"Dying the Chinese Catholic way : an interreligious study of Catholic and Buddhist woodblock printed illustrations in nineteenth-century China" / Zhang Jie

In International Journal of Asian Christianity

Available online at https://doi.org/10.1163/25424246-08020010

and as dig.pdf [Jie-Dying the Chinese Catholic Way.pdf]

Abstract: 

By examining woodblock-printed book illustrations produced in late imperial China, this study explores the ways Catholics in China perceived death and redemption. What are the similarities and differences between Buddhist and Catholic ways of representing the afterlife? What can print illustrations reveal about the religious landscape in late imperial China? Textually, Chinese Catholics challenged the Buddhist understanding of death and cyclic existence. However, in the visual medium, there were strong parallels and compatibility between Chinese Catholics and Buddhists in the illustrations of the afterlife. Producers of Catholic books employed xylographic print technology, which has long been used for printing Buddhist scriptures. Catholic book illustration went through similar processes as Buddhist palimpsests, having been reused and repurposed for different contexts. This article contributes to conversations on Buddhist-Catholic encounters and the transnational circulation of books. The lens of materiality reveals a more nuanced relationship between Christianity and Buddhism beyond textual rivalry.