faure and others, with research and teaching stints in China, Taiwan, and the UK.
• Research Focus: Place of Buddhism in Chinese culture and, reciprocally, China’s role in shaping modern understandings of Buddhism.

2. The Significance of History for Buddhists (06:34)

• Assumed Non-Historiographical Tradition: Buddhism is often thought to be unconcerned with history due to cyclical time and the Indian lack of a formal historiographical tradition.
• Contrary Reality:
  • History features prominently in Buddhist cultures everywhere, partly due to the vast cycles of time and the core doctrine of karma.
  • Karma is inherently historical—it is “a fundamentally historical doctrine” because its effects play out over lifetimes.
• History and Identity: Like any society, history helped Buddhists situate themselves within broader narrative and temporal structures.

3. China’s Unique Historiographical Culture vs. Indian Traditions (09:04)

• Challenges for Chinese Buddhists:
  • Indian sources lacked precise dating, frustrating Chinese historians’ penchant for exact chronology.
  • Creativity was required to assign dates to key Indian events, such as the Buddha’s life.

4. Authenticity and Authority of Buddhist Texts (10:33)

• Sophisticated Source Analysis: Chinese Buddhist historians developed complex methods for determining authenticity and source reliability, especially in distinguishing apocryphal Chinese compositions from real translations.
• Limitations: Once a text was accepted as a translation from India, further critical analysis ceased.

  “As soon as they could demonstrate that a text had been composed and translated from an Indian language, they refused to question it.” (11:19)

5. State, Canon, and Textual Authority (12:12)

• Official Backing: Large court-sponsored translation projects lent additional gravitas and “air of authority” to Buddhist texts.
• Integration into Official Canons: Reinforced texts’ canonical status and reliability.

6. Karma and Moral Causality in Historiography (13:55)

• Distinction from Secular Chinese Historiography:
  • Where Sima Qian lamented the injustice of virtuous men suffering, Buddhist historians (e.g., Dao Xuan) used karma to “solve” these injustices retrospectively.

  “For Buddhist historians, there was great power, great explanatory power in the idea of karma as a way of understanding the thread of justice that runs throughout history.” (15:26)

• Causation and Justice: Karma not only explained causation but also delivered a moral logic often missing from secular Chinese accounts.

7. Prophecy and Fate (17:02)

• No Tension Between Karma and Prophecy: Skillful Buddhist historians saw prophecy as ultimately undergirded by karma.
• Retrospective Prophecy: Most prophecies discussed were about events already past, serving more to “bring order to the past” and assert meaning than to predict actionable outcomes.

  “In the stories themselves, these prophecies never seem to really do anyone any good.” (18:20)

8. The Rise of Genealogical Writing (20:23)

• Genealogies as Family Trees: Masters and disciples replaced biological descent, tracing spiritual lineage back to the Buddha.
• Legitimation and Historical Consciousness: Genealogies became a tool both for ordering monastic communities and claiming authenticity.
• Objectivity and Traditionalism: Despite the polemics and sectarian disputes, Kieschnick finds evidence of a drive for accurate reconstruction of the past—even in polemical or agenda-driven genealogies.

  “What was at stake for them was a demonstration of their historical craft, their craft as historians.” (25:24)

9. Sectarian Tensions and the Dangers of Historiography (28:28)

• Rival Genealogies: Competing lineages were a “dangerous” business—whose side of the family tree one belonged to directly affected legitimacy and authority.

10. Modernity and the Division Between ‘Insider’ and ‘Outsider’ Historians (31:24)

• Academic vs. Monastic History:
  • Early 20th-century historiography dominated by elite, secular Chinese scholars (mostly Western-educated men from prominent families).
  • Monastic historians (e.g., Yin Xun, Tai Xu) remained outside elite academic circles, self-taught and engaging with scholarship indirectly (e.g., via H.G. Wells).
• Intellectual Divide: Monastics’ work was creative and valuable, yet separated by intellectual and social boundaries from academic trends.

11. Contemporary Buddhist Historiography (39:40)

• Blurring Boundaries: Now, Buddhist monastics commonly earn PhDs in secular academies and publish academically, blurring the old opposition between “insider” and “outsider.”
• Possible End of Traditional Buddhist Historiography: Monastic historians today use less of the classical Buddhist language (e.g., karma, prophecy) in their historical accounts.

  “We no longer see even monks writing history using the sort of traditional Buddhist vocabulary to talk about the past that we once saw.” (40:34)

12. Methodology: Thematic, Not Chronological (41:40)

• Thematic Organization: Kieschnick structured the book by theme (sources, karma, prophecy, genealogy, modernity) rather than strict chronology, allowing a clearer focus on central historiographical questions.

  “I was always looking for themes that would suggest something distinctive about Buddhist historiography, as opposed to historiography more generally.” (42:08)

13. Favorite Texts and Ongoing Projects (43:47, 47:44)

• Zanning’s Songgao Shengzhuan: Kieschnick’s long-term translation project—a challenging but rewarding work.
• Future Work: A new history of vegetarianism in China, aiming for a broad, cross-tradition study including Republican-era innovations.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Appeal of Chinese Characters:
  “I was just attracted to the mystery of the Chinese character and that these Chinese characters could represent the same thing as the English on the other side.” — John Kieschnick (04:00)

• On Karma as History:
  “Karma is a fundamentally historical doctrine... you can only see how karma plays out over time, whether it’s in an individual life or over sometimes vast expanses of time...” — John Kieschnick (07:17)

• On Challenges of Establishing Indian Dates:
  “Indians were not particularly concerned with dates, for example, whereas Chinese historians from very early on were obsessed with dates, very precise dates.” — John Kieschnick (09:20)

• On Blind Spots in Source Criticism:
  “As soon as they could demonstrate that a text had been composed and translated from an Indian language, they refused to question it.” — John Kieschnick (11:19)

• Dao Xuan’s Take on Sima Qian and Karma:
  “Dao Xuan...criticizes Sima Qian for not understanding the basic principles of karma... If Shu Qi and Boyi suffered during their life, it is from moral decisions that they had made in previous lives.” — John Kieschnick (14:28)

• Prophecies and Ordering the Past:
  “What’s always puzzled me...is that in the stories themselves, these prophecies never seem to really do anyone any good.” — John Kieschnick (18:20)

• Genealogies as Contested Terrain:
  “Nothing can tear a family apart more quickly than a disputed inheritance. And you see that at play in these genealogies as well...” — John Kieschnick (29:13)

• On Scholar-Practitioner Divide in the 20th Century:
  “They were separated intellectually, they were separated socially, and they were separated economically from the academic historians.” — John Kieschnick (34:44)

• On the Future of Buddhist Historiography:
  “My mission...is to try to claw out a space in that tradition for discussing Buddhist historiography particularly.” — John Kieschnick (37:24)

• Buddhist Historiography Today:
  “At this stage, the distinction between a Buddhist history of Buddhism and a more secular academic history...isn’t as sharp as it once was.” — John Kieschnick (40:01)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | Content | |------------|-----------------------|---------| | 02:25 | Kieschnick’s Background & Academic Journey | | 06:34 | Why History Matters for Buddhists | | 09:04 | China vs. India in Historical Practice | | 10:33 | Authenticity, Sources, and Apocrypha | | 12:12 | State Patronage and Canon Formation | | 13:55 | Karma and Moral Causation in Buddhist Historiography | | 17:02 | Role and Function of Prophecy | | 20:23 | Genealogy and the Order of Buddhist History | | 28:28 | Sectarian Tensions and Genealogical Conflict | | 31:24 | Modernity: Academic versus Monastic Historiography | | 39:40 | Buddhist Practitioners as Modern Historians | | 41:40 | Methodology: Thematic vs. Chronological | | 43:47 | Favorite Texts and Translation Work | | 47:44 | Next Project: Vegetarianism in China |

Concluding Remarks

This episode richly surveys not only the contours of Buddhist historiography but also how writing about the past was (and still is) entangled with questions of identity, legitimacy, craft, and modernity. Kieschnick champions a nuanced view that sees Buddhist historical writing as dynamic, argumentative, and reflective—sometimes sectarian, but always central for understanding both Buddhism and Chinese culture at large.

Future Directions:
Kieschnick is currently translating Zanning’s “Songgao Shengzhuan” and beginning a comprehensive history of vegetarianism in China, promising further contributions at the intersection of Chinese and Buddhist studies.