Dennis, M.

Mark W. Dennis

Mark Dennis is Associate Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth Texas. He earned his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, focusing on early Japanese Buddhism. Before joining the Religion Department at TCU in 2007, he taught for four years at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. He has lived in Japan and India for eight years where he studied Buddhism and Hinduism, and has traveled widely in Asia. His research focuses on the reception history of Japanese Buddhist texts, looking particularly at notions of authorship, textuality, and canon. He has published a translation of the Shomangyo-gisho, a Japanese Buddhist text written in classical Chinese and attributed to Japan’s Prince Shotoku (574–622 CE). He has also written articles looking at the reception of this text in various periods of Japanese history. One of these articles examines the different ways in which four medieval Japanese monks understood and used the text, while another considers modern representations of it in Japanese manga, or comic books. He has also coedited a volume of essays on Shusaku Endo's novel Silence that was published in 2014 by Bloomsbury-Continuum. (Source Accessed Jun 6, 2019)

Library Items

Book

Prince Shōtoku's Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sutra

Taishō 2185

Volume 56

This work is a commentary on the Śrīmālā-sūtra (Taisho No.16), and is considered to be the earliest of the "Commentaries on Three Sūtras" (Jp. San-gyō-gi-sho) composed by Prince Shōtoku. The Nihon-shoki ("Chronicles of Japan") records that Prince Shōtoku gave a discourse on the Śrīmālā-sūtra for Empress Suiko. It is considered that Prince Shōtoku chose this particular sūtra as the subject of his discourse to the Empress probably because the protagonist of the Śrīmālā-sūtra is a woman, Śrīmālā, and Empress Suiko was the first Empress in Japanese history. The present work was then put together in book-form in Chinese at a later date. Be that as it may, there is no changing the fact that this was the first written work composed by a Japanese.

Source

Jp. Shōmangyō gisho (勝鬘經義疏), attributed to Prince Shōtoku. 1 fascicle. (Source: BDK America)

Dennis, Mark W., trans. Prince Shōtoku's Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sutra. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Moraga, CA: BDK America, 2011. https://bdkamerica.org/product/prince-shotokus-commentary-on-the-srimala-sutra/.

Dennis, Mark W., trans. Prince Shōtoku's Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sutra. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Moraga, CA: BDK America, 2011. https://bdkamerica.org/product/prince-shotokus-commentary-on-the-srimala-sutra/.;Prince Shōtoku's Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sutra;Śrīmālādevīsūtra;History of buddha-nature in Japan;ekayāna;tathāgatagarbha;śūnyatā;Mark Dennis;Prince Shōtoku's Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sutra

Affiliations & relations

Texas Christian University, Department of Religion · workplace affiliation