“Excellent” —China Review International, Spring 2003

“Thorough and painstaking ... essential reading for any students of Chinese Buddhism for a long time to come” —Buddhist Studies Review 19 (2002)

“Excellent ... Hubbard’s work represents the creativity and careful labor of a more mature scholar and will be a widely appreciated contribution to the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism.” —Journal of Religion, Winter 2003

“We need more scholars who dare to challenge the conventional wisdom and break new ground in the study of Chinese Buddhism. One cannot do better than follow the lead so brilliantly begun here.” —History of Religions, May 2005 (Download full review)

“A fine study that should be of interest to scholars of Chinese religions and social history” —Pacific Affairs 76 (2003)

“Un travail riche et très stimulant intellectuellement” —Archives de sciences sociales des religions 128 (2004)

“Fills a void in Western scholarship on China. The importance of the Three Levels movement is not limited to Buddhism during the Sui and T’ang dynasties, but extends to economics and social history.” —Antonino Forte, Italian School of East Asian Studies

In spite of the common view of Buddhism as nondogmatic and tolerant, the historical record preserves many examples of Buddhist thinkers and movements that were banned as heretical or subversive. The San-chieh (Three Levels) was a popular and influential Chinese Buddhist movement during the Sui and T’ang periods, counting powerful statesmen, imperial princes, and even an empress, Empress Wu, among its patrons. In spite, or perhaps precisely because, of its proximity to power, the San-chieh movement ran afoul of the authorities and its teachings and texts were officially proscribed numerous times over a several-hundred-year history. Because of these suppressions San-chieh texts were lost and little information about its teachings or history is available. The present work, the first English study of the San-chieh movement, uses manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang to examine the doctrine and institutional practices of this movement in the larger context of Mahayana doctrine and practice.

By viewing San-chieh in the context of Mahayana Buddhism, Hubbard reveals it to be far from heretical and thereby raises important questions about orthodoxy and canon in Buddhism. He shows that many of the hallmark ideas and practices of Chinese Buddhism find an early and unique expression in the San-chieh texts.

Jamie Hubbard is Yehan Numata Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Smith College.

Read the introduction (PDF).

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